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Have you ever seen an almond in the wild? It's basically the the thing inside of the pit of a fruit like nectarine or plum. The fleshy part of the fruit, whic

Have you ever seen an almond in the wild? It's basically the the thing inside of the pit of a fruit like nectarine or plum. The fleshy part of the fruit, which is quite moist and watery, gets thrown out.

s1artibartfast 6y ago
The flesh is called the husk. What conclusion do you draw from that? If a almond takes the same amount of water per calorie as a strawberry, does it matter that it has a husk?
- dnautics 6y ago
  > If a almond takes the same amount of water per calorie as a strawberry, does it matter that it has a husk? No. But it sounded like you were surprised that almonds were so consumptive it the first place. I don't know off the top of my head that they are consumptive relative to any given metric, but it shouldn't be surprising that they are, considering how almonds "work" and how much they are produced in CA. Especially since you compared against wine. Wine can be extremely drought tolerant; there are wine fields in california that are only watered for the first season of growth and the remaining productive years are sustained by waters from the local aquifers (rainfall).
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    I am continually surprised because I grew up in an agricultural area and know almonds are not particularly water consumptive when compared to other crops commonly grown in california, like grapes or or strawberries. Grapes and Beef both take more water per calorie than almonds. I think the confusion comes because people don't take calorie density into account. An acre of grapes produces 375 million calories and uses 2.5 Acreft of water An acre of almonds produces 580 million calories and uses 3 acreft of water Beef is much much worse. As an aside, Husks take up negligible water in terms of the trees consumption and are not a good indicator. 99% of the water used by nut trees goes into evaporation.
    - __s 6y ago
      Thanks for the information. Something I've wondered with these sorts of things is what's meant by "used" with water? I can understand measuring the input into the system, but there's a lot of outputs, & some of those outputs should flow back into the system sooner than others, causing variance of how much impact that input of water had on the surrounding areas' drought Since you're saying 99% evaporation, I assume for most everything most water follows air flows which through the pareto principle collect to places which don't need water? (& may actively not want water in the case of flooding)
      - s1artibartfast 6y ago
        As you surmised, "used" water is the input to the system. For most systems, the waste water outputs ends up in places which are not useful. The valuable output of the water (H20) is converted to other molecules (eg sugar, cellulose, ect). You could measure this by the change in plant mass from the start of the season to harvest time. Some of the water will also seep into the ground deeper than the tree can reach, and some will be lost as evaporated vapor from the leaves and tissue. This water would is generally gone from the system. This can and cause increased humidity and cloud formation and be blown to different locations. There is some literature on the subject. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/hydr/15/3/jhm-d-13-049_1.xml?tab_body=fulltext-display https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/hydr/15/3/jhm-d-1... https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-008-0445-z https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-008-0445-z
    - dnautics 6y ago
      why is calorie density your metric of choice, though? Grapes, for example, have a much higher commercial alcohol density than almonds.
      - __s 6y ago
        I think you're missing their point They aren't saying people should go after wine makers for wasting water. They're saying going after almonds is scapegoating. Calorie density will tend to come up in that context because the premise is that vegans are increasing demand for almonds which is squandering water on poor nutrition. This plays on memes about vegan diets being insufficient nutritionally As it turns out neither almonds nor wine are really to blame for California's droughts. So yes, ferment some alcohol & be merry

s1artibartfast 6y ago

The flesh is called the husk. What conclusion do you draw from that? If a almond takes the same amount of water per calorie as a strawberry, does it matter that it has a husk?

dnautics 6y ago
> If a almond takes the same amount of water per calorie as a strawberry, does it matter that it has a husk? No. But it sounded like you were surprised that almonds were so consumptive it the first place. I don't know off the top of my head that they are consumptive relative to any given metric, but it shouldn't be surprising that they are, considering how almonds "work" and how much they are produced in CA. Especially since you compared against wine. Wine can be extremely drought tolerant; there are wine fields in california that are only watered for the first season of growth and the remaining productive years are sustained by waters from the local aquifers (rainfall).
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  I am continually surprised because I grew up in an agricultural area and know almonds are not particularly water consumptive when compared to other crops commonly grown in california, like grapes or or strawberries. Grapes and Beef both take more water per calorie than almonds. I think the confusion comes because people don't take calorie density into account. An acre of grapes produces 375 million calories and uses 2.5 Acreft of water An acre of almonds produces 580 million calories and uses 3 acreft of water Beef is much much worse. As an aside, Husks take up negligible water in terms of the trees consumption and are not a good indicator. 99% of the water used by nut trees goes into evaporation.
  - __s 6y ago
    Thanks for the information. Something I've wondered with these sorts of things is what's meant by "used" with water? I can understand measuring the input into the system, but there's a lot of outputs, & some of those outputs should flow back into the system sooner than others, causing variance of how much impact that input of water had on the surrounding areas' drought Since you're saying 99% evaporation, I assume for most everything most water follows air flows which through the pareto principle collect to places which don't need water? (& may actively not want water in the case of flooding)
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      As you surmised, "used" water is the input to the system. For most systems, the waste water outputs ends up in places which are not useful. The valuable output of the water (H20) is converted to other molecules (eg sugar, cellulose, ect). You could measure this by the change in plant mass from the start of the season to harvest time. Some of the water will also seep into the ground deeper than the tree can reach, and some will be lost as evaporated vapor from the leaves and tissue. This water would is generally gone from the system. This can and cause increased humidity and cloud formation and be blown to different locations. There is some literature on the subject. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/hydr/15/3/jhm-d-13-049_1.xml?tab_body=fulltext-display https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/hydr/15/3/jhm-d-1... https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-008-0445-z https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-008-0445-z
  - dnautics 6y ago
    why is calorie density your metric of choice, though? Grapes, for example, have a much higher commercial alcohol density than almonds.
    - __s 6y ago
      I think you're missing their point They aren't saying people should go after wine makers for wasting water. They're saying going after almonds is scapegoating. Calorie density will tend to come up in that context because the premise is that vegans are increasing demand for almonds which is squandering water on poor nutrition. This plays on memes about vegan diets being insufficient nutritionally As it turns out neither almonds nor wine are really to blame for California's droughts. So yes, ferment some alcohol & be merry