The firm Almaco del Guadalquivir aspires to have 500 hectares of pecans planted in the coming years.

The company "Warehouse of the Guadalquivir», that manages the farm Cortijo Calonge in palm of the river, one of the largest farms in Europe dedicated to the cultivation of walnut, plans to increase its production of pecan nuts (which are more elongated than common walnuts) and reach, in the coming years, an area of 500 hectares planted in the Vega del Guadalquivir, specifically, between the municipalities of Lora del Río, in the province of Seville, and Palma del Río, in Córdoba.

For it, The company has already signed a pre-agreement with American investors interested in the purchase of two large farms for agricultural exploitation, betting on the pecan nut and entrusting the direction of the project of planting and development of the crop to Borja Murube, general manager of Almaco del Guadalquivir.

The Cortijo Calonge farm was acquired in 2012 by an American investor, who decided to break with the traditional crops of the area and bet on the walnut. It currently has 315 hectares, of which 265 are occupied by the common walnut and only 35 are dedicated to pecan.

Of these 35 there are already 15 hectares that are in production, harvesting in the last season about 10,000 kilos of pecans, which have been completely exported to Germany. However, the company's project has the goal set at a production of "one million kilos of pecan nuts, once the planned plantations in the new hectares (between 160 and 250 more) come into production that the project plans to add thanks to to new investors," says Murube.

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But Cortijo Calonge is not only dedicated to the production of walnuts, but also processes them, counting the farm since mid-2018 with a plant for shelling, drying and packing walnuts. It's about the first industry of these characteristics that arises in Andalusia and Spain, equipped with the latest technology machinery that guarantees the proper treatment of the nuts with the most demanding process certifications.

In fact, in this campaign, a total of 200,000 kilos of walnuts have been processed, of which only 5% have been pecans. "Our goal is to offer the best quality among the nuts available in the Spanish market, produced on our farm and processed in our facilities, with a triple objective of health, flavor and sustainability”, says the general manager.

Warehouse of the Guadalquivir makes sustainability the basis of your project. In fact, the Cortijo Calonge estate is located the pilot plant of the European project Redawn, which consists of the generation of clean electrical energy through the installation of a turbine in the irrigation pipes, taking advantage of their excess pressure to supply energy to the farm.

Fountain: https://sevilla.abc.es/agronoma/noticias/cultivos/nogal/inversores-americanos-nuez-pecana/