Like a pair of trusty wagon-pulling mules, Kerman and Peters have successfully carted the California pistachio industry from a novelty crop to a major specialty crop with huge growth potential.
Since the late 1980s when the U.S. embargoed Iranian pistachios in the wake of the Iranian hostage crisis, California pistachio production has exploded.
The female variety, Kerman, introduced in 1957, and its pollinator male variety, Peters, command virtually 100 percent of Californias 200,000 acres of bearing and non-bearing pistachios that have produced more then 400 million pounds of pistachios en route to perhaps double that within the next five years.
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