Willunga’s almond pioneers to close historic chapter

THE Willunga region of South Australia holds pride of place in the nation’s almond industry origins, where pioneer growers sunk their roots and established

It is also home to Grahame and Pauline Giles, one of the few almond growers who remain in the area.

Their connections to the pioneers of yesteryear hark back some 110 years but the time has come for them to also move on with the times, as the last five acres of what was once part of the largest almond orchard in the Southern Hemisphere is set for removal.

The Giles family arrived in the district in about 1935, having previously farmed near Auburn and Watervale, in the state’s Mid North.

Pauline is of Strout heritage.

Her ancestors were broadacre farmers who migrated to Australia in 1840 and it was Pauline’s great grandfather, Samuel Strout, who eventually put his first major almond plantings in the ground about the turn of the 20th century.

“I always thought they started planting in 1904 but in the books that are around, the first big orchard was planted in 1909,” Pauline noted.

Samuel died in 1911 and his son, Richard ‘Dick’ Strout took over.

“In the end, Richard had 80 acres planted here, the biggest almond plantation in the Southern Hemisphere,” Pauline said.

“People asked ‘how are you going to harvest it all’ and his response was ‘we’ll sort that out at harvest time’.”

The Strouts sold their almonds to local grain buyer, Crompton and Sons.

The family’s old ledger book noted the 1920 harvest yielded 2.5 tonnes.

That figure increased to 23 tonnes by 1940, returning 2000 pounds for their produce, followed by another solid return of 26 tonnes, bringing in 2500 pounds.

Dick died in 1957 and Pauline’s father, Tom, picked up the reins.

“He was newly married, and mum (Jan) had kids straight away while learning to be a farmer’s wife,” Pauline said.

Tom continued to run a mixed enterprise of livestock and grain farming, while he teamed up with his cousin, Ken, to manage the almonds.

“Dad had the almonds and Ken did the work, and they’d split the profits but for 20 years, there never seemed to be any profits but we’re pretty sure uncle Ken got something out of it,” Pauline laughed.

All almonds were dry grown in those days, without irrigation.

“It’s quite a reliable area for rain and no frost here either, which can wipe out an entire crop,” Grahame explained.

“It’s why Willunga was picked out as a good growing area for almonds, at the base of the hills, you’ve always got air movement, so it tends to prevent frost.”

The Strouts eventually put in several acres of their own almond variety, named after the family, which was bred from an almond tree growing wild in a local creek.

“It’s kind of funny because our family had a reputation for being on time but the Strout variety flowers late, it havests late, and the nuts aren’t easy to get off the tree,” Pauline laughed.

Unfortunately, Strout almonds tended to produce good crops every second year, and needed to be harvested green.

“The biggest job we had was drying,” Grahame explained.

“We all made racks with bird wire and would sit the almonds there for five to 10 days before you could store them.”

Pauline and Grahame had crossed paths early in their lives, given they both lived locally, although their age difference meant they barely knew one another existed.

Their moment of destiny came when Pauline returned from an overseas exchange.

“I was a guest speaker at an Apex event and Grahame offered to come pick me up,” she said.

“That was our first date.

“I didn’t really think it was a date but I was also pretty naive.”

Grahame was right into his footy with the Willunga Demons.

Pauline wasn’t.

“I didn’t do sport, I did classical ballet, so we didn’t meet on a Saturday afternoon at the footy,” she confirmed.

“The Almond Blossom Festival put on a variety concert and the football club had an item.

“My friend and I ‘coached’ the football team to be swans in Swan Lake.

“They were very good.”

The item wasn’t a massive hit with the crowd though.

“We got too good and it wasn’t very funny,” Grahame laughed.

“The football club was going terribly back then, they hardly won any games, but while they were in their ballet sessions, they had a win, so we put it down to the dancing,” Pauline added.

Remarkably, Grahame has lived in the same house, off Aldinga Road, his entire life.

The couple moved in after they were married.

They have about 80 acres of grapes and 1000 sheep.

Where frost risk and regular rainfall once made Willunga a prime almond growing region, the ongoing issue of birds destroying crops and the cooler climate eventually stifled the industry’s growth in the district.

At one stage, there was 2000 acres of almonds planted across the area, peaking in the 1970s.

“That was back in the days when people only had 10 or 20 acres because everything was done manually, so you couldn’t handle doing much more than that,” Grahame explained.

The almond blossom became iconic, with thousands of visitors making day trips to the district to see the stunning white landscape.

The community capitalised on its fame by holding what is now a time-honoured traditional event, the Willunga Almond Blossom Festival.

The first event was held to raise money to build the Festival Hall in 1969.

Today, proceeds from the festival continue to fund the maintenance and upgrading of the Willunga Recreation Park facilities.

A new depot was built for growers from the region was also built during the 70s.

“When the almond co-op went from Adelaide to Berri, we got the depot for the district here, where people would weigh them and stockpile them until a semi came and took them to Berri,” Pauline recalled.

The local depot was shut after about 10 years following a mass migration to grapes.

“When machinery came in, people felt like they could expand but by the late 80s to early 90s, farmers were looking at production and realising they could get better results in other areas,” Pauline said.

“It was a pretty massive change, overnight the local almond industry pretty well went.

“The mechanisation took away the viability in Willunga.”

Major growing families like the Martins and Laceys shifted to warmer climates with irrigation available.

Most of Willunga’s almond blocks were purchased by retirees and hobby farmers.

“The growers were getting older, the 10-acre people left and the hobby farmers coming in at retirement age and looking for something to do but you’re not going to plant new trees and redevelop if you’re 60,” Grahame said.

With grapes returning about $2000 a tonne, yielding four tonnes to the acre, the figures were falling in favour of other crops and the Giles family followed suit, shifting their acreage out of almonds.

Tom Strout retained a percentage of his 560 acres cropped to almonds.

Pauline’s brothers, Graham and Andrew Strout, both returned to the farm but eventually moved on.

Graham remains in the almond industry, managing a property near Renmark.

“There’s only 23 acres left here on the Strout home block,” Pauline said.

Ten of the last 15 acres of almonds were pushed out last year.

“The only reason we survived in the almonds is we’ve been selling our almonds at local markets in Willunga and Victor Harbor for the past 25 years and it has done really well for us,” Grahame said.

“It’s mainly because people would buy from us, then go to supermarkets and come back to us because the flavour isn’t there.

“And they’re buying from the farmer at the market, which is really trendy too.”

Selling under the name Strout Farm Almonds, the couple have a processing facility with two roasters and then add their own flavours.

“The crops were low here, so we had to value-add, which made us viable,” Grahame said.

They have been making the trip to the markets at Victor Harbor twice a month for 25 years, while also adding a monthly visit to Willunga’s market, where they also sell their own olive oil.

But the time is fast approaching where the final five acres of Strout almonds will also make way for more lucrative crops.

“It’s pretty emotional,” Pauline said.

“We’ll keep a row of Strout variety on our block but we won’t harvest it, they’ll just be there for sentimental purposes.”

PHOTO CAPTION: Jan Strout admiring the blossom from the last of the Strout variety almond trees, with Pauline and Grahame Giles.