Five years ago Merced farm advisor Lonnie Hendricks began monitoring two brothers farming side by side near Hilmar. Glenn Anderson farmed his 20 acres of almonds organically, while his brother Ron used herbicides and insecticides on his 70 acres of almonds right across the road. Hendricks' results, based on continuing studies funded by the UC Davis-based UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, have shown that organic almond orchards compare favorably to orchards farmed conventionally. Ron Anderson has since stopped using insecticides completely and uses herbicides less. "In the last two years, I've delivered as high a quality nut crop as I ever have," Ron Anderson says. "I was skeptical at the beginning of Lonnie's study five years ago." Hendricks had originally compared the two orchards in a one-year study and found that the operations had almost identical pests. His continuing studies have found that the use of cover crops and the absence of pesticides in organic farms keep the beneficial insect population up and result in yields comparable to those achieved in conventional commercial almond orchards.