Verticillium wilt nearly claimed the fledgling pistachio industry in the 1970s; because the industry basically had one rootstock upon which to bud a scion brought over from Iran decades earlier and adapted to California’s climate conditions, things did not look promising for the industry.

“People were losing their trees and they had no way to stop it,” said Corky Anderson, a founding partner in Pioneer Nursery.

Anderson met Ken Puryear at a dinner party in Corning, Calif. in the late 1960s. At the time Puryear was a practicing dentist in Corning and Anderson was a Tulare farmer who had relocated to Orland, Calif. to grow wheat and corn.

Within a relatively short period of time Puryear and Anderson were friends with a common interest in pistachios, a new nut tree being planted in the northern Sacramento Valley where almonds and walnuts were already established.

It wasn’t long and the two were establishing pistachio trials and learning what they could about the tree nut. They visited the Chico Research Station and met with Lloyd Joley, the director at the station, who advised them on recommended varieties and how to propagate them.

As they developed their first pistachio trials they began to learn the biology of the different pistachio rootstocks. Puryear would eventually quit his dental practice and join Anderson to form Pioneer Nursery.