from the President's Corner

Joe Sansoni

Ihope everyone has managed to get through the weeks of grueling triple digit heat we’ve had lately! We are in for a few more days of triple digits here and there in August, but from what I see on the long-term forecast, most of August and into September is supposed to be warm-to-hot but not nearly as brutal as multiple days of 105114 strung together. Of course, it is the Valley…it gets brutally hot every year! Yet it seems we are never quite ready for the really hot days, especially when they last for a week or more. The heat is good for crop development. Considering that most all crops are late this year due to the wet, prolonged winter and mild spring, heat will hopefully help catch things up a bit so we aren’t pushing harvests too late into the year. As an almond grower I am, at this point, mildly concerned about the fact that the crop seems to be about a solid month behind schedule. I say mildly because I’m hopeful that the weeks of continued warm/hot and dry weather ahead of us, combined with deficit irrigation will eventually catch things up in the field. However, the crop has developed very slowly this year, due to the late season cycles as well as the light crop. This has kept the trees from stressing and kept them in a vegetative growth stage all through the growing season. The hull split is very late this year… first time in my career that I have applied a first-round hull split spray on a block on August 1st! What a weird year it has been from the very beginning! I am praying that we can catch things up in the field and will be done with harvest before the threat of any early fall rains appear… however with this year’s track record so far, I am bracing myself for a late harvest season that could easily and quickly turn very ugly come late September. My dad, Ezio, who was 8 years old when my grandfather planted our family’s first almond orchard in January of 1947, has commented that this year reminds him of the almond growing seasons of the past. Harvest didn’t normally start until well into September – even for Nonpareils – and often ran deep into November. I’m really hoping we can speed things along faster than that timeframe as no almond grower is a fan of dealing with wet almonds or trying to harvest in wet conditions. With almond prices as depressed as they are, any causes of additional or unanticipated costs are extremely stressful and unhelpful to growers, so naturally the thought of being charged drying fees for a crop that many are already upside down is stomach-turning. I’m going to predict that unless prices increase significantly very soon (not probable), any significantly wet nuts will likely be abandoned in the field this year and written off as a loss. The most valuable almonds in the market at the moment are the in-shell varieties, so timely harvest with proper and vigilant crop protection is vital to be able to produce those. The longer the crop hangs on the trees, the more additional sprays are required to combat navel orangeworm, and the less likely we are to make inshell grade. Many growers are cutting corners and costs this year even more so than they have in the past 3-4 seasons, and choosing to not apply sprays that they normally would. This is going to add even more worm pressure to the crop state-wide, and of course across fence lines too. A grower who is trying his or her best to produce high quality will have a much tougher time and incur more expenses doing so if their neighbor(s) are not doing the same. I’m predicting there will not be many high-quality almonds produced this year, due the cutbacks across the board, from skipped sprays to cutbacks in fertilizer and amendment applications as well. With input costs so high, and prices where they are currently ($1.05-1.15/lb most varieties, $1.801.85/lb inshell Nonpareil) it’s easy to understand why growers would think the additional sprays aren’t worth it. However, as always in farming, some hedging of bets is always at play for those who are willing to gamble. For instance, a grower who cut no corners at all is likely sitting at loss numbers on the averages at the moment…but if the whole industry comes up short on high quality and especially inshell almonds, they stand to potentially profit from a surge in pricing and demand for high quality product. Cutting corners never pays off, however for many there’s no other choice this year.

As I’ve observed different crops and planting cycles throughout the county, it appears that most all crops are facing the same challenge this year. Even the wheat harvest has been late and prolonged this year...at our grain storage facility we are still waiting to receive trucks from fields that haven’t even been cut yet! Typically we are all wrapped up by late July. There will be many late-planted fields across many different commodities pushing the envelope to get harvested and brought in before the weather turns on us. I hope and pray that everyone has a bountiful and successful harvest no matter what they grow or produce, and that markets and prices for all crops will increase to a profitable point very soon, as there has been much volatility and depression across all crop commodities this season. As I have harped about in the past, in order for agriculture to be healthy and sustainable, its producers must be able to survive economically! There are enough economic factors both domestically and globally that impact agriculture to write many more articles and even entire books about. Let us all hope and pray together that the world events and economic impacts that are driving so much of the uncertainty and depression affecting our ag markets and economy will begin to turn around soon.

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