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Everything is in bloom around here, looking like it snowed in the trees. Now we sweat the frost. It's the time of year that either make your crop or lose it. Pretty anyway....Tedd Just breaking out in bloom
Had no clue how they look...thanks. How are they harvested?
They will become nuts in about three, five months, kinda like peach or plumbs. The pit is the almond, covered with a two layer cardboard like hull. When dry They are mechanically shaken to the ground, wind rowed with a sweeper, put into piles/ strips and picked up with a pickup machine then transferred to a set of doubles and hauled off to a huller for processing. We do sell to Blue Diamond through a cop op we belong to.
The worry now is it is February and usually warm, but weather could change at anytime and freeze, nuts can not take freezing weather. The small bud has moisture in its center and will die if frozen. Plus, if it turns cold(under 50 degrees) the bees will not work and the blossoms will not get pollinated the crop will fail and Tedd will not get his toys. Better that I just look at the pretty blossoms,,,, Tedd
Yes, pretty! I like smoked almonds, interesting to know how they're harvested. Sounds similar to pecans which are my absolute favorite nut. Roasted and salted...😋
My camellia should start blooming by end of this week. Buds are swelling. Big showy pink camellia that generally blooms mid-February.
Do what you can for bees. As annoying as wasps are they pollinate too.
Few years back I was admiring my camellia's new flowers and heard a low steady buzzing. Looked close and it was covered with honeybees. Turned out the neighbor about a quarter mile away had set out two hives and his bees had found my bush. He gave me a quart of camellia honey!🐝
We set out(rent) about 120 hives during the pollination season, getting very expensive these days as there has been a virus that has hurt the bee business and prices have gone up, and they are hard to get at times. There are about 6,000 trees, so there is a steady hummm when the temp gets over 50 degrees, music to my ears.... Tedd
We had to drop the depth of the pump inlet last year, the well went dry. Cost over $10,OOO to do so because of well casing problems and a driller (long story). Water level is dropping every year. Drought is part of the issue, but so is the way our water is managed. Large landowners who have water permits from the rivers take their quota, then put in huge pumps and sell all the water they can pump, to southern California users. Yes, water is a concern of ours...Tedd
We had to drop the depth of the pump inlet last year, the well went dry. Cost over $10,OOO to do so because of well casing problems and a driller (long story). Water level is dropping every year. Drought is part of the issue, but so is the way our water is managed. Large landowners who have water permits from the rivers take their quota, then put in huge pumps and sell all the water they can pump, to southern California users. Yes, water is a concern of ours...Tedd
I was worried for you. Anything agricultural is a tough business, and it sounds like the water situation out west is going to create a lot of challenges for all of the crops. Good luck!
I farm, but I'm not a real farmer. My dad is the farmer of the family. I'ts something you are born to do, and it runs as deep as life it's self. At 95, he is still on top of running things, although I have been getting more involved as time goes on. We actually make a good team and work well together.... Tedd
We have about 6,000 + trees and the storm that blew through here left no rain, We need the water but in a week or so after pollination. Irrigation will be a problem this year, farming is like Texas Holdum when every year you are all in. We can't really complain, we pay taxes every year, something must work....Tedd
Well, the temp dropped below freezing, the second night in a row, and to bring it up we turn on the irrigation sprinklers. The warm water brings up the temp about 2 to 3 degrees and really helps the blooms not freeze.
The pollination is pretty much over with, and there was enough time over 50 degrees everything should have been pollinated if it was going to. Now if we make it through the frost season there should be a crop... Crossed fingers. I'll post some pictures as the trees turn from blooms to leaf out, quite a quick change.. Tedd
The variables and uncertainties are what convinced me I didn't want to be a tobacco farmer like generations of my family were. For every really good crop you'd have, there were usually two poor ones- sometimes so bad you didn't make the cost of seed, fertilizer and fuel. Then the politics got into it, and then the price support went away, and the auction system went away. I wanted a steady paycheck and benefits without the gamble of farming.
Caesar's is opening a casino here next year and the local fundamentalists are typically in an uproar. My 97 year old aunt said she didn't see what the fuss was about, since this has long been a farming area and every time a farmer planted a crop it was a gamble.
Tedd please excuse my complete ignorance to what you are dealing with. Is there such a thing out there as retractable mesh covers? Again forgive my lack of knowledge. Wouldn't that make sense? Is that just too much to try and cover?
Well, I don't know what a retractable mesh cover is, so I don't think they are popular here. We are small growers(67 acres) I can't imagine covering that much area and still be able to farm around it somehow, or the labor involved putting it up and down. Some farms around her are over 1000 acres, so you can see the cost involved.
Been freezing every night the last few days, but turning on the sprinklers has saved the crop so far... Tedd
Depends on a bunch of things, if the air temp got lower than 33 degrees before the water brought it up. The baby almonds are really sedative at this stage, but get more resistant as they mature. We won't know till later when the bud develops or not, If the pumps don't go dry from drought, fertilizer is affordable or at least not outrageous, No wind storms(last year we lost over 400 trees to blow down and an aging orchard). It's just a shot in the dark at this stage, but not much different from any year, just part of farming...Tedd
Here are the baby almonds and leaves as of today, the orchard is about 75% leafed out, and the buds are starting to mature. There are four different varieties that we have, and they all look and develop at slightly different times, if you know your nuts you can tell what variety you are working with by the shape of the nut, hull compassion and tree shape. It also helps if you know how the orchard was laid out from the beginning, save some guesses work. Almonds are also sold at different price levels depending on demand of the market, and Nonpareils being the money nut for as long as I can remember, they amount to 50% of our orchard. The rest of the varieties are pollinators, as Nonpareils are not a self pollinating variety.
Here are a few pictures of where we are at, at this time. Baby nuts some with blooms still attached Leafing out Up close leaf set Side yard Dads back yard
We did a walk through yesterday, and for what we can tell it looks like an OK crop, spotty in certain areas (lots of replant small trees), good in others. Still early to tell for sure. There are varieties that can, what we call bud drop off and that can occur after bud development and half of the buds will just fall off on the ground. Usually from frost damage, we're not quite there yet...Tedd
The nuts got bigger, and now they show up better on the trees. Looks like it will be a average crop this year Nuts are showing up better in the leafs More nuts The small buds will soon drop to the ground and be lost. Sometimes the ground is white like hail with bud drop.
I couldn't find my old thread to add this too Pickup machine straddling a wind row of nuts on the ground, nuts go from there to a buggy Pickup machine swapping buggies Buggy being hauled away empty from a set of doubles They are loading the set of doubles with an elevator, back the buggy over the elevator and dump the load and move over for a new buggy.. Sorry for the distance shot, Things were busy right there at that time.
at the beginning of this almond thread, but here are a few shots of the equipment at the end of the end of the operation. Sorry I didn't get any during the shaking, knocking part as they shook 6000 trees in less than two days, and I wasn't there.Tedd
The pickup machine has a combination of sweeper and blowers, plus a de- sticker, so the nuts are cleaner going into the buggy. We will get an additional charge if the nuts have too much trash, plus the trash has weight that we will be charged as though they were nuts. Pays to keep a clean orchard.
