Ann: Results Announcement 31 March 2021, page-20

After reading some of the posts here over the past week, I've started to ask myself whether I might have nibbled on one too many hash-cookies while at the party of some Mad-Hatter.

I can only speak for myself, but I'm a little mystified as to how we got to the point where some posters on this thread seem to be seriously debating whether the current drought gripping the western states in the US is positive or negative for Californian almonds.

At any cost, I figure the subject matter of the banter at least offers an excuse to update the Californian precipitation chart.

Note that the chart below runs to the end of May 2021: the reason there is no orange bar showing in that month is because there wasn't even a millimetre of rain recorded in Fresno over the past thirty days.


I doubt anyone involved in the California almond industry really believes that the 3.2 b. pound NASS subjective estimate will prove in anyway reflective of the actual crop this year. Almond trees need water if they are going to produce large kernels, and as is indicated by the graphic above, water is a pricey commodity in California right now.

It should be noted that the subjective estimate has proven to be overly optimistic on a number of occasions over the past twenty years. The actual crop proved to be smaller than the initial estimate in 2004 (-9.3%), 2009 (-3%), 2012 (-5.8%), 2014 (-4.5%) and 2018 (-1.4%).

Keen eyed readers familiar with California's historical weather pattern might have picked up that there seems to be some relationship between the total rainfall of the preceding water-year and the aforementioned downside surprises in crop volume.

The water year of 2003-04 was 29% below the long term average, 2008-09 was 27% below, 2011-12 some 23% below, 2013-14 39% below, and about the same for 2017-18.

Note that the figures above were taken from a table that was included in the May update from the RPAC almond site.

Also of interest in that report is the suggestion that the Subjective estimate might prove to be too high in consequence of some almond trees being removed due to the severity of the current drought.

That assessment seems to be correct, as evident in the photo below, taken last week, on the 27th of May.



The photo is of a farm in Merced, California. The owners of the farm apparently decided to remove 600 acres of almonds as a result of the water situation (the photo is from an article at Weather.com)

Anyway, all things considered, you'd have to conclude that the Californian crop next year is almost certainly going to fall short of the 3.1 billion pound crop last year. Given the water deficit, my guess is that the Californians are going to almost need a miracle if they seriously hope to exceed the crop volume last year.