California situation, page-113

This is just a suspicion, but I think the poor crop earlier this year was mostly down to excessive rainfall across their orchards in September last year.

The company has been a bit vague on the cause of the poor crop. They had a brief comment in the Results Presentation announcement of 25 August: 'Crop impacted by wet spring and cool summer'. Not giving too much away there.

But it is encouraging to see the share price back above the $4.00 level: if it can hold at about this level I think we could see a 'short squeeze', which could push the share price significantly higher. That said, for such a move to eventuate I think we will need to hear some positive news from the company.

The Blue Diamond website had an update on the progress of the Californian almond harvest overnight. As mentioned in previous posts, pests have been a big problem this year, particularly the navel orangeworm:

Challenges posed by Navel Orange Worm (NOW) in the Nonpareil continue to plague growers as they move into their pollinizer varieties. Many growers in all areas have endured elevated reject levels caused by NOW. Unfortunately, the damage has not subsided as harvest progresses. Populations of web spinning mites continue to develop in all areas. Impossible to control during the harvest, orchards with the greatest populations have begun to defoliate prematurely.

They also mention that the yields on the Carmel variety of almond are down this year, as well as some of the Californian varieties. These only make up a small percentage of California's almond trees, as depicted in the below chart, but it is interesting all the same as this was meant to be an 'on' year for almonds in California, or at least that is my understanding.

The combination of low yields in such varieties combined with the damage inflicted by the navel orangeworm might make it challenging for the Californian almond industry to meet the projected 2.25 billion pound crop forecast.