Early Wednesday morning saw some very cold conditions in the northern orchards, and this might adversely impact on the crop in some places. I would guess that this was behind that drop in the share price we saw yesterday.
Having said that, it doesn't look as if the damage is going to be comparable to the level of frost damage last year.
Interestingly, the coldest two days in Hillston and Griffith this year were the 28th and 29th of August, which also happened to be the coldest days in these areas in the same month last year.
In the early hours of the 28th, the temperature in Hillston hit a low of -1.5 °C, and in the early hours of Wednesday the 29th the temperature fell as low as -2.5 °C.
In Griffith on those same days, things were even more extreme, with temperatures falling as low as -1.6 °C and -4.5°C.
By way of comparison, on the 28th and 29th last year, the temperature lows were -3.1 and -3.4 in Hillston and -4.8 and -4.5 °C for Griffith.
Clearly, the potential for frost damage this year is far less than it was at this time last year.
To estimate the level of damage to the crop, I turned to David Doll's website, which has a handy table for estimating frost damage to almonds.
The table is expressed in Fahrenheit, so we will have to convert to Celsius.
The coldest temperature in Hillston was -2.5 °C, which translates to 27.5 Fahrenheit. According to the table, a temperature at 27 °F is likely to result in 50% losses to the flowers at bloom-time, and 90% losses if at the 'small nut' growth stage. Apparently, the trees in Hillston and Griffith are still in the bloom-phase, and so I would assume the former is more applicable.
28 degrees Fahrenheit seems to be the threshold: at 28 °F, the damage is largely insignificant, based on the table.
We know that there are frost-fans in place in the NSW orchards, which should be able to warm the temperature around the trees by at least a degree °C (or about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit); in other words from 27.5 to circa 29 °F.
In short, it looks to me that there won't be any measurable damage to the Hillston crop, assuming the frost-fans didn't go haywire during the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Griffith is more problematic: -4.5 °C is very cold, and even though it didn't freeze to quite the same degree as last year, it is hard to see how the trees in the Griffith area will avoid damage from frost. It may be significant, however, that this year there was only one night of sub -4 degree temperatures, compared to two nights last year.
So it looks like there could be a little damage to the crop in the northern region, but certainly not as severe as that last year in that same area.
At any cost, events of this week serve to bolster suspicions that the Hillston/Griffith area is becoming a crappy place to grow almonds.
Fortunately, it does appear that the company cottoned on to this a while back, and over the past few years it looks like they have made a concerted effort to concentrate their plantings in Victoria and South Australia.
I did a little research on this, comparing the almond acreage in each region in 2015 to the figures shown in the latest presentation.
Location
2015
2018
1
Northern Region
4508 acres
4814 acres
2
Central Region
5646 acres
7605 acres
3
Southern Region
3156 acres
6551 acres
In the northern region (Hillston/Griffith) the orchards have expanded by 300 acres, an increase of almost 7% over the past three years. This is however dwarfed by the increase in acreage we have seen in the central region (near Robinvale in Victoria) and the southern region (mostly South Australia).
In the Southern region in particular, the almond acreage has seen a dramatic increase over the past three years, jumping over 100% over the past three years. This partly explains why we saw a bumper crop in SA this year: we would have had many three-year old trees producing nuts for the first time in the southern orchards.
In summary, the problematic NSW orchards will have less bearing on the results of the almond division in the year (and years) ahead, thanks to the large increase in plantings in the Victoria and South Australia orchards.
Apart from the aforementioned frost problems in some NSW orchards, it looks on the whole that the bloom has gone well this year.
This appeared in the Sunraysia Daily yesterday:
MERBEIN almond grower Neale Bennett has been rejoicing over a “good bloom” this season, with the dry weather allowing bees to actively forage on the trees
About 130 hives from Red Cliffs have been placed across the 70-hectare property this month to pollinate the popular nonpareil variety.
Reflecting on the almond flowering, expected to end this week, Mr Bennett said he was satisfied with the pollination season, with spring just around the corner.
Red Cliffs, the location mentioned in the article, is not far from the company orchards in the central regions.
On that same topic, one final point is worth noting: in Monday's presentation, there was a mention (on page 22) that the trees were still in the final stages of pollination.
A touch of frost during bloom-time can actually be as much as a help as a hindrance to almond growers, providing the sub-zero temperatures aren't too severe. Cold weather slows the progress of the bloom, giving the bees more time to pollinate all of the flowers. This is probably a key reason as to why, despite the concerns about freezing weather during the Californian almond bloom earlier this year, the US crop seems to be sizing up above initial expectations.
So although the frost may have caused some damage in the Griffith orchards, those frosty nights in the Hillston area might actually help to bolster the crop size in that area, as temperatures weren't quite low enough to damage the crop, but the cold weather might have helped to slowed down the progress of the bloom.
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