Ah, I'd seen the shade cloth from a distance on my journeys in...

Ah, I'd seen the shade cloth from a distance on my journeys in that region in the past but had assumed that it was some sort of pest mitigation strategy, eg birds. Thanks for that info.

WA is actually a plausible option although I think the financials may no longer stack up for new entrants, the board and management at the time made some major blunders. There is suitable land nearer to Perth, although I think from memory that the land is being encroached upon by urbanisation thus inflating the cost of that land. They were high on the $$$$ going into MIS and did not do proper due diligence

The share price was soaring and I too was high on the $$$$ In hindsight, I should have paid more attention and sold down nearer the high, although I did sell down some of my holdings north of $10 and later bought back around $3 after the rebound from the bottom in the low $1s and also completely sold out of Timbercorp for a decent profit.

The company cut costs by buying cheaper land outside of the most appropriate area for almond growing. The land they bought did not have any natural irrigation source so the plan was to pump ground water however they later discovered the cost to do so was prohibitive thus making the orchards unprofitable. They also found that the soil was too sandy and a fair amount of the land they bought was unsuitable for orchards for other reasons, not sure the exact reason, too rocky, too steep, etc perhaps.

They also were not applying best practice on the MIS orchards that they had contracts for, ie not buying the most suitable land, not weeding as regularly, etc. The dollars going into MIS at that time was such that they were practically buying any land available. This cost them when Olam decided to take the management of the former Timbercorp orchards in-house after the initial 3 year contract (I don't recall any mention of SHV buying former Great Southern almond orchards although I did not follow them as closely as Timbercorp). Also resulted in Max Fremder attempting to sue SHV after his tenure as director ended, he'd separately invested in almond orchards (I can't recall the specific acreage he had, 400 acres perhaps) with fee for service by SHV and sued them for not diligently performing the services paid for.

I found it strange that Max sued SHV for poor performance for a period in which he was not only a director of SHV but was the actual chairman. Clearly he was not adequately discharging his fiduciary responsibilities to the company and shareholders. I said at the time that SHV should counter sue him on that basis but they didn't.