From the Fields - Tim Sanders

By Tim Sanders, Stanislaus County almond grower 

This was probably one of the best pollination seasons we’ve had in a couple of years. Last year we had all the rain, and the year before that, we had some really cold weather. I’m surprised we had any crop at all. This year was better. Bees had time to work. Hopefully, we’ll have a good crop. But it’s always a long way between now and harvest, so a lot of things can happen. We’re thankful for the storms that came in later. We should get a full complement of irrigation water from Turlock Irrigation District. That’s always very helpful.

Most of my trees are old. We took some trees out a couple of years ago, and I’ve let the ground rest. I rented the property to my friend Ron Macedo, and he raised pumpkins. My kids and my grandkids all loved the pumpkins. They came out and brought their friends and took lots of pumpkins. Ron still filled the containers up in the trucks. He had a heck of a crop. Now we’re going to come back next January and put another orchard back in. It’s expensive, but it’s a lot of fun. I enjoy watching the trees develop.

Right now, I’m going through the different orchards getting the weeds knocked down and keeping an eye on the weather. Supposedly it’s going to be little bit colder with maybe a little more rain this coming weekend, so we might have to put some fungicides on. But everything looks pretty good. I just wish prices would come up a little bit. COVID really messed up shipping all over the world, and we’re finally getting that back to where it should be, so I think almond prices will rebound a little bit. We don’t want excessive prices, but we want prices so the consumer can get almonds at a reasonable price and we can make a little bit of money growing them.