Your source for orchard news & information in the Sacramento Valley
Over the past eight years, Sacramento Valley growers have encountered challenges managing Monterey almond trees: yellowed curled leaf, leafing failure, flowering failure, and Bot/Phomopsis dieback. Continue reading
Cankers caused by fungi of Cytospora spp. can severely limit prune production; reducing grower income and potentially leading to early orchard removal due to scaffold and/or tree loss. This article provides information about how to control Cytospora in your orchard. Continue reading
Read this article for walnut orchard management tasks to keep in mind in November. Continue reading
With another record statewide crop to be shaken, swept, and collected starting in August, will you and your handler be prepared? Research by Bruce Lampinen (UCCE Specialist, UC Davis) and others has shown that properly dried nuts are the key to maintaining quality and grower returns during stockpiling. Continue reading
Damage can occur with sudden autumn freeze, before trees go into dormancy. With sudden autumn freeze occurring in three of the last five years, preparations for these freeze events need to be a regular part of every walnut grower’s summer and fall orchard operations. Continue reading
Read this article to learn more about irrigation management for prune orchards using crop developmental stages and stem water potential measurements. Continue reading
As if 2020 didn’t bring enough grief, it appears to have also brought a major autumn freeze that growers and their consultants are now taking stock of. UCCE walnut advisors in the northern Sacramento Valley and Northern San Joaquin Valley have been fielding calls in the past couple weeks regarding extensive damage in young and mature orchards. Continue reading
In the Sacramento Valley, an autumn freeze has damaged walnut orchards every November for the last four years. Read this article for tips on freeze protection in your walnut orchard. Continue reading
Beginning in late June, several PCAs and growers reported trees in almond orchards in the Sacramento Valley with symptoms like those of almond leaf scorch (ALS), a disease caused by the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa. UC farm advisors and UC and USDA plant pathologists have begun a survey to confirm disease presence and improve understanding of the disease in the Sacramento Valley. Continue reading
Fall and winter orchard management considerations range from irrigation and plant nutrition to weed, pest and disease management. Continue reading
Every year is a Cytospora canker year, and unfortunately, some years are also bacterial canker years. This spring farm advisors observed bacterial canker infections, read below for prevention practices. Continue reading
The sudden November 2018 freeze event that caused extensive damage in many walnut orchards is a stark reminder that we must do our best to prepare against extreme events. Continue reading
When prices are lean walnut farming is tough business. Farm advisors are not economists or financial advisors. However, farm advisors can be useful in providing best practices for economically sustainable production. Two key economic decisions growers face are when to replant individual trees and when to remove and replant entire orchards. Continue reading
The 2020 prune bloom and crop set monitoring carried out by UCCE farm advisors showed dramatic differences in the prune set between different prune production regions. Some orchards require thinning this year, while some will achieve great fruit size without thinning. Continue reading
Researchers have historically been unable to pin down a cause for leafing failure because it was a rare event, only being reported periodically in the last couple decades. The problem was noted periodically before 2000, but most recent reports were made by farm advisors of leafing failure symptoms in 2000, 2006, 2010, 2017, 2018, and 2020. Continue reading