In today’s Almond Matters, brought to you by Valent, growers are making their final preparations for the coming harvest. Water availability has been a constant struggle this year and growers are doing what they can to keep their trees healthy heading into harvest. Getting timely applications out both before and after hull split can help manage pest populations during harvest, which is just a few weeks away.
“We’re well into hull split for all the earlier varieties. I looked at some non-pareil yesterday I guess it was, down in the south valley. They’re contemplating shaking the trees on the 1st of August, so that’s on the radar. Harvest is definitely going to be upon us,” said Todd Burkdoll, Field Market Development Specialist for Valent USA. “With the heat, we’ve had a lot of mite pressure. Mite pressure’s been very, very high, especially in the last two to three weeks.”
Burkdoll explained that he has seen significant mite populations in orchards in recent weeks. Many growers are working to catch up with mite control before getting into harvest. Burkdoll suggests mixing Dipel with a miticide for the applications going out now. That approach can assist with mite management as well as navel orangeworm. “Navel orangeworm is probably the biggest pest going into harvest and you want to have control over that pest,” Burkdoll noted.
GETTING A GOOD START TO THE NEXT SEASON
As growers make their final preparations for the coming harvest, early thoughts about next year’s crop will help growers get a better start. Once harvest has wrapped up, taking a close look at orchard nutrition through a soil analysis will help with planning for the next crop. Burkdoll said that getting a good start to winter sanitation planning will help alleviate potential problems for next season. Orchards addressing significant navel orangeworm issues this season will want to pay particular attention to mummy nuts in the Fall.
“Dormant applications of insecticides can be advantageous but for mummy nuts that are infected it’s really hard to get insecticide into the nuts,” Burkdoll noted. “I don’t know of anything that really works there except knocking them off on the ground and shredding them or physically taking them out of the orchard.”
Listen to the report below.