Almond Leafout Failure Seems Related to Wet Springs

Almond Leafout Failure Seems Related to Wet Springs

Patrick Cavanaugh
Patrick Cavanaugh
And almond leaf out problem we saw early in the spring is still being discussed. Now the leaf out problem is often seen in the Monterey variety, but this past year we saw it a Nonpareil the main almond variety, and also Bennett Hickman. Luke Milliron is a UCANR Orchard Systems Farm Advisor, serving Butte, Glenn and Tehama Counties.

“The issue and Monterey has been observed for many, many years,” said Milliron. And he's looked through the farm advisor communication archives. “There was reference to it before 1999. And most recently it was seen 2000, 2006, 2010, and then really not until 2017, 2018, and obviously this year. So it's interesting that we really didn't see it during the drought years,” he noted.

“Bruce Lampinen, UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences certainly thinks that we're seeing this in years following a really wet year. So obviously we see in 2018 and 2020, and we know that 2017 and 2019 were really wet springs,” Milliron explained.

“So, perhaps the root zone had some problems that predisposed it to late season stress last year, and then that may have queued it up for problems depending on what kind of winter weather we had. But still the leaf out problem on certain varieties definitely remains a mystery,” he said.

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