An Almond Grower Prepares for the 2020 Harvest

An Almond Grower Prepares for the 2020 Harvest

Patrick Cavanaugh
Patrick Cavanaugh
John Miller of John L. Miller Farms is busy this time of year. “As far as almond harvest goes, we are ready to go. Our equipment's ready. We've been working on it. We've got several shakers and several pickup machines and a number of sweepers. And we do some commercials almond harvest for others,” Miller said. “The ground is ready while we're still doing a little bit of weed spray, but it's all mowed down and ready to go.”

One of the big challenges this year---- “Heavy crop is breaking down trees. So we just continue to pull out broken limbs and every now and then a broken tree,” said Miller.

And he said, he's keeping the water going on those trees. “We haven't shut it off yet. Probably we've got one more irrigation on a flood piece of ground. Everything else is drip or micro. So we'll probably start shaking it about two to three weeks,” he said.

Miller said he usually delays almond harvest because he has to finish up his peach harvest at his operation is Stanislaus County. “We try to get that pretty well wrapped up before we get into Almonds because we are so dependent on labor for the peaches. So we've got men to go around,” noted Miller.

“We try to hold off our Nonpareil almonds off a little bit, because we're still in the fruit harvest. Normally there's about one week overlap. But even with that way, we get it all taken care of. We've got employees who've been with us for years and they seem to know what they're doing and now we are looking forward to harvest,” he said.

We asked Miller about navel orangeworm pressure when he delays harvest. “If it goes up to 2% off grade, but normally 1% or less, or a little bit over, but no, we haven't had trouble. We do winter sanitation--- shaking and blowing and mowing, which keep navel orangeworm pressure low in the orchard,” he explained.

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