A strong-looking almond orchard can still come up short at harvest. John Duarte of Duarte Nurseries says that has been the surprise in California this year: blocks that appeared promising are yielding less than expected.
The shortfall is being reported across the state, with the warm spring and lower yields combining to make this a difficult production year. A separate Ag Alert crop outlook also describes this year's expected almond yield as slightly smaller.
A Canopy Is Not a Crop Estimate
Duarte's observation is less about one bad block than the gap between appearance and outcome. Even orchards that looked strong, he indicated, are finishing short, and the overall decline is significant.
The warm spring is part of the explanation reported for the weaker crop, but the available reporting does not assign a percentage loss to it or describe a single mechanism across all orchards. The result is a statewide signal without a precise measure of how much each operation has lost.
The Forecast Meets the Harvest
A separate August forecast put California's 2026 almond harvest at 2.7 billion pounds, with early-season heat among the factors behind the smaller outlook. That estimate was described as the USDA's subjective forecast, based on grower phone surveys; the full harvest impact was still uncertain.
That uncertainty matters in a crop whose final scale is assembled block by block. The statewide outlook gives the season a direction, but not a reliable answer for what any particular orchard will deliver.
The harvest is expected to continue into October, leaving growers and handlers to reconcile field expectations with actual deliveries as the season closes.