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Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! This will be our last weekly update for the year. You can expect to receive your next Weekly Market Update in the New Year on January 4th, 2023.
This week we're covering:
- Chill hours, why they matter, and how to use them
Keep reading for this week's latest or sign in to the Bountiful platform to access your Agriculture, Market, and Community data-driven insights.
❄️ Chill trends as trees lay to rest
Did you know that chill is critical to almond production?
Why?
The amount of chilling accumulated in a given winter will influence bloom conditions and ultimately yield.
And please, don't take my word for it...
According to The Almond Doctor "Less chilling than a certain tree crop requires can lead to an extended bloom; too little altogether can result in bud death and drop in some crops like apricot and sweet cherry. ‘Good chilling’ (more chilling than the minimum required) can produce a very short bloom season or ‘snowball bloom’."
The chart above is a screenshot I took from Bountiful's weather data section on the platform today. It shows a summary of Chill Hours (we use the Utah model) for California.
I decided to benchmark October-December against all historical years available on the Bountiful platform to see how we're trending this season as trees lay to rest through the winter.
Check out the table I made below, all data is from the Bountiful platform.
California's chill accumulation for the 2023/24 crop is presently trending quite well as it relates to Chill Hours. The current chill accumulation as of 12/21 is performing better than the last 3-years.
Chill Hours, Benchmark % of 2023:
- 2022/21, 83.5%
- 2021/20, 92.1%
- 2020/19, 92.4%
I also looked at Chill Hours in several counties as well to see how they're trending -- Hint you can do this too directly in the platform. Just click the drop-down next to "Weather for:".
How to use Chill Hours?
As we move further into the dormancy period, stay on top of Chill Hours to build your data-driven opinion for next year's bloom-timing kick-off and early yield potential estimation for the 2023/24 crop!
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