California almond growers see largest harvest in history

California almond growers expect to harvest as much as 2.2 billion pounds of almonds this year, the most in history, according to the initial subjective forecast for the 2017 California almond crop from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.Forecasted production is 2.8 percent above last year's production of 2.14 billion pounds.If this year holds to what has happened in recent years, as much as 70 percent of the crop will be exported, primarily to Spain, China and Hong Kong. Other nations getting California almonds in a typical year are Germany, India, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Turkey, and the Netherlands.The state’s almond growers say this year’s bearing acreage has hit the 1 million acre mark. Forecasted yield is 2,200 pounds per acre, which is down 3.5 percent from the 2016 yield of 2,280 pounds per acre.

source: centralvalleybusinesstimes.com