MEMBERSHIP BASICS
Harvest Follow-up Essentials As the 2025 harvest winds down, now is an ideal time to step back and evaluate three key areas that will influence your success in the coming season. You’ve likely already taken a preliminary look at your Delivery Advance statements to assess the grades for each lot. Given how swiftly this year’s harvest unfolded and the challenges it brought, taking time to organize your records and conduct a thorough review is more important than ever.
call the Membership office for assistance. You can also ask your regional manager to provide you with a copy of your “Exhibit to Crop Agency Agreement” which lists all your acreage details. If something is incorrect or needs updating, let your regional manager know and they will do an acreage update to reflect the accurate information on your account. Review your grade information to identify any outliers. You may see that most of your grades were in a relatively tight range, say, 1-2% rejects, but one load shows a significantly higher value. This could be an end-run lot that could be of lower quality than the bulk of your product. In the case of box deliveries, end runs are typically smaller, weighing just a few hundred pounds. End runs also typically have higher foreign material and reject values as these problems can accumulate during the sheller run and wind up in the last box. However, if the delivery is not an end run, and its values do not align with the rest of your deliveries from that orchard, it may be worth requesting a retest for further evaluation. Samples are taken at the time of receipt according to a strict protocol, but sometimes, due to field variation, pockets of higher-than-average insect damage or foreign material can occur. At our Sacramento Test Room, the samples are divided, with half of the sample stored in a reference library for use in the event a retest is requested. The reference samples are retained for at least 60 days. The process of requesting a retest starts with a call to your regional manager. You may also want to consult your huller to get their opinion on the delivery. Huller operators typically maintain notes on each delivery and may be able to shed some light on the situation. Your regional manager will advise you on the retest process as there is a possibility of negative financial impact if the grade goes down in the retest process.
Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” Applying that wisdom to your operation means using insights from 2025 to guide your next crop cycle. A careful evaluation now will help you grow a high-quality crop and position yourself for the best possible results when next year’s harvest arrives.
“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower
Get Your Records Straight! Take a moment to gather your harvest records—either by pulling out your physical statements and final summary or by logging in to the Blue Diamond Portal to review everything in one place. On the Portal, the “Deliveries” and “Production” tabs on the homepage offer a clear overview, and additional reports provide deeper insights from multiple angles. For growers with a single orchard, this process is quick and straightforward. However, if you manage multiple Blue Diamond accounts or subcontracts, a thorough review is not just helpful, it’s essential. Double check your statement weights between subcontracts. Does one subcontract look light and another look heavy? It is possible that a delivery arrived under the wrong subcontract. If that’s the case, we can move delivery lots to the correct subcontract through a “Delivery Transfer.” Contact your regional manager if this is necessary. Verify the accuracy of the acreage you have listed in the Portal. This is what we use to calculate the yield figures under the “Production” tab. If you do not have portal access or have forgotten your login info, please
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ALMOND FACTS
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