FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — Fresno State’s pistachio crop suffered significant losses this year, reflecting challenges growers experienced across the San Joaquin Valley after extreme March heat affected pollination.<\/p>\n
At the Fresno State farm, the pistachios appeared normal on the trees, but farm manager Rob Willmott said many of the nuts were empty.<\/p>\n
“When you hear that pop, there’s no nut meat in there,” Willmott said while inspecting clusters during harvest.<\/p>\n
The farm’s results mirror conditions reported by pistachio growers throughout the valley. Examining one cluster, Willmott predicted the outcome before inspecting it.<\/p>\n
“I bet you every nut in this cluster is gonna be blank,” he said.<\/p>\n
Willmott said the farm finished harvest with a high percentage of empty shells.<\/p>\n
“We just finished harvest and we have a 50% blank percentage and then you look at the tree and you say, well Rob I still see a lot of nuts on the tree,” he said.<\/p>\n
Despite trees still appearing full of nuts, harvest operations have been completed. Willmott said crews quickly realized something was wrong once the harvest began.<\/p>\n
“When we started shaking the trees, the guys said Rob get out here, nothing’s coming off,” he said.<\/p>\n
In the orchard, one male pistachio tree pollinates about 25 female trees. Willmott said extreme heat in March reduced the viability of pollen needed for successful pollination.<\/p>\n
“That one has the pollen. Only thing is, with that extreme heat, pollen degrades quite rapidly. And so the pollen wasn’t really viable to pollinate the amount of females for the amount of nuts that we needed,” he said.<\/p>\n
While examining the crop, Willmott pointed to undeveloped nuts that would not mature.<\/p>\n
“That’s never gonna mature, never gonna turn into a nut,” he said.<\/p>\n
The losses come a year after growers produced a record $1.6 billion pistachio crop. Willmott said growers had already anticipated lower production because of the crop’s alternate-bearing cycle.<\/p>\n
“This was already going to be an alternate-bearing year for pistachios. We were expected to have a smaller crop. But with that heat it’s going to be even smaller,” he said.<\/p>\n
Willmott said he has seen estimates placing damage to the Central Valley pistachio industry between $800 million and $1 billion.<\/p>\n
“I’ve read reports from 800 million dollars to a billion dollars worth of damage for the pistachio industry in the Central Valley,” he said.<\/p>\n
In addition to dealing with the poor pistachio crop, Willmott said farm crews were discing fields while attempting to reduce the number of passes because of high diesel prices.<\/p>\n
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