Wet weather means fewer almonds harvested than forecast

Unusually moist and chilly climate means this 12 months’s almond harvest is shaping as much as be a poor one, a number one nut-grower says.

Select Harvests instructed the ASX on Tuesday that harvesting of the Nonpareil almond selection started in mid-February and preliminary indications are that volumes are down 25 to 35 per cent from preliminary forecasts.

“Select Harvests understands this trend is generally consistent across the Australian almond industry,” managing director David Surveyor mentioned.

Nonpareil almonds make up about half of Select Harvests’ complete volumes. They are harvested first as a result of they’re non-pollinating.

So far there aren’t any estimates on volumes for the pollinator almond crop.

Select Harvests mentioned that regardless of the poor harvest and final 12 months’s disappointing crop – which was of the bottom high quality in a decade – it expects to stay inside its debt covenants after renegotiating them with its banking companions.

It is anticipating higher pricing on the almonds it does produce this 12 months, with sturdy purchases from China.

At 1.18pm AEDT, Select Harvests’ shares had been down 4.6 per cent to $3.96.