When Blue Diamond Growers meets with its almond growers to talk shop, the object isn’t just to give them tips that help in the field.
Another goal is to tell growers how Blue Diamond works, so that the process of grading nuts is no mystery.
That’s why Mel Machado, director of member relations, was telling growers about the details of the process earlier this month in Selma, California.
“Reject levels come from anything that’s consumed by insects, is rancid, moldy, has brown spots, is gummy, eaten by rodent or bird...those are the things,” Machado explained.
Next he painted a picture of the heart of the operation.
“There is a room full of ladies in Sacramento who take these things apart by hand,” Machado said of the Blue Diamond grading process. He said that machinery still can’t beat human inspection: there is no “whiz-bang” machine used for grading.
Embedded shell standards are strict, he said, and there’s a reason for it: even if only 3% of damage is shell, and 0.5% of nuts are damaged, it matters big time when a consumer bites into a candy bar and breaks a tooth on a piece of shell.
“Most of your problems were orangeworm,” Machado said of last year’s harvest. “Two thirds of it was orangeworm.”
While navel orangeworm is partly a matter of good sanitation practices, pesticide programs, and mating disruption, it’s also a matter of luck.
Not so with stockpiling practices, Machado said.
“Do not stockpile wet or green product, because it’ll mold,” he said.
If growers do store green nuts, they should be spread out in a pile no more than four inches deep, Machado told the growers.
Testing and regrading
What happens if growers request a regrade of their sample?
Machado said they should reach out right away for a retest, “sooner rather than later” so that the sample isn’t filed away in a remote location, or lost, if months and months go by.
The way that Blue Diamond calculates grades after a regrade is averaging the two scores.
So, if a grower scores a five on the first grade and a ten on the second, the combined score is 7.5. Likewise if they score a six and regrade at two, the average is four. That’s why Machado said growers should be cautious requesting a regrade if they score high the first time around.
For more information on almond grower news and tips from Blue Diamond, check out their grower news page.