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So I did the math and

SplooGe

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Jan 7, 2007
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I have approximately 41.3 more days until we are done with this years crop. With 1 day off for Thanksgiving and 1 day off for Christmas that put me at the 30th of December before I can play golf.

On a side note I will actually be actually be able to play during winter so I guess I don't have it that bad.
 

zaphod

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Jan 30, 2007
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I have approximately 41.3 more days until we are done with this years crop. With 1 day off for Thanksgiving and 1 day off for Christmas that put me at the 30th of December before I can play golf.

On a side note I will actually be actually be able to play during winter so I guess I don't have it that bad.


Whoa---That's a long harvest season. What kind of hours do you put in? Is the harvest weather dependent?? Good crop??? What metrics for a good crop??? Give us pics if you can. Love to see--it is Almonds? --harvest etc.

Mine is done so I'm left with the marketing of stored grains and potatoes. Buying inputs for next year, planning and contracting next year's crops, figuring out 2009 budget, analyzing 2008 costs/sales, planning golf trips, and other desk jobs.
Also buying NEW pick-up. The 2000 Ford F250 Superduty is getting replaced. 2009 250 SD ordered with all the fixen's. The 2000 was getting dangerous. I just beat the trucks. Generally I'm rebuilding the front end each year. It's so nice to have the front wheels STAY ON. (Yep I've had them come off) Think doing a Baja race each day and you will understand the wear and tear the truck takes.
 
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SplooGe

SplooGe

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Whoa---That's a long harvest season. What kind of hours do you put in? Is the harvest weather dependent?? Good crop??? What metrics for a good crop??? Give us pics if you can. Love to see--it is Almonds? --harvest etc.
<o:p> </o:p>
This is going to be discombobulated but here we go.

Ya its almonds and I work at a Coop Huller/Sheller. <st1:state w:st="on">California</st1:state> produces 100% of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> crop and 80-85% of the world crop. The crop is projected to be 1.5B up from 1.35B last year. Things have changed in the past few years. Growers were happy with yields of 2000#/acre but this year we are seeing a lot of people in the 3500 range with one guy that hit 5000 for 1 variety. They say that a farmer clears ~$1/lb.
<o:p> </o:p>
The weather in our part of the valley has been as perfect as you can get. No rain, and it was dry and warm for the entire harvest. Weather is one of the most important things for harvest. Almonds are shaken from the tree and then dry on the ground for 5-14 days depending on the variety, weather and how green they shook them. Also the lack of water is going to screw the <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:state> farmers within the next 10 years. We had a couple guys completely abandon their row crops this year to transfer water to their permanent crops.
<o:p> </o:p>
Our Coop has 82 growers with the smallest being 12acres and just over 2000 as the largest. The only General Manager the company has had in its 31 season history is retiring within 2 years and I'm training to take his spot. Big shoes to fill, but I'll get the job done. Right now I’ve taken over all of his responsibilities except for the bills.

<o:p> </o:p>
We have been running 24 hrs a day 7 days a week since August and the office is open 7-7 during harvest and 7-5 once we stop receiving product from the field. We try and rotate the guys through 2 days off a month, but management does not get that privilege. I’m getting my first day off since the first week of August for Thanksgiving, not sure if we are taking 1 or 2 days off. During harvest it was 80-90hrs/week and now I’m doing to 70ish.

We are the one that receives product from the field and remove the hull and shell from the almond. We a load comes in from the field it is ~25% almond meat, 50% hull, 12% shell, 13% orchard trash(dirt, leaves, sticks).

We process 13 varieties and this year we received ~150.7 million lbs of field wt which will end up as 38-39M meat weight which is more than $200M worth of almonds. That is off of ~17,000 acres and next year we will be processing ~18,000. Harvest runs August-October and we put everything we can't get through the plant on the ground and pick it up at the completion of harvest. We stockpiled 91.7 million pounds of field weight.

The general rule of thumb we use is a 100 day season. This year we are looking at 140 day season. Part of it is the crop is up 25% from of last years bumper crop and the other part is we remodeled our plant and it took 9-10 weeks to get it going as it should. Basically on that side of it we put out $3M to run slower than we did 3 years ago. However in the last month or so we've made some adjustments that have brought the speed up where we were expecting to start.

Ok the diatribe is over, if you want more info I can write some more tomorrow. I’ll try and get some pictures of the plant running tomorrow, right now all we have are picture of things that are broken for our fabricator.
<o:p> </o:p>
On a side note within 15 miles of our plant there are 4 other hullers that process ~10% of the world Almond crop.
<o:p> </o:p>
And here is an aerial photo of our facility. The white stack are inhull almonds, the bottom right is the plant, bottom left is the office, and right and up from the office is the old cotton gin.



awww.kernpareil.com_images_header.png
 
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SplooGe

SplooGe

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BTW off of the plant are our hull lines that we use for a driving range. Since we don't have anything major planned for the plant in the off season I have a feeling its going to see alot of use.
 

zaphod

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Jan 30, 2007
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BTW off of the plant are our hull lines that we use for a driving range. Since we don't have anything major planned for the plant in the off season I have a feeling its going to see alot of use.


thanks for taking the time from your VERY busy season. High value crop with lots of risks and as with most Co-ops I'm sure lots of opinions. I'm a director of our local Cenex Co-operative here. Serviing many masters is an art.
 

zaphod

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Anyway pics o the hulling and harvest procees would be great--When you have time!!!!!!!!
 
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SplooGe

SplooGe

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I'm sure lots of opinions. I'm a director of our local Cenex Co-operative here. Serviing many masters is an art.

This is the most important part of the job. Fortunately we have had a pretty good run and have only had 1 year where we did give the growers more than they gave us. We sell all byproducts but the dirt. Hulls are used for cattle feed, the shell is used for bedding and/or blended with hulls for feed, the hash is reclaimed and used for blanching, candy and all sorts of other stuff, but we have not found anywhere we can market the dirt.
 

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