Fruit and nut trees up and down the Central Valley are chilling out this winter—which is exactly what their farmers want to see. Nick Gatzman, who grows and packs almonds in Manteca with his father-in-law, Dave Phippen, said the winter of 2021-2022 looks as though it will be a good one for cold weather. "I think we're going to have sufficient chill hours," Gatzman said. "We're pretty similar to the last five years, with the exception of last year."
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At this point, 2020 had a couple hundred more hours, he added. Indeed, according to the chilling-hour calculators at the University of California, Davis, Fruit and Nut Research Center, Manteca had seen 497 chill hours and 480 hours between Nov. 1 and Jan. 6. At the same time last year, the city had registered 734 hours. The previous four years registered 523 to 592 hours each. Chill hours are times when temperatures are between 32 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit. This keeps the tree dormant for the winter. A warm winter with insufficient chill hours can result in a late or uneven bloom and, eventually, lower crop yields. There may be no such worries this year, said Katherine Jarvis-Shean, a University of California Cooperative Extension orchard advisor in Yolo and Sacramento counties. "We're in a really great position with winter chill accumulation this winter," Jarvis-Shean said. "We're having the highest chill that we've had in the last seven years—even cooler than the 2016-2017 ...
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