Sacramento Valley almond rejects declined overall in August 2026, but the two varieties dominating early deliveries moved in opposite directions. Nonpareil rejects fell to 1.6% from 2.4% a year earlier, while Independence rejects rose to 2.2% from 1.7%. For growers reviewing harvest quality, the distinction matters: the improved regional average does not describe both varieties.
In an October 20 update, UC Cooperative Extension advisers Franz Niederholzer and Sudan Gyawaly reported that total August rejects dropped from 2.25% in 2025 to 1.70% in 2026, citing the Almond Board of California’s Position Report. That is a decline of 0.55 percentage points. Their assessment concerns the first receipts of the crop year, not completed harvest results or a statewide quality verdict.
A combined figure weighted toward Nonpareil
Nonpareil and Independence together accounted for more than 95% of August Sacramento Valley receipts in both years. Nonpareil alone represented 75% to 80% of reported volume. Its larger share gives its improvement more influence on the combined figure, even as Independence moved the other way. The variety breakdown therefore reveals a quality concern that the lower total reject rate alone would obscure.
The authors explicitly caution that it is too early to draw firm conclusions about the entire season. The figures describe the almonds delivered in August, with a receipt mix heavily concentrated in two varieties. They do not show that later deliveries, other varieties or orchards outside the Sacramento Valley followed the same pattern. Nor does a variety’s regional reject rate establish what caused damage in an individual orchard.
Several possible causes, no single diagnosis
Niederholzer, a UCCE orchard systems adviser, and Gyawaly, a UC IPM adviser, report that navel orangeworm pressure appears generally lower than in 2025. They draw that preliminary interpretation from trap counts and conversations with growers and pest control advisers. They identify favorable sanitation weather early in the preceding winter, a summer without sustained heat and active pest management as possible contributors, rather than a settled explanation for the reject decline.
At the same time, the advisers describe reports of significant brown spot damage, particularly in Independence. In the Sacramento Valley, they say, that damage is thought to come largely from leaffooted bug feeding. They suggest a warm winter and very warm March probably increased spring populations and encouraged adults to disperse early from overwintering sites. Those observations offer a possible explanation for part of the quality problem, not a measured attribution of all Independence rejects.
Kernel gumming adds another uncertainty. The advisers report gumming, often at the tips of large nuts, and suggest rapid nut growth during warm weather in late February and March as one possible explanation. They also identify low boron as a possible contributor in some orchards. Their discussion leaves the causes unresolved. Brown spot, insect pressure and gumming should not be collapsed into a single explanation for the variety-level numbers.
What reject figures can and cannot measure
A separate distinction concerns what a reject percentage measures after nuts have moved through harvest handling. In September 26 commentary, PCA and certified crop adviser Gary Osteen explained that his team hand-cracks samples collected from the orchard floor behind harvesters. Damaged nuts can be blown out during pickup or removed at the huller, he wrote, so those samples can show more damage than the processor’s report.
Osteen illustrated the difference with a hypothetical processor result of 2% damage alongside a field sample showing 4%. Those are not additional Sacramento Valley statistics and should not be compared directly with the August variety figures. His point is narrower: a delivered-crop grade and an orchard-floor sample can describe different portions of the harvest. A lower processor reject number does not necessarily capture every damaged nut produced.
That distinction also limits what the early results can say about pest-control performance. In separate September 16 guidance, Osteen urged consultants to investigate disappointing treatment outcomes rather than assume a cause. His diagnostic questions include whether the recommendation arrived in time, whether application timing matched it, and whether coverage, equipment setup, environmental conditions or unusual pest pressure affected the result. This is a retrospective approach, not an October application schedule.
For the current quality review, the most useful separation is between the measured trend and its possible explanations. August receipts document a substantial Nonpareil improvement and an Independence deterioration. UCCE’s pest observations help frame questions about that split, while Osteen’s guidance explains why neither a final grade nor a disappointing treatment result identifies the cause by itself. Later receipts will be needed before the early variety contrast can be placed in a full-season assessment.
