Almond (Prunus dulcis) is one of the most important crops in California. This commodity represented an economic impact of over 3.5 billion dollars for the state in 2022. During that year, 1,630,000 million planted acres were reported. In 2023, this number dropped by 74,000 acres, continuing the trend of decline due to numerous challenges that the industry has been facing. These include volatile prices, high input costs, reduced water allocations, climate unpredictability, and high temperatures during key phenological timings. The almond crop is highly sensitive to environmental factors, and photosynthetic rates can significantly decrease when temperatures reach 94F, heat levels are easily reached during the hot summer months in California’s production areas. To this matter, significant contributions are needed to support the industry. There are over 700 peer-reviewed scientific publications that evidence the benefits of using biologicals, which include plant biostimulants (PBS), in agriculture. It has been shown that season-long exogenous applications of cytokinin-containing PBS can support higher marketable yields. It is important to understand the physiological timings in which these applications have the most impact, in terms of maximizing the yield and quality potential. In 2023, a randomized complete-block design (RCBD) study was conducted on 5th leaf Var. Nonpareil in California’s Central Valley. The objective was to evaluate the yield and quality effects of an application of X-CyteTM, a 0.04% cytokinin-containing biostimulant registered for use on almonds in California, at different standalone phenological timings. These included early bloom, full bloom, petal fall, may spray, and hull-split. The trial consisted of six four-tree replications per treatment. Yield and quality data were subjected to a one-way ANOVA using IBM® SPSS® Statistics, and means were separated using Tukey’s HSD. The standard grower practice (SGP) produced 1801.5 marketable pounds of kernel meat per acre. X-Cyte™ treatment yields of 1845.16, 2140.16, 2215.66, 2137.67, and 2318.33, were observed for early bloom, full bloom, petal fall, may spray, and hull-split timings, respectively. Statistically significant differences were observed (p-value: 0.003). The hull-split and petal fall timing applications represented the higher yield increases (516.8 and 414.2 lbs/A, respectively) overall, compared to the SGP. It has been documented that taking place at these timings are key phenological stages deemed as major contributors to the components of yield: fruit set and nut fill. Significant differences in kernel size were not observed (p-value: 0.549). These findings further support and help fine-tune the use of biologicals and PBS in agricultural production systems.
