Central Valley Agricultural Intelligence
October 2026 Field Report
Published October 1, 2026 • For October planning & operations
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♦ HISTORIC EL NIÑO BUILDING: STATE OF EMERGENCY DECLARED ♦ POST-HARVEST NUTRITION: LAST CALL BEFORE THE RAINS ♦ WALNUT CROP ESTIMATE LANDS OCT 1 ♦ SULFUR AT AN ALL-TIME RECORD ♦ BEST WHEAT PRICE IN YEARS FOR OPEN GROUND ♦ FALL SOIL SAMPLING WINDOW OPEN ♦ SPOTLIGHT: KMS & ZELTEC WITH MYCORRHIZAE ♦ STATUE OF LIBERTY, 140 YEARS
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Time-Sensitive: This Is the Last Easy Month
The state is staging sandbags. Get your ground read before it closes.
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center now puts the odds of a very strong El Niño at better than 90% this fall and winter, and a 75% chance it exceeds every El Niño back to 1950. On September 21 the Governor proclaimed a statewide emergency to pre-position flood equipment. The wet signal loads up hardest in January through March.
Here is what that means practically: October and early November are the last stretch you can count on getting equipment across the ground. Sampling, gypsum, compost, banded potassium, pre-plant phosphorus on open ground: all of it wants to be done before the ground is too wet to work. We are building the fall route now.
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Section 1
Crop Status & Field Work
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Harvest is mostly behind us and that changes what matters. September was about getting the crop off; October is about what the tree, the vine and the ground do with the rest of the year. Next spring's bloom is being funded right now, out of carbohydrate and stored nutrients, and the decisions that move that needle are water, boron, banded potassium and a soil test, not another pass of nitrogen. The one hard deadline on the page is the weather.
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🍐 Almonds
Post-Harvest Window Open
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Water is the highest-value input on the place right now, ahead of any fertilizer. Get trees recovered to within a couple of bars of baseline as soon as the equipment is out; UC has measured next-year yield losses around 40% where post-harvest stress ran extreme. Kernels came in small this year and north-district yields ran 15–20% under last year. Foliar boron is last call; the window closes when leaves go inactive, roughly the end of the month.
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🌿 Pistachios
Short Crop · Recovery Mode
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Keep the leaves alive and working into October. That is the whole job. UC Davis carbohydrate work shows stored sugars climb from late summer to a peak in fall and early winter, and that reserve is what holds next year's flower buds on the tree. Water and late foliar-disease control do more for 2027 than any fall fertilizer will. Crop estimates have narrowed to 600–800 million pounds. Get the mummies and unharvested nuts off the ground for navel orangeworm.
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🪓 Walnuts
Harvest · Estimate Lands Oct 1
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The USDA Objective Measurement for the 2026 crop releases today. Until it lands, nobody has a defensible tonnage; 2025 finished at 710,000 tons. The market position going in is the good news: shipments ran up more than 25% through June and the industry sold past 100% of what it took in, so carry-in is clean. In the orchard: nitrogen season closed months ago; fall N mostly leaches. Potassium is the opposite; fall is its textbook timing.
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🍇 Wine & Table Grapes
Harvest Nearly Done
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One of the earliest harvests in decades, better than 80% of the picking could be finished. That matters for nutrition timing: post-harvest nitrogen and potassium only pay while there is healthy leaf area and more than about three weeks before leaf fall, and in the Valley you are at the tail of that. Fall foliar boron is the exception and the data are clean: a mid-October spray in a UC trial cut deficiency symptoms from 78% of the fruit to 3%.
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🥝 Kiwis
Harvest Now
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This is the pick, October into early November. UC's maturity trigger is roughly 7% soluble solids at 14–20 lb firmness, and the fruit wants to be down to 32–40°F inside 12 to 24 hours; a warm bin overnight costs storage life you never get back. Gray mold is the other cost center: shed sanitation and a clean post-harvest wash do more than anything you spray in the field. Vine nutrition waits until the fruit is off.
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🍊 Citrus
Bigger Crop Coming
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USDA's September measurement put navels at 84 million cartons, up 5%, and mandarins at 38 million. More fruit into a market that already saw navel prices lag last spring. In the grove, October is the stop-nitrogen month and the leaf-sampling month; UC's sampling window runs through mid-October on spring-flush leaves, and late nitrogen buys you thick rinds, poor color and frost-tender growth. Keep psyllid monitoring current.
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🍀 Pomegranates
Wonderful Harvest Peak
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Wonderful is coming off through October. Even moisture is still the whole cracking story: a big late set after a dry stretch splits fruit, and one split in a bin spreads. Pick on internal color and acid. Worth knowing for next year's budget: the UC-funded trial on mature pomegranate found no yield gain above about 100 lb N/ac. If you have been pushing nitrogen on poms, that is money sitting on the table. Get the ground sampled once the fruit is off.
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🌿 Cotton
Defoliation · Watch the Nights
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Temperature is the constraint now, not the crop. UC's criteria for harvest aids to work are daytime highs at or above 80°F and nights above 60°F, and October nights fall off fast. Cotton is safe to defoliate at 60% open boll, four to five nodes above cracked boll on Acala and three to four on Pima. Behind the picker: nematode counts read truest between harvest and plowdown, and plowdown deadlines are set by district; confirm yours with the County Ag Commissioner.
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🌽 Corn (Silage & Grain)
Ground Opening Up
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Chopping is wrapping and grain corn is coming behind it. The number that matters on this ground is residual nitrate: it is real, it is measurable, and with a wet winter forecast it is the pound most likely to leave before you can use it. Silage is also the quiet potassium drain: whole-plant removal runs 280–365 lb K₂O/ac against 37–52 for grain, which is how rented, manure-light silage ground runs down without anyone noticing. Cover crop goes in now through early November; by December the soil is too cold for consistent germination.
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🌾 Wheat & Open Ground
Amend Now · Plant Nov
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Wheat has the best price signal it has had in years, and it lines up with a wet winter. See the Market Brief. In the ground this month: phosphorus is the one nutrient that genuinely belongs in now: it does not leach and banded at planting is the most efficient placement there is. Gypsum and any lime decision go on ahead of the rain so they have time to react. Nitrogen does not: wheat takes up only about a fifth to a quarter of its total N before stem elongation.
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Section 2
October Fertilizer Program
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October is not a feeding month for most of what grows here; it is a storing, diagnosing and positioning month. Two nutrients genuinely do better applied now than at any other time: boron on almonds and grapes, because it is remobilized into next year's flower buds, and potassium banded into the root zone, where winter rain moves it down. Almost everywhere else, nitrogen is a stop decision rather than a go decision. Fall nitrogen that the crop does not take up before leaf drop leaches over the winter, and this winter, more than most.
| Crop |
Primary Nutrients |
Micros & Notes |
Timing & Method |
| Almonds |
Band dry K in the wetted zone at 200–250 lb K₂O/ac on microirrigated ground; UC data show four years of broadcast K moved only 6 inches down, while banded reached two feet. Replacement runs 85–100 lb K₂O per 1,000 lb kernels. Skip post-harvest N unless July leaf N came back under about 2.4%. |
Foliar boron while leaves are still active, the strongest fall foliar case in any crop we work. Keep total actual B under about 1.5 lb/ac and read it off hull boron, not leaf. Zinc at 5 lb zinc sulfate/ac in early October does the job the old 20+-lb November rate did, without stripping leaves you still need. HIGH |
Foliars to full canopy before leaves go inactive. Tank-mixing Zn with B needs the water acidified to roughly pH 5.0 or boron uptake drops. Band K once leaf drop starts. |
| Pistachios |
Off-year trees do not need a nitrogen rescue. More than 90% of a pistachio's potassium uptake happens during nut fill, so October K is a soil-building placement for 2027, not an uptake application; band it in the wetted zone. Deficient blocks carry 100–200 lb K₂O/ac above replacement. |
Be careful here: boron and zinc are immobile in pistachio, so a fall foliar is not carried into the buds the way it is in almond. UC puts both in spring. The one October exception is zinc sulfate on young trees, 1–6 years, to aid defoliation. MED |
Keep water and leaf health going into late October. Book the boron and zinc for spring, off this year's leaf report. |
| Walnuts |
No nitrogen. UC is blunt: walnut N uptake is over by late summer and fall N not taken up before senescence leaches out. Potassium is the fall job: soil applications are made now so winter rain carries K into the root zone. Leaf K at or under 0.9% supports up to 400 lb potassium sulfate/ac. |
Add 40–50 lb K₂O/ac if hulls leave the field: hulls carry 35–40 lb K per ton and that is a real export nobody budgets. Zinc and boron are spring foliars in walnut, not fall. MED Heavy late zinc sulfate defoliates, wrong tool in a bearing block. |
Soil-apply K after harvest, ahead of the rain. Prune Botryosphaeria wood only into a forecast dry stretch. |
| Grapes |
Post-harvest N and K only while the canopy is intact and you are more than three weeks from leaf fall; after that it is a leaching loss. Wine grapes are a low-N crop to begin with. On furrow or flood ground, K is applied in the dormant season; on drip it belongs in-season before veraison. |
Fall foliar boron is the standout. A UC trial applying it October 19 dropped deficiency symptoms from 78% of fruit to 3%; up to 1 lb actual B/ac is tolerated in fall versus a 0.5-lb ceiling in spring. It is partial and temporary, so it is an annual line item. HIGH Zinc is a pre-bloom spray, not a dormant one. |
Boron foliar in October on healthy leaves. Read this year's petiole numbers against the stage they were pulled at; the critical ranges fall from bloom to harvest. |
| Kiwis |
Nothing while the fruit is on. UC's program puts the whole annual nitrogen budget into March through July on bearing vines, so the season closed months ago. Potassium replacement after the pick, sized off your own yield and tissue history. |
Straight talk: there is no UC California fertilization guideline for kiwifruit and no published state K rate or leaf critical values. Anyone quoting you one is quoting somebody else's country. That makes your own soil and tissue record the only real basis. MED |
After harvest, late October into November, on whatever functional leaf is left. Hold Phytophthora-prone sets under six hours. |
| Citrus |
Nitrogen stops. UC guidance runs from “complete by early fall” to “cease by end of June,” and the reason is the same either way: late N gives you thicker rinds, poorer color, less juice and frost-tender flush. Next year's program starts in February or March. Soil K on light soils can go on now ahead of the rain; light soils respond better than heavy. |
This is the leaf-sampling month, 4- to 7-month-old spring-flush leaves, and UC says sample for nitrogen every single year. Optimum leaf N 2.4–2.6%, K 0.70–1.09%, Zn and Mn 25 ppm and up. A low zinc or manganese number is an order for a spring spray. HIGH |
Pull leaves now, plan off the results. Foliar iron does not work; fix drainage instead. |
| Pomegranates |
Do not push nitrogen. The UC-funded trial on mature pomegranate compared half, full and one-and-a-half rates and found no yield improvement above roughly 100 lb N/ac, with most of it applied by mid-June. Potassium replacement after the fruit is off, based on removal and your own trend. |
Potassium goes severely deficient in sandy loam and gets worse with depth; that is where a sample earns its keep. There is no published UC post-harvest K rate for pomegranate, so this one is built from your own numbers. MED |
Keep water on through the pick, sample once the fruit is off, fertigate post-harvest. |
| Cotton |
Fertility season is closed, and residual nitrogen is now working against you; UC lists relatively low plant and soil N as a condition for harvest aids to perform. Excess N delays cutout and fights defoliation. Nothing goes on this crop. |
No foliar micros. LOW The fall work here is diagnostic: harvest to plowdown is the only window that reads nematode pressure against the crop you just grew, and it sets up winter ripping ahead of the rain. |
Sample after defoliation, before plowdown. Rip at least 18 inches deep during winter, before the ground is saturated. |
| Corn / Dairy Ground |
No more N this season. Credit what is already out there before you write a pound into 2027: UC Davis puts first-year mineralization of organic N at 40–50% for lagoon water, 20–30% for sludge, slurry and corral manure, and 0–10% for finished compost, and ammonium and nitrate count at full value right away. |
Watch the potassium drain on rented silage ground. HIGH The risk this month is timing: 40–70% of a year's mineralization happens in the first four to eight weeks, so available N spread on bare ground ahead of a wet winter is the easiest nitrogen you will ever lose. |
Soil nitrate test before anything is applied. Catch crop or cover crop on post-silage ground. The State Water Board adopted a new dairy order on September 16; the Regional Board rewrites the discharge requirements from here, so confirm what applies to you. |
| Wheat / Open Ground |
Phosphorus is the one that belongs in the ground now: it does not leach, and banded at planting is the most efficient placement, especially on low-P soils. Hold nitrogen back: UC says wheat does not generally need more than 40–60 lb N/ac before spring, with topdress at tillering doing the real work. |
Starter has a hard salt limit: keep N near the seed to 25–30 lb N/ac, placed two inches to the side and two below. Gypsum, lime and sulfur all get decided off this test. HIGH Gypsum does not change pH; it is a calcium and sodium tool. |
Sample now, amend October, plant November, topdress at tillering. Nitrate to two feet, each foot read separately. |
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Salts & Gypsum, the cheapest leaching you get all year: UC is clear that reclamation leaching works best in winter, when evaporation and transpiration are lowest, and the practical lever is to wet the profile before a rain event. A bone-dry profile absorbs the rain; a pre-wetted one lets it push salts down past the roots. That makes a late-October or November irrigation set a salinity decision, not just a refill. Two things worth saying plainly. First, gypsum is for sodium, not for pH; it will not move your soil pH in either direction, and using it to chase acidity is wasted money. Second, on the rate: a full gypsum requirement can run 4 to 12 tons an acre, but UC's own finding is that supplying 40–75% of it should produce marked improvement. High-SAR ground with relatively low salinity is the most responsive; high-salinity ground that is not sodic needs leaching water, not amendment. And if the dormant season is your only pass, use a coarse material so it does not dissolve and run off in one storm. Almonds are on UC's salt-sensitive list; pistachio and cotton are tolerant. Marginal water shows up in the almonds first.
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Input Cost Note: We still will not quote you a price: what you actually pay swings hard by product, volume, delivery point and supplier, and a number in a newsletter is worth less than a real quote. The direction is worth knowing, and it has changed since September. Sulfur is the story. Tampa liquid sulphur settled at an all-time record for the third quarter, above its 2008 peak, on the loss of Middle East supply through the Strait of Hormuz. That flows straight into phosphate, because DAP and MAP are made with sulfuric acid, so phosphate is being pushed up by a cost on the supply side, not by demand, and anything sulfur-based on your amendment list is priced against the same shortage: elemental sulfur, ammonium sulfate, sulfate of potash, and gypsum freight in some markets. Nitrogen stopped being the soft corner this week. Urea spiked in the spring and did come well off that peak over the summer as Hormuz talks progressed and China widened its export allowance, but the trade's latest read has six of the eight major nutrients moving up again, and anhydrous is the standout, running roughly a quarter above where it sat a year ago. Treat the summer softness as over until proven otherwise. Potash is close to flat. And diesel is its own problem: California is running dollars a gallon above last year, high enough that Washington is openly debating wider red-dye access for agriculture and limits on exports. We track that one weekly in the Energy Update. What to do with that: if a fall soil test turns up a phosphorus or sulfur correction, get it quoted early instead of waiting for the spring rush, and let the test tell you whether you need it at all. On sodium problems specifically, gypsum is usually the cheaper calcium than elemental sulfur right now, and it works immediately rather than waiting on microbial oxidation.
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Section 3
October Market Brief
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Where a defensible published figure exists, it is below with its source and date. Where one does not, and this month the 2026 walnut crop is the obvious one, we give you supply and volume context instead of a made-up number. Confirm every price with your handler or broker before you act on it.
| Almonds |
| 190 M lb |
| August shipments |
| ↑ Up 20% year over year; exports up 31%. Prices firmed in August. 2026 crop forecast 2.70 B lb. |
| Pistachios |
| 1.30 B lb |
| 2025/26 shipments |
| ↑ A record year, up 19%. Carryover 221 M lb, still 14% under the 5-year average into a short crop. |
| Walnuts |
| Est. Out Today |
| USDA OM · Oct 1 |
| No 2026 tonnage exists yet. 2025 was 710,000 tons. Industry sold past 100% of receipts; carry-in is clean. |
| Wine Grapes |
| $333.73 |
| per ton · Dist. 13, 2025 |
| ↓ Final 2025 crush. Another 40,000 acres expected out this year. Uncontracted fruit still caps the market. |
| Navels |
| 84.0 M |
| cartons · 2026/27 |
| ↑ Up 5%. Mandarins 38 M cartons. More fruit into a market that already saw prices lag. |
| Cotton |
| 78¢ |
| per lb · upland avg |
| ↑ Up 16¢ year over year. West region at 339,000 bales, second lowest in nine decades. |
| All-Milk |
| $19.90 |
| per cwt · 2026 avg |
| ↓ August actual came in at $19.80, off $1.10 from a year ago. Class III $16.20. California margins still best in the West. |
| Alfalfa |
| $244 |
| per ton · premium dairy |
| ↑ Weighted average, week ending Sept 25. Demand good, outlook bullish; drought is pulling winter buying forward. |
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Lead Commodity: October
Wheat: the best price signal in years, landing on a wet forecast
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$6.40 / bu USDA season-average farm price • raised 20¢ in September
The supply side did this. U.S. hard red winter production came in at 471 million bushels, down 26% and the smallest crop since 1957/58. All-wheat production fell 23% to the lowest since 1970/71, and ending stocks dropped about 21% to a three-year low. When the carryout gets that thin, price has to do the rationing.
Cash markets are showing it. Kansas City bids on 12%-protein hard red winter were running around $9.42 a bushel at the start of September against $5.93 a year earlier, but read that for what it is. That is a protein-premium cash bid at a terminal, not what a Valley grower nets, and it is a different measure from the $6.40 national average. Out west the honest number is the Pacific Northwest, where soft white cash bids reached the upper $6 to low $7 range, levels not seen in several years, then eased in early September. Lenders are treating it as real: crop insurance revenue guarantees are running roughly $2 a bushel above last year.
What we would do: if you have open or post-silage ground and you were on the fence about wheat, this is the year the numbers argue for it, and a wet winter argues the same way. But get the ground read first. Wheat responds to residual nitrate more than almost anything else we plant here; Valley blocks hitting four tons and better are doing it on 150–200 lb N total because they already had 30–80 lb of residual N in the profile at planting. Sample now, put the phosphorus and the gypsum on in October while you can still get across the ground, plant in November, and hold the bulk of the nitrogen for a tillering topdress. That sequence is worth more than the price is.
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Water & Weather
A strong carryover position meets a very strong El Niño
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Where we finished. Statewide precipitation ended the water year around 96% of average and reservoir storage near 104% of average, Shasta and Oroville both about 96% of average for the date. The weak spot is Pine Flat at roughly 52% of average, which matters if you are on the Kings. Even so, nearly 70% of California is now abnormally dry or in drought, a full reversal from January, when the state was drought-free for the first time in twenty-five years. 2026 finished at a 45% State Water Project allocation and 28% for south-of-Delta CVP ag contractors.
What is coming. The Climate Prediction Center has an El Niño Advisory in effect and calls for a greater than 90% chance of a very strong event this fall and winter, with a 75% chance it exceeds every El Niño back to 1950. The precipitation signal leans wettest across the southern half of California, and it arrives late, modest through fall, ramping hard January through March.
What that is worth to you, honestly. No 2027 allocation has been announced; the initial State Water Project number usually lands around the first of December and the CVP in late February. Starting from full reservoirs with a very strong El Niño on the forecast argues for a materially better year than 2026, but it is a forecast, not an allocation, and 2026 is the reminder: reservoirs were full in May and the snowpack was at 12%. Rain that falls instead of stacking up as snow runs off on someone else's schedule. If you are in a district with recharge capacity, that is the number to be watching, not the forecast. And on your own ground, the planning point is simpler: a wet January through March means the work has to be done in October and November.
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Market Note: Every figure here is indicative and carries the date and source it came from. Prices move daily and vary by district, grade, contract and delivery point. Confirm with your handler or broker before you make a marketing decision. This newsletter is informational and is not financial advice.
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Section 4
Spotlight: KMS & Zeltec
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Two products this month, and they are on the page together for a reason. Everything in Section 2 said the same thing: October is when you put potassium into the root zone and let winter rain carry it down, and October is the last stretch roots are active enough to establish anything biological before dormancy. KMS covers the mineral side of that. Zeltec covers the biological side. They go out through the same irrigation injection or the same ground rig, on the same pass across the field.
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Diamond K Gypsum
KMS
Potassium Magnesium Sulfate
Solution grade, ground to 325 mesh
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Analysis
21.5–11–22
K₂O · Mg · S
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Best Window
Now, pre-rain
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Three nutrients in one pass, all of them already in the sulfate form, which means plant-available, not waiting on a conversion. With sulfur at a record this year, a potassium source that carries 22% sulfur with it is doing two jobs for one freight bill.
| ✓ Low chloride, typically 1.5%, the route to K on salt-sensitive ground |
| ✓ Neutral pH, will not push your soil either direction |
| ✓ Magnesium without a separate product or pass |
| ✓ 92% through 325 mesh, built to inject, not to plug |
| ✓ OMRI Listed, CDFA and WSDA organic registered |
| ✓ 50 lb bags or 2,000 lb totes |
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AgVerra LLC
Zeltec
with Mycorrhizae
Dry biological soil amendment & conditioner
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Mycorrhizae
11,700 / lb
propagules
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Best Window
Active roots
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Endomycorrhizal fungi colonize inside the root and then send threads out past where the root itself can reach, which is how a plant gets at water and phosphorus in soil it was never going to touch. Lab-grown and counted, so the bag you open in March matches the one you opened in October.
| ✓ 1 billion CFU/g bacteria, frees up locked phosphorus |
| ✓ 1 million CFU/g fungi, works on old plant residue and structure |
| ✓ Dry wettable powder, drench, inject, seed treat or ground spray |
| ✓ Row, field and specialty crops; custom blends on request |
| ✓ OMRI Certified Organic |
| ! Keep it away from strong fungicides and chlorinated water for 24 hours either side; both kill the thing you paid for |
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| What You Are Solving |
KMS |
Zeltec |
| The job it does |
Puts the nutrient in the ground, potassium, magnesium and sulfur the crop already removed |
Improves what the root can reach and what the soil will release |
| Why October specifically |
Winter rain is what carries K down into the root zone. Applied after the rain starts, it has missed its ride |
It wants active root growth to colonize. Apply into a dormant root system and you are feeding nothing |
| Phosphate is expensive this year |
Carries its own sulfur, so you are not buying it twice through a sulfur-priced product |
Bacteria free up phosphorus already locked in the soil; mycorrhizae reach the P a root cannot |
| Salt-sensitive ground |
Typically 1.5% chloride. On almonds, and on marginal well water, this is the argument against muriate |
Not a salt source. Does not add to the load you are trying to leach |
| How it goes out |
Ground spray rig or injected through irrigation |
Soil drench, irrigation, seed treatment or ground spray |
| Certified organic blocks |
OMRI Listed, plus CDFA and WSDA organic registration |
OMRI Certified Organic |
| Running them together |
Both go through the same injection point, so this is one trip across the field, not two. The sequencing caution is chemistry, not compatibility between these two: keep the Zeltec clear of fungicides and chlorinated water by 24 hours. Call us and we will build the order and the timing around what your soil report actually shows. |
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One honest caveat before you buy either one. Neither of these is a reason to skip the soil test; they are both answers to a question the test asks. KMS is the right potassium source when your numbers call for K and you have a magnesium or sulfur gap or a chloride problem; if you have none of those, a straight sulfate of potash may be the cheaper line. Zeltec earns its place fastest on ground that has been worked hard, on replant blocks, and on soil carrying low organic matter; biology responds where biology is missing. We would rather sell you the right one than both. Pull the sample first and let it make the call.
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The other half of fall is the paperwork. If you are carrying an awarded soil grant, the practice has to go in, the sampling has to be defensible, and the amendments have to come from a source the program will actually accept. Those are three different problems and we handle all three.
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Already Awarded a Soil Grant?
We pull the samples, run the lab work, and source the amendments your award requires.
Getting selected was the good news. The part nobody budgets time for is what follows: baseline samples pulled to program protocol, results from a lab the program will accept, and compost and amendments from certified providers that match what your award actually calls for, with documentation that survives a reviewer.
We do all of it. We pull to program protocol, run the analysis by recognized methods, hand you results you can file, and then tell you which certified compost and amendment sources match both your award and your soil report. Two different questions, and you have to satisfy both.
On “certified” compost, here is the part that gets misstated. California's incentive programs generally gate on three things: a lab analysis showing the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio the program specifies, a facility that is permitted or otherwise authorized by state and local authorities, and the paperwork: receipts, dates, tonnage, geotagged photos. A certification mark is how a good supplier proves that fast, and the marks are not interchangeable. CDFA Organic Input Material registration is state law for anything sold in California with an organic claim. A US Composting Council STA data sheet delivers the feedstock list plus metals and pathogen results in one document, which is the quickest way to satisfy a reviewer. OMRI listing matters if the block is certified organic. We know which of our sources carry which, and we will not hand you a load that cannot be documented.
One thing to ask for that is not on anybody's requirement list: salinity and chloride on the compost analysis. It is not a program gate, and it is the failure mode that shows up in a Valley almond block two seasons later. We ask for it on every load.
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And a straight answer about what compost will and will not do for you this fall. It is a soil-building, organic-matter and water-holding decision; it is not a nitrogen substitute, and we would rather tell you that now than have you short the crop next spring. Measured first-year nitrogen availability from compost is low and variable; UC's working figure for a typical finished material is around 10% of the organic nitrogen in year one, which pencils to roughly 11 lb of available N per acre from a 4-ton application. Finished composted manure is slower still. That is exactly why fall is the right time to apply it: it has all winter to break down, and there is almost nothing in it to leach, and exactly why it does not come off next spring's nitrogen budget. Raw manure is a different animal: incorporate it promptly or you volatilize the ammonium you were counting on.
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Get on the Fall Route Before the Rain
Tell us which blocks you want covered. We will build the route, pull the cores, run the lab work, and walk you through what it means, including which amendments the numbers actually justify and which ones you can skip this year. The calendar between now and the first real storm is the whole window, and it fills up.
GPS Soil Sampling
Water Testing
Custom Blends
Compost Supply
Fertigation Planning
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This Month in American History
October 28, 1886: The Statue of Liberty, 140 Years
One hundred forty years ago this month, in a cold rain and a harbor full of steam whistles, President Grover Cleveland accepted the Statue of Liberty on behalf of the United States. She had crossed the Atlantic in 214 crates and waited more than a year on Bedloe’s Island while the country argued about who would pay for the pedestal. In the end it was not Congress that paid for it. It was ordinary people, more than 120,000 of them, most giving less than a dollar apiece, after a newspaper publisher shamed the nation into finishing the job.
That detail is the part worth keeping. The monument that has come to stand for the whole American promise was built by a subscription list, in small amounts, by people who mostly never saw it.
There is a version of that story in every farm town in this Valley. The families working this ground came from Portugal and Mexico, from the Azores and Oklahoma and Punjab and Armenia, and what they had in common was a willingness to put in more than they took out and let the next generation collect on it. Nobody handed anybody a pedestal. They built it a dollar at a time, and the ground remembers.
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We will not forget that liberty has here made her home; nor shall her chosen altar be neglected. A stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man’s oppression, until liberty enlightens the world.
President Grover Cleveland
Dedication of the Statue of Liberty, October 28, 1886
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To the Men & Women of Our Armed Forces and First Responders
The lamp in that harbor only means something because somebody keeps it lit. That has always been your job, on a base a long way from home, on a county road at two in the morning, on the wrong end of a fire line in October. We farm in freedom because you stand in its defense.
You are the reason we are Safe and Free.
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The Archive
Every back issue, in one place, free.
All six newsletters now live at bmelloag.com, free, searchable, and no login. Missed an issue, or want to send one to a neighbor? It is all there, and new issues post as soon as they send.
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Field Report
Monthly · 1st
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Ag Crime Report
Monthly · county briefs
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Economic Update
Mid-month
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Energy Update
Weekly · Mondays
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Fishing Report
Weekly · Wednesdays
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Special Reports
As needed
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Every issue we have ever published is free at bmelloag.com/reports: field conditions, ag crime, markets, fuel and fishing.
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This one comes straight from the field: hullers winding down in the almonds, pistachio trees still holding their leaves after a light year, and discs working open ground from Chowchilla to Corcoran while the weather holds. If the forecast is right, this is the last month the ground lets us work it. We’d rather you hear it from someone who shares your sunrises, your sunsets, and the long day in between. That’s the promise behind every B Mello Field Report.
Proudly American · Rooted in the American Dream
Bryan Mello
B Mello Ag Services · Central Valley, California
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B Mello Ag Services · Central Valley, CA
October 2026 Edition · Published October 1, 2026
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(559) 816-3889
bryan@bmelloag.com
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This newsletter is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Crop conditions, market prices, program deadlines and fertilizer recommendations vary by location, variety, soil and season. Always consult a licensed PCA or CCA, the current CDFA program documents, and your commodity broker before making agronomic, regulatory or marketing decisions. B Mello Ag Services assumes no liability for decisions made based on this publication.
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