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Almonds and Walnuts

Roots, the food history behind Sacramento menus By , checked November 7, 2026

Sacramento Valley almonds and walnuts, from the Davisville orchards and the 1910 growers’ exchange to walnut trees grafted onto native black walnut roots.

Walnut Dice

The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, whose homeland is the Capay Valley, teaches a walnut game in a Native American Heritage Month worksheet titled “Suhnuhk Dicema / Walnut Dice.” Two players or two teams start with ten counting sticks in a pile and toss six half walnut shells, each decorated on the inside. All six landing decorated side up takes three sticks, all six down takes two, and three up and three down takes one.

“Doyuti T’uhkama means ‘to give the acorn’ in the Tribe’s native Patwin language,” the Nation writes. Yocha Dehe set it up in 2016 to allocate funding under the Tribe’s gaming compact with the State of California. For the Patwin people, the Nation says, “the acorn is a cherished symbol that reflects Yocha Dehe’s commitment to sharing its resources, particularly with those in need.”

“Whoever has all ten sticks is the winner!”

Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, Walnut Dice

Suisun and Davisville

European almond varieties were planted in California before 1853 and “proved to be irregular bearers,” a USDA report recorded in 1896. Some twenty years of experience showed only that “in a few scattered localities occasional profitable crops of almonds could be produced.”

In 1878 A. T. Hatch of Suisun planted more than 2,000 bitter almond seedlings and budded all but about 300 of them. He showed nuts from many of them at the New Orleans Exposition in 1885 and the Sacramento Citrus Fair in 1886, and went on to propagate four of the 192 varieties: IXL, Ne Plus Ultra, Nonpareil and La Prima.

In 1884 the Oakshade Fruit Company’s orchard near Davisville held 11,126 pear trees and 5,200 almond trees. Webster Treat of Davisville originated an almond of his own, the Golden State. In 1890 George Swingle, a Davisville orchardist, lost 10,000 almond trees that had cost him at least $20,000 to plant and tend, killed by soil saturated in long rains, and planned to replant. G. W. Pierce’s almond orchard, some six miles from the University Farm at Davis, was planted in 1892, and the University Farm’s own almonds went in during the spring of 1908. In 1918 the valley-floor orchards stood mainly along streams running east from the Coast Range, and the two most important were Putah Creek and Cache Creek, which flows through the Capay Valley.

“California cannot be excelled for raising almonds.”

Pacific Rural Press, January 21, 1893

The Exchange and C Street

By late April 1910 almond growers had formed local associations at Antelope, Fair Oaks, Yuba City, Oakley and in the Capay Valley. On May 6 growers from various parts of the state met in Sacramento and organized the California Almond Growers Exchange, a nonprofit with Sacramento as its principal place of business. Among them were J. P. Dargitz of Acampo and G. W. Pierce of Davis, whom the Exchange chose as vice president. It started with nine local associations, 230 growers and $1,000 of borrowed capital that the directors guaranteed themselves, and opened temporary offices at 1028 J Street. By June 1, 1918, it had 22 local associations and about 2,000 growers, and controlled about three-fourths of the crop.

In June 1914 the Sacramento Union reported that the city would have the first almond shelling plant on the Pacific coast. The plan called for a one-story fireproof building of concrete and hollow tile on a lot 50 by 100 feet, at $10,000 for lot, building and equipment, on C Street between 18th and 19th. The Northern Electric line ran past it to the Exchange’s main warehouses at Yuba City and Live Oak. The Exchange then handled 70 percent of California’s almonds. The site, at 1809 C Street, became California Historical Landmark No. 967 in 1985; its first structure held the world’s first mechanical cracker, according to the landmark record.

Blue Diamond dates the blue diamond on its label to 1915 and says it set the Exchange’s almonds apart from Spanish and Italian imports. The Exchange took the name Blue Diamond Growers in 1980. In June 2025 the cooperative, with nearly 3,000 members, announced it would exit and sell its midtown Sacramento plant, a site of more than 50 acres close to downtown, and move most of its manufacturing to its plants in Turlock and Salida in phases over 18 to 24 months. It estimated that 600 workers would be affected and said its corporate office would remain in Sacramento.

“The plan of the almond growers is to put their own crops through the exchange and do away with the shipping agencies.”

San Francisco Call, May 7, 1910

Esparto, September 4, 1915

In July 1915 Esparto moved its almond festival earlier, to Saturday, September 4, so Yolo County almonds could make a good showing at the Exposition, whose commissioners would begin making awards the first week of October. A resolution the county supervisors passed on August 16 called Esparto “the home of the almond.”

The program opened with a parade at 9:30 and the crowning of a queen at 10:15, served lunch free at noon and set the better baby contest for 4:00. Three thousand visitors came from nearby counties, and a ball closed the night.

Two days later Arbuckle, in Colusa County, held its own festival. Twelve women took part in an almond hulling contest, won by Mrs. T. G. Barrett, and “one lung” cars built before 1907 ran a race. The Sacramento Union called Arbuckle’s festival the second in the world and Esparto’s the first. Esparto now holds its festival in February; in 2026 it ran on February 21 and 22.

“This proposed celebration will be the first almond festival ever held in the United States.”

Yolo County supervisors, August 16, 1915

Bloom and Bees

From 1916 to 1918 the University of California ran almond pollination experiments at the University Farm in Davis and in Pierce’s orchard. Tufts’s 1919 bulletin on the work called the cultivated almond self-sterile “for all practical purposes,” so that “in all cases orchards must be inter-planted with pollenizing varieties,” and the common honey bee “by far the best carrier of pollen.” In Pierce’s orchard, where fewer blossoms set fruit than at the University Farm, “practically no insect pollen carriers were present.” In 1917 many growers had a light crop because the weather through bloom kept the bees from working.

A 1918 UC bulletin warned that “continued rainy, damp and cold weather at the time of blooming is apt to sour the pollen or actually wash it away.”

Yolo County’s 2024 crop report ranks apiary eighth, at $26,000,000, counting pollination along with honey, queens and wax. Sutter County’s 2025 report counts 18,500 colonies of pollination at $157 a colony.

“About one hive of bees to an acre of bearing orchard should be provided.”

Almond Pollination, UC Bulletin 306, 1919

Black Walnut Roots

In the early 1870s Felix Gillet, a nurseryman in Nevada City, imported trees and scions of French walnuts, and through his efforts the Franquette, one of France’s most valuable varieties, became the leading variety of central California. In 1896 a state report found General Bidwell’s walnut trees at Chico “all vigorous and fruitful.”

“The English walnut on its own stock does not do well in this valley,” the Colusa Daily Sun wrote in November 1900. “The bark sunburns and the nuts are, many of them, unsound.” M. L. Rice’s tree, grafted onto black walnut, had just borne a full crop, all of it sound. Walter G. Read of Colusa had planted a row of black walnuts a quarter mile long and grafted every other tree with wood cut from bearing trees in John Bidwell’s Chico orchard. The black walnut had been planted widely as a roadside tree in the valley, and by 1903 some of those trees had been grafted over to English walnuts.

By 1924 the choice of walnut rootstock had narrowed to the northern California black walnut, Juglans hindsii, valued for its resistance to oak-root fungus. Dooryard and border trees usually furnished the seed. Luther Burbank had crossed the English walnut with a California black walnut in 1877; the nuts were planted in 1878, and ten years later the tree from one measured 12 inches across at two feet from the ground. UC’s 1924 bulletin called a cross of the English walnut with any black walnut the paradox hybrid, a remarkably fast grower whose first-generation trees are usually nearly barren. In 2007 UC released two clonal Paradox rootstocks, VX211 and RX1.

UC bred walnuts at Davis from 1948 to 1978, and Harold Forde’s Chandler came out of that program. Chandler grew from 17.5 percent of California’s walnut acres in 1996 to 48.4 percent in 2017. In 1914, 95 percent of the state’s bearing walnut acres were in Southern California. In 2026 San Joaquin and Butte counties have the most.

  1. 34,138Bearing acres, 1914, 95% in Southern California
  2. 115,500Bearing acres, 1950, 30% in Southern California
  3. 382,535Standing bearing acres, 2026

“Plant black walnuts, and, when four or five years old, graft in the limbs where they branch from the main trunk.”

Walter G. Read, Colusa, Pacific Rural Press, March 4, 1899

Nuts Now

Almonds were Yolo County’s top crop in 2024, worth $178,925,000 from 44,745 acres, and walnut prices there doubled, putting walnuts back on the county’s top ten. Walnuts took first place in Butte County in 2024, at more than $150 million, and second in Sutter County in 2025, at $115,634,000, behind rice.

Capay Canyon Ranch in Esparto, founded in 1972 by Stan and Leslie Barth, grows, shells and processes its own almonds on 210 acres and grows Chandler and Tulare walnuts, both UC varieties. It sells at the Davis market and at Sacramento’s Sunday market at 8th and W. Capay Hills Orchard grows only almonds and sells them from a roadside stand at 24155 County Road 22; call ahead. Gold Oak Ranch grows almonds, walnuts and pistachios, and Massa Organics grows its almonds without chemicals in Hamilton City.

Sierra Orchards in Winters grows Regenerative Organic Certified walnuts on what the farm calls Southern Patwin land. Ferrari Farms in Linden, certified organic by CCOF since 1982, brings walnuts to the Sunday market, and Feather River Farms of Yuba City brings them to the Davis market on Saturdays. At Ginger Elizabeth Chocolates the organic almonds come from Alison’s Organics and the walnuts from Full Belly Farm.

Almonds are ready from early August to late September and walnuts from early September to early November, depending on variety.

Walnuts and almonds in season: who grows them and where to buy them

Timeline

  1. Early 1870s Felix Gillet, a Nevada City nurseryman, imports French walnut trees and scions; through his efforts the Franquette becomes central California’s leading walnut. Walnuts
  2. 1878 A. T. Hatch of Suisun plants more than 2,000 bitter almond seedlings and buds them over. Almonds
  3. 1884 The Oakshade Fruit Company’s orchard near Davisville holds 5,200 almond trees. Almonds
  4. 1886 Hatch shows his almonds at the Sacramento Citrus Fair and goes on to propagate four of the 192 varieties, Nonpareil among them. Almonds
  5. 1892 G. W. Pierce’s almond orchard near Davis is planted. Almonds
  6. March 1899 Walter G. Read of Colusa tells growers to plant black walnuts and graft English walnuts onto them. Walnuts
  7. May 6, 1910 Growers organize the California Almond Growers Exchange in Sacramento. The Exchange · Almonds
  8. June 1914 The Exchange plans the first almond shelling plant on the Pacific coast, on C Street. The Exchange
  9. September 4, 1915 Esparto holds its first almond festival; 3,000 visitors come from nearby counties. Almonds
  10. September 6, 1915 Arbuckle holds its own almond festival, with an almond hulling contest. Almonds
  11. 1916 to 1918 UC runs almond pollination experiments at the University Farm in Davis and in Pierce’s orchard. Almonds
  12. 1919 UC Bulletin 306 calls for about one hive of bees to an acre of bearing almond orchard. Almonds
  13. 1924 The choice of walnut rootstock has narrowed to the northern California black walnut. Walnuts
  14. 1948 to 1978 UC breeds walnuts at Davis; Chandler comes out of the program. Walnuts
  15. 1980 The Exchange becomes Blue Diamond Growers. The Exchange
  16. 1985 The C Street site becomes California Historical Landmark No. 967. The Exchange
  17. 2007 UC releases the clonal Paradox walnut rootstocks VX211 and RX1. Walnuts
  18. June 2025 Blue Diamond announces it will exit its midtown Sacramento plant and move most manufacturing to Turlock and Salida. The Exchange
  19. 2026 California has 1,385,870 bearing acres of almonds and 382,535 of walnuts. Almonds · Walnuts

Sources

Checked November 7, 2026. Quotes from old newspapers and bulletins keep their spelling.