Almond Nuts Dry and Hard. Why?

Q. I have a 10 yr. old ‘All-in-One’ almond tree that is healthy and produces an abundance of nuts.  Most of the nuts are not edible because they are dry and hard.  Is this due to the desert conditions here? I have tried picking at different times, boiling and roasting them.  Any suggestions?

Feeding by insects, and sometimes even disease, can cause almonds to not produce a nut.

A. 'All in One' is a good variety of almond for this climate. It is a self-pollinating, semi-dwarf variety introduced from Zaiger Genetics and marketed by Dave Wilson Nursery with good nut production here. Great for a backyard. Although I have to admit I like 'Garden Prince' almond (another almond introduced by Zaiger Genetics) more because of its flower color. The flavor of the nut is the same in my opinion. You can't go wrong with either semi-dwarf tree for backyards.

Something is wrong. Check for damage to the nuts from insects like the leaf footed plant bug. The mama insect can fly in from your neighbors yard around the end of March or early April and start raising her young. It doesn’t take long and she and her brood start feeding by sucking the life out of the nuts as they are developing. This causes the nut to abort leaving a husk that shrivels and dies.

Leaf footed plant bugs require weekly hand picking, a cordless vacuum cleaner or a one-time pesticide application to kill or remove them.

You say you are checking the nuts as they develop but start splitting the husks open in about late March or April. Check the nut development inside the husk and look for these bugs causing damage at the same time. They are normally harvested in Las Vegas in July or August.