SACRAMENTO — Expectations for a record almond crop this year continue to rise, and shipments are keeping pace with production.

Growers in California should expect to harvest 2.25 billion meat pounds this year, a more than 5 percent increase from the 2016 production of 2.14 billion meat pounds, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

The harvest will begin as the industry caps off a big shipping year at the end of July. Domestic shipments and exports are up 14 percent and 17 percent, respectively, for the 2016-17 crop year that finishes this month, according to the Almond Board of California. U.S. shipments in June were up 22 percent from last year, the board reported.

“We expect we’ll have a record shipment year,” board president and chief executive officer Richard Waycott told the Capital Press. “We’ll reach the end of this month with over 2 billion pounds shipped for the first time in history. All regions of the world have increased their consumption.”

NASS’ latest production estimate, published July 6, is more than 2 percent higher than the agency’s subjective forecast in May. The apparent bumper crop is fueled more by new plantings rather than an abundance of nuts on trees.

The average nut set per tree this year is 5,714, down 7.2 percent from the 2016 crop, reports the NASS office in Sacramento. But bearing acreage is expected to reach the 1 million mark this year, up from 940,000 acres in 2016, according to NASS.

“In general I would say that the crop is pretty good,” said Dani Lightle, a University of California Cooperative Extension orchard systems adviser in Orland. “There’s certainly some orchards that hit the weather wrong with the bloom so they’re a little lighter.”

The next task for growers is to prevent damage from heat, as Central Valley temperatures have soared well into the triple digits for a couple of stretches this summer. But so far, “most orchards are doing OK,” Lightle said.

Winter storms and cold weather extended the bloom in February and March, as significant rains caused some bee boxes to rest in standing water and made spray applications more difficult.

Nonpareils — one of the earliest and most popular varieties — recorded all of 29 “bee hours”, Lightle said. But that was apparently enough to improve Nonpareils’ nut set from last year. This year’s average set is 5,717, up 2.4 percent from 2016, according to NASS.

The growth comes as the industry is still recovering from a price slide that began in late 2015, as prices fell by nearly half from the more than $4 a pound that was paid for some almonds during the 2014 crop year.

However, almond production has remained profitable despite the slide, UCCE adviser Roger Duncan has said.

Prices have stabilized in recent months as global demand remains healthy, growers say. And the Almond Board wants to keep it that way.

The board recently received the USDA’s permission to raise the grower assessment from 3 cents to 4 cents per pound to boost marketing efforts in anticipation of a 25 percent increase in production over the next three years as all the new trees begin bearing nuts.

Last month, the board announced an initiative with actress Anna Camp to promote almonds as a healthy energy food in the afternoon. Other efforts include reigniting a program in Japan, targeting men in Canada, increasing funding for an advertising campaign in Europe and looking for new opportunities in Mexico.

With all these efforts and with consumption increasing, Waycott said he isn’t concerned about production outpacing demand.

“Demand is good,” he said, “and we expect that the supply-and-demand relationship will remain in good shape.”