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this year, becausewe can’t afford to do it.” Shutting down the vineyard, of course, is not an option, Spinetta noted. “We still have to use crop-care materials,” he said. “We still have to water the vines. We still have to take care of these crops.” Olagarywill beonwatch formildewand mealybug issues. Two things hemayneed less of: water and fertilizer. “Since we don’t have the grapes, (the vines) can survive without fertility, which is a good thing since the fertilizer this year is quite expensive,” Olagary said. As to irrigation, Olagary added, “we’re going to water a little bit less in the be- ginning, because there isn’t any canopy growth, but as the leaves and shoots start growing, thenwe’ll bump up thewater.” Ben Kolber, who has affected grape- vines west of Lodi and in the Isleton area, is farmingwith the 2023 harvest inmind. “It’s a hard situation to be in, because we’re farming not only on whatever’s left for this year for our crop, our residual crop for thisyear, but alsoweareconstitutingon growing strong wood for next year, so we canhave a crop for next year,” Kolber said. “We can’t really do much differently,” Kolber said. “Westill have tokeepontruck- ing here.” (Kevin Hecteman is an assistant ed- itor of Ag Alert. He may be contacted at khecteman@cfbf.com.)
I don’t see that happening.” Winegrape growers on the valley floor and in the foothills east and southeast of Sacramento are reporting significant losses of their 2022 crops. Amador and Calaveras counties have sent requests for disasterdeclarations to thestate, andmore may be in theworks. Jim Spinetta, a Plymouth winegrape grower and president of the Amador County Farm Bureau, said the frost was theworst he’d seen since the 1980s. “It wasn’t necessarily the temperature; itwas the time,” saidSpinetta,whosecrops endured four hours at 26-27 degrees. Amador County winegrape farmer Jay Wilderotter said the point of concern on the thermometer is in the high 30s. “The coldest part of the day is sunrise,” Wilderotter said. “If it’s 35, 36 degrees at 2 o’clock in the morning, you’re going to have some problems.” Wilderotter, who grows about 20 differ- ent winegrape varietals, said this frost was different frommost. “Most of the time, the frost would just settle on the ground, but this was a pretty deep layer of cold air,”Wilderotter said. “It just wiped out everything.” Spinetta said thiswas anadvective frost, brought by amass of cold air and freezing temperatures fromtheGulf of Alaska. “Windmachines did not make a differ- ence in this type of an advective frost and at those temperatures for that amount of time,” Spinetta said. “The problem is that there’s actual vascular damage in our plants and on our ranch.” That means the 2023 vintage is in trou- ble, Spinetta said. “On all of our vines,” he said, “the spurs have damage. This is not just the bud; this is next year’s crop. We have to retrain all these vines to bring up a new spur. It’s just going tobe amess this year andnext year.” In Thornton, Olagary said, “we had a couple helicopters flying out here to push downwarmair, and it seemed like that did not helpat all this time.”He’s done this be- fore,withsomesuccess, but thisyear’scold air was too deep. Ama d o r Co u n t y A g r i c u l t u r a l Commissioner Eric Mayberry reported the average crop loss at 60%. A third of the grape and walnut growers his office surveyed reported a complete loss for the season, he noted. In Calaveras County, Agricultural Commissioner Jesse Fowler reported an average of 60%damage towinegrapes. TimPelican, San Joaquin County’s ag- ricultural commissioner, said damage levels in his county likely won’t meet the 30% threshold for a disaster request, but because his county borders others that have declared disasters, San Joaquin County farmers can takeadvantageofU.S. Department of Agriculture programs for farmerswho losecrops toadverseweather. Pelicanhas already filed a disaster-dec- laration request for the county’s cherry crop, after the late-February frost caused about a 50% crop loss. Rain and hail just after Eastermay have been a backbreaker.
Frost damage was widespread, hitting vineyards hard in Amador County, above, and in San Joaquin County, right.
Photo/Kevin Hecteman
“Sincewe’realreadygoing tohavea light crop, depending on how much damage there is, some of the cropmay just not get harvested,” Pelican said. Mayberrysaidthatwhilecrop insurance andUSDA programs can help, they won’t make the farmer whole. Crop insurance doesnot cover100%of a farmer’s losses, he pointed out, and USDA assistance comes in the formof low-interest loans. “Any dollar they get is going to have to bepaidbackwith interest,”Mayberry said. “It’s not like they’re getting freemoney.” Wilderotter said there isn’t muchmore to do than “wait till next year.”
“Some plants will put out a secondary shoot and put out some grapes,” he said. “But usually it’s theprimary shoot that has your prime grapes on that gets knocked down. There’s not awhole lot you cando.” Spinettasaidwinerieswillbescrambling for grapes this year, thanks to the frost and the likelihood that harvesting remaining grapes won’t pencil out formany people. “Let’s say that I have 40% of my crop out there,” Spinetta said. “A crew isn’t going to want to go out there and pick a 40% crop. I have to pay double or triple what the going rate is, and then it’s un- profitable to go out there and harvest. A lot of vineyards are going to go unpicked
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10 Ag Alert May 4, 2022
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