From the Fields ®
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George Hollister Mendocino County forester My harvest this year is small. I’m continuing to focus on removing Douglas fir from redwood stands. The lumber market is in the tank due to the state of the economy. With high interest rates, people can’t afford to buy new homes or even to remodel. The interest rates have everything to do with the lumber market and the housing industry. The trades are the first to get hit due to the high interest rates. It affects the log market, the mills and everything. I’ve always managed to sell redwood during these times. Right now, I’m not going to be selling much redwood, but I have a commitment on fir logs. It’s not a great price. I get a big economic benefit from getting these trees out of the woods where my redwoods are growing, so that’s a good thing. The Douglas fir prices remain low. It is due to a combination of there not being enough mills and an oversupply of Douglas fir logs. In the Sierra, there’s an oversupply of pine and fir. My wife and I have a diversified income, so we’re going to do OK. With the hot spell, I’m a little concerned about the fire weather that we could get. The tree mortality from a few years ago during the drought took care of the overstocking problem for us to some extent. Mostly all the stands that I operate in, we didn’t end up with a severe situation with the drought. But we certainly had dry weather and dry vegetation. Couple that with low humidity and wind, it’s really a problem. I have good defensible space around my house, but I still need to do a little more work. Every single year it’s a major effort to make sure we’ve got a really good defensible space and we’re prepared for wildfire because we’re surrounded by grass. It is always a concern.
Joe Valente San Joaquin County winegrape and almond grower We grow winegrapes and almonds in San Joaquin County, Sacramento County and Calaveras County. With the hot weather, we want to make sure everything gets irrigated to keep the vines and trees happy. It is hard to predict what outcome the hot weather will have on the crops. In almonds, we’re always concerned about how high tem- peratures may stress the trees. With vines, we tend to irrigate to prepare for the heat. Once it cools down, the vines want to grow, so the heat slows them down maybe a little bit as far as timing of harvest. Last year, there was some heat damage because we had cool weather, and then it spiked to 105 degrees overnight. With the grapes last year, there was some pretty good burn, not only to the fruit but to the leaves. This year, we’ve already had some periods of warmer weather, so hopefully they’re tough enough to get through it. Sometimes, forecasters overpredict the high temperatures, but you’ve got to be prepared for it. Typically, when you hit the high heat, there could be more of a chance for mites to populate. That’s one of the reasons why you want to have enough moisture in the ground to prevent that tree or vine from stressing and then creating mite prob- lems. Like with everything, we have to watch costs. Prevention is a good tool, but if it’s an added cost and you may or may not need it, you have to weigh the benefits. As for our employees, when the temperature reaches 95 degrees, we send people home. For the market, there are a lot of unknowns. You’re not hearing a lot of move- ment about grapes that don’t have a contract or wineries purchasing them. Everything is really quiet, so if you have uncontracted fruit, it’s a waiting game to see if someone will come to the table to buy your product.
Daryn Miller Monterey County vineyard manager and San Luis Obispo County citrus and avocado farmer
It has been hot in southern Monterey County, where some of our vineyards are. It’s not any- thing we haven’t seen, just a little earlier than we usually get with the heat. We started increasing irrigation frequency and durations last week. I think everybody is scrambling to get some longer irrigation events in as we are expecting high evaporative losses through the heat wave. The heat is likely going to have some impact on the size of the crop. The crop is already look- ing lighter, and this might impact that a bit. It will cause more stress on the vines earlier in the season. It will likely speed up ripening for an earlier harvest than last year. Normally, when we get this much heat, it pushes our schedule up. Last year, we didn’t get too many 90- to 95-degree days until maybe August. This year is definitely warmer so far. We have harvested about 40% of our avocado crop. We’re continuing to up our irrigation vol- umes and duration and trying to irrigate more frequently. Main limiting factor is how much water production we have from our wells. We try to get around as much as we can. Using more automation has helped us irrigate the avocados more frequently with shorter dura- tions. When you get over 90 to 95 degrees, you really have to be on it with irrigation frequency. There’s not too much risk to avocados until temps approach 94 degrees or warmer. If anything, it’s go- ing to help size the fruit and get it into the bigger-size curves. The trees will thrive so long as they’re well irrigated. At this point in the season, as long as you’re ahead of the curve on irrigation, we’re not going to be dropping much fruit, and hopefully the newly set fruit sticks on the tree.
4 Ag Alert July 10, 2024
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