Insights from farmers and ranchers across the Golden State, including members of the California Farm Bureau.
Gino Pedretti III Merced County farmer
We are starting a second irrigation in our cotton. About 60% of our acreage is pima, and 40% is Hazera cotton, a hybrid of pima and acala. The variety gets the yield of acala and close to a pima price. It is a non-GMO, so we can’t spray Roundup, so guys use it selectively depending on weed pressure. Lygus pressure has been heavy, but not as bad as last year, which was the worst lygus year we had in 20 years. With the rain, there are more weeds and native grass- es, and when they dry up, they’re hosts to lygus. In wet years, the problem is worse. We planted corn silage in early June, and we finished our first irrigation. The crop looks good. We’re in between cuttings of alfalfa. We’re on our five-week cycle to let it head out and recharge the roots. Yields have been good on alfalfa, but the quality tests have been a little lower than we’d like. As with all crops, we’re worried about what the days of high heat are going to do. We are trying to keep everything wet. At our dairy, we checked the cooling systems and are prepared. I’m worried about the nighttime temperatures. When it stays above 70 degrees at night, the cows don’t have a chance to recover during the eve- ning, so that’s when we lose production. For our beef cows, we’re vaccinating and doing supplemental feeding. We have some irrigated pasture. The beef price is good. We are hoping with the market being high that bull prices will come up because our main goal is to sell breeding stock to commercial cattlemen. With the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, we’re trying to run our wells as little as possible. We installed almost a mile of pipeline this winter to bring more surface water to other parts of the ranch. We are trying to get more dependent on surface water and cut back on well usage.
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July 10, 2024 Ag Alert 5
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