Kulwant Johl Yuba County tree crop farmer
some extra water. We have to work to- gether to try to get through the year, and then see what happens next year. There’s a lot growers that are making decisions about what to do. They’re in survival mode, doing deficit irrigation, meaning putting half of what the tree is requiring, if they have it. There’ll be a lot of insurance claims. There’s a lot of ranches I know that are going on the mar- ket right now, because guys are done.
be thinning in two to three weeks, and most farmers are worried about the labor. Another thing is the prices. Walnut price is down, almond price is down, same as with prunes. That’s another concern farmers are having. We’ve got a shortage of water, too. If you’re pumping from the ground, you’re still OK in this area, but if you are on district water, they’re putting limits on it. In one area, they are giv- ing only 5% of water, so you cannot grow a crop. It’s a big cut for the rice farmers, too; they are not getting the water, so we’re going to get cut in the rice acreage. They are starting to work the ground now, and they’ll be planting pretty soon. Greg Meyers Fresno County tree crop farmer Overall, I think things are
bring the pH down a little. I’m going to start spraying miticide, some foliar nu- trient and treat for navel orangeworm. The pistachios we have in Mendota look real good. They’re leafing out pretty nice. I saw some other orchards a little bit farther to the west up along the I-5 corridor where the leafing and the bud push is a little more erratic, similar to what happened last year. People are still trying to figure out why that is. Maybe it’s chill hours. But our stuff in Mendota looks pretty uniform, and we’re putting a fungicide on and some foliars. The olives, which are for organic oil, are just now starting to bloom. I’ve got my little cherry block up here. The last three years, I had really, really good crops. The year before that, I got rain and the cherries split, so my pack- out was pretty low. This year, I’ve got a very, very light crop. It was a long bloom. Generally, when you have a long bloom like that, it tends to be a little bit light, which is what happened to me. They’re sizing now. I think the biggest thing going on right now on the Westside is the lack of water. I’m in a unique situation, because I’ve got the water bank that we built over the last 15 years, so I’ve got water stored in my bank and I am able to exchange it with Mendota pool water users and move their water that they have up in the reservoir into my water district, and that’s how I’m able to continue to farm. I’m trying to assist my water district with
We had a good
bloom and got a good crop of peaches. We’ll be thinning peaches in prob- ably two to three weeks. We’ve got a very heavy
John Moore III Kern County farmer
crop of peaches. We’ll be hand-thinning walnuts this year, because we had good weather. We didn’t have to spray for walnut blight—un- less the weather changes. If rain is pre- dicted, then we’ll be spraying walnuts for walnut blight. Because of the heavy prune crop, we will be spraying with potassium nitrate. Same thing with the almonds; we’ll have to put fertilizer and keep up with the irrigation on all these crops, because weather is warming up. We will be monitoring the insects in peaches, walnuts and almonds. We start- ed monitoring for Oriental fruit moth back in March. Same thing with the codling moth for walnuts. It depends on the popu- lation in the orchard. It’s still a little too early, but I think we’ve got a good crop of prunes. We’ve got a pretty decent almond crop. It’s not like last year; last year was very heavy. We pruned peaches and prunes back in January and February, and labor was short. Labor still is pretty short. We will
We are getting
ready to enter potato harvest and carrot harvest for our spring crop. Potato harvest will begin in the south valley
starting in the beginning of May. You’re going to see harvest of additional root vegetables including sweet potatoes and then, later, onions and tomatoes. For our citrus, about 75% of petal fall occurred for Kern County, so citrus is coming along pretty well. The same with almonds. Almonds are looking pretty good. From driving around, it looks like the almond crop is pretty full this year. We’re not yet sure where the pistachios are go- ing to end up, but it’s supposed to be an “off” year for the pistachio crop for some. We are dry. We are like the rest of the state of California; it’s been a dry season.
moving along quite well. I’m pretty happy with the al- mond crop that I’ve got on my ranch, com-
pared to last year. Right now, they’re going through what’s called a nut fill. The gel, which would be the almond inside the hole, is sizing. In May, we’ll start to see that gel start to fill in and turn to kernel. We’re doing our nitro- gen program, putting some potassium out and doing a little sulfuric acid to
April 21, 2021 Ag Alert 5
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