From the Fields ®
Jeff Colombini San Joaquin County cherry and apple grower It’s just been a goofy year because it was so warm in February and March, and everything bloomed early. Now we’re getting all this rain. One of the crops I grow is cherries, and the rain we got last month did some damage to them. They’re still harvestable, but we’re going to have a higher per- centage of off-grade than normal. When it rains, the cherries are accumulating sugars. The skin is permeable, so the cherries absorb the rainwater. Because the rainwater is pure and the cherries already contain sugars and water, they absorb more moisture through osmosis. As that happens, the cherries start to swell, and the skin can only stretch so much. After absorbing too much mois- ture, the skin will split open. Once they split, they become off-grade because they’ll rot within a few days. I also grow walnuts, so that means we have to spray again for walnut blight. I also grow apples, and I would say it’s a possibility that the crop is going to be a little smaller than normal. The crop load on the trees looks lighter. At this stage, the apple skin is very tender, so any amount of hail can ruin the apples. We didn’t get any hail here that I know of, but I’ll be able to tell if there was any. We grow several varieties of apples. We grow Galas, and we start harvesting those around the last week of July, around the 25th, and that takes a few weeks to harvest. From there, we move into Fuji and Granny Smith, and then we finish up with Pink Ladies, which we don’t start harvesting until mid-October. It’s a fairly drawn-out season that goes from the end of July to the first part of November. Between the early bloom, the rain and the added pressure from disease and crop-quality issues, this year has been unusual. It’s created more work, more cost and more uncertainty across multiple crops at once.
Stuart Mast Calaveras County vintner
We’re just about 10 days into bud break. We’re getting some rain on the vines, but that’s not hurting them as long as we don’t get a freeze. That’s what we worry about this time of year. In all the years I’ve been growing grapes, there’s only been one year—2022—that I had to turn it into the insurance company because of a freeze. Usually in March, a crew prunes back the growth from the previous year and does some vine training and tying. In late April, the new growth starts coming out of the buds on the vines. That’s what bud break is—the new growth coming out of the buds. Our biggest enemy in the vineyard is powdery mildew. We aren’t certified organic, but we’ve always farmed organically, and that limits what products you can use. Mostly what we’re using is sulfur. We spray the vines beginning now and as often as at least every 21 days. We’ll be spraying the vineyard with sulfur to keep mildew at bay. If we get wildfire smoke, that diminishes the quality of the crop. The smoke ab- sorbs into the skins of the fruit. We just had a local event with all the participat- ing wineries in the Murphys area. It’s called Spring Wine Weekend. That kicks things off for us. The fortunate thing about our location is we are surrounded by second home- owners. This year, we’re doing better than ever, which is really good news. We don’t depend on a lot of outside sales. Most of our sales are through the tasting room and during events, so we’re in a good position here. We also have camp- sites on the property and music events. We’re gearing up for the concert series. There are a lot of little details that have to be in place to put on the concerts, and that’s what we’re concentrating on right now.
Loren Poncia Marin County rancher
Prices are extraordinarily high—record book prices—for cattle and for sheep, so that’s a good thing. In March, it looked like it was going to be a dry year and we were going to have an end to the season. But we got 4 inches of rain in April, which is going to extend the season out to June. We were thinking that it was going to be really bad, but the timing was right, and we got some nice rain. It’s going to be a good grass season. Basically, the first rain is the most important, and the last rain is the most important. So, we want rain in October, and we want rain in May or close to May. And we’ve had a wet April, so we are probably going to have green grass up until the end of June. The cattle market has never been this high, so that’s good for ranchers. I’m a rancher, but I’m also a meat company, so we buy a lot of cattle, and it’s hard for consumers and meat companies. But we’re double-dipping. We have high-priced cattle and high-priced meat right now. Traditionally, it’s a good thing when we raise the cattle and we market the cattle because most ranchers are price takers, and we can build in our margin on the meat. But it’s hard when the price of cattle is so high to sell meat at a good margin, so we’re struggling on the meat side, and we’re doing good on the cattle side. Capital is high. The interest rates on operating loans are high compared to five years ago. The cost of doing business in California is extremely high. It’s affecting our bottom line. We have about 20 employees between the meat company and the ranching company. We’re trying to be as efficient as possible with labor and trying to do everything with the people that we have.
4 Ag Alert May 6, 2026
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