Tourism Continued from Page 1
“We figured leaving the roads more open for fire per- sonnel was more important,” Amburgey said. Though business has been slower, she said it’s picked up now that Apple Hill is officially open and the smoke has lifted. “We’re definitely seeing more and more peo- ple,” she said. The fire and smoke impacts come after “aphenomenal year” in 2020, Abel said, when COVID lockdowns had people clamoring for outdoor activities and led to anup- tick in farmvisits, including people coming toAppleHill. Kandi Tuso, who runs Apple Ridge Farms with her husband, Steve, described a similar surge in business last year: “Literally from the day that we opened to the day that we closed, it was nonstop,” she said. “Theywere coming up seven days a week instead of just that tradi- tional weekend time that they came up.” This year, the farm was set to open the weekend be- fore Labor Day, she said, but it was under mandatory evacuation. Now that the fire has moved farther east and the area has “calmed down,” she said, she’s seeing more families come through again. But withHighway 50 toward Lake Tahoe still closed, she noted that tourists traveling fromNevada so far have been “nonexistent.” Johann Smit, owner of Hidden Star Camino, which runs a taproomandbakery and specializes inhard apple ciders, said customers coming from Reno account for nearly 45% of his business. His farm is one of only a few inAppleHill that remains open year-round. He was forced to evacuate for three weeks due to the fires, which caused him to miss Apple Hill’s opening weekend, though he reopened the fol- lowing week. Smit estimated business is down at least 50% for this time of year, when there should be hundreds of people streaming into his taproom. InOctober, visitors typically number in the thousands, he noted.
“We’re open every day, but there’s just nobody here,” Smit said. “We’re not going to have the numbers that we had last year,” which he said was his best year. Kellie Currie of Placerville, who was with her son Colin, daughter London and mother Sandi Cann, said they happened to see that Apple Hill was open when they stopped at a nearby restaurant for lunch. She said she thinks many families that make the annual trip to Apple Hill just haven’t yet come because they still don’t realize much of Highway 50 is open. After they ventured to Apple Hill, Currie said, her children wanted to pick apples. But they were disap- pointed to see the U-pick farm they went to was closed. So they stopped by Larsen Apple Barn, which sells prepicked apples. Farms that allow patrons to pick their own apples have declined at Apple Hill, in large part due to con- cerns about the need for ladders and liability, said Steve Tuso of Apple Ridge Farms. Some farms still offer U-pick berries and lavender earlier in the sea- son, U-pick pumpkins in the fall and choose-and-cut Christmas trees in the winter. To offer U-pick, Tuso said he would need to add staff members to guide customers in the orchard to ensure safety and to prevent damage to trees. With the different varieties of apples in his orchard, he said he also doesn’t want people picking apples that aren’t ready. Scott Larsen, owner of Larsen Apple Barn, said the biggest impact from the fires was from road closures during the last weeks of August when he was harvest- ing pears. Even though tourism has been slower, he said his farmhas remained busy because of his whole- sale business. (Ching Lee is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. She may be contactedat clee@cfbf.com.)
openingweekend. Itwas expected, she said, “because the smoke had been very bad” and parts of Highway 50—the main corridor into AppleHill—were closed. “People still came out, just not as many,” said Terri Robinson, Abel’s daughter. Most Apple Hi l l farms open during Labor Day weekend, and this year was no different. With parts of the region still affected by evacuation orders and warnings, some residents in the community criti- cized the Apple Hill Growers Association for open- ing too soon when evacuees coming home were still trying to get settled. Others voiced concern that heavy traffic from Apple Hill could hinder firefighters and first responders. On its Facebook page, the growers association point- ed out that most its farms were not under evacuation orders, and that the few that were had been downgrad- ed to a warning status as Apple Hill was set to open. The group also said the busy time usually begins in late September, when roads traditionally are heavily trafficked by tourists driving into the Sierra foothills. Nathan Pereau, general manager of Fenton Herriott Vineyards, saidopeningweekendwas “sodead” at Apple Hill that clogged roads were not an issue. “People stayed away anyways, evenmore so,” he said. “Wewent dayswithout seeing people, which is quite rare for this time of the year. Since then, we’re still seeing a down trend.” AtMadronaVineyards, Tammy Amburgey, whoworks in the tasting room, said it closed for two weeks due to warnings of possible evacuations due to the fire. Though therewas no order for people to leave, “we felt it was our duty and responsibility” to not drawpeople into an area that could be evacuated, she said.
CALIFORNIA IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM CIMIS REPORT | www.cimis.water.ca.gov
For the week September 9 - September 15, 2021 ETO (INCHES/WEEK)
YEAR
3.0
THIS YEAR
2.5
LAST YEAR AVERAGE YEAR
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
MACDOEL II (236)
BIGGS (244)
DAVIS (06)
MANTECA (70)
FRESNO (80)
SALINAS-SOUTH (214)
FIVE POINTS (2)
SHAFTER (5)
TEMECULA (62)
IMPERIAL (87)
THIS YEAR LAST YEAR AVG. YEAR % FROM AVG.
1.10 1.30 1.13 -2
1.23 .77 1.15 7
1.64 1.09 1.51 8
1.71 1.24 1.37 24
1.39 .87 1.25 11
1.37 .94 1.36 1
1.59 .79 1.37 16
1.10 .63 1.05 4
1.27 1.18 1.22 4
1.92 1.74 1.68 14
W eekly reference evapotranspiration (ETo) is the rate of water use (evapotranspiration—the sum of soil evaporation and crop transpiration) for healthy pasture grass. Multiplying ETo by the appropriate “crop coefficient” gives estimates of the ET for other crops. For example, assume ETo on June 15 is 0.267 inches and the crop coefficient for corn on that day is 1.1. Multiplying ETo by the coefficient (0.26 inches x 1.1) results in a corn ET of 0.29 inches. This
information is useful in determining the amount and timing of irriga- tion water. Contact Richard Snyder, UC Davis, for information on coefficients, 530-752-4628. The 10 graphs provide weekly ETo rates for selected areas for average year, last year and this year. The ETo information is provided by the California Irrigation Management Information System (CIMIS) of the California Department of Water Resources.
For information contact the DWR district office or DWR state headquarters:
SACRAMENTO HEADQUARTERS: 916-651-9679 • 916-651-7218
NORTHERN REGION: Red Bluff 530-529-7301
NORTH CENTRAL REGION: West Sacramento 916-376-9630
SOUTH CENTRAL REGION:
SOUTHERN REGION:
Fresno 559-230-3334
Glendale 818-500-1645 x247 or x243
September 22, 2021 Ag Alert 15
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