CALIFORNIA
Vegetables A SPECIAL GROWERS’ REPORT OF AG ALERT ®
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Artichokes thrive at Monterey County-based Scattini Farms in Castroville. The state’s artichoke acreage has dropped in the past few decades, but farmers are looking to genetics to improve quality and production.
Artichoke farmers use genetics to improve quality By Caitlin Fillmore
Artichoke farming is labor intensive, challenging harvest crews and farmers facing employee shortages. Harvest workers navigate plants that tower over their heads. They evaluate and grade buds that mature at different rates before they chop and separate larger ones destined for premium markets from those headed to secondary markets. The hands-on process, with employees making four to nine passes through a field, is “just the name of the artichoke harvest,” said Mark McLaughlin, president of the Artichoke Research Association. Mike Scattini, a fourth-generation farmer who grows 100 acres of artichokes in Castroville, said it used to be easier to hire farm crews when artichoke harvest happened primarily in winter as opposed to year-yound. Scattini said many people “still want to work in the winter but don’t want to in the summer when there are other crops that are easier (to harvest) for the same amount of money.” To address labor concerns, Scattini hires 15 to 20 agricultural guestworkers each spring, providing housing, paid transportation and guaranteed wage scales under federal H-2A visa program requirements. He said the H-2A visa program helps him “ensure we have the employees.” “You can meet your goals, but it’s not cheap,” he added.
Monterey County is largely known as the Salad Bowl for its agricultural bounty of leafy greens. Yet since 1948, when it honored Marilyn Monroe as California’s first Artichoke Queen, the county has celebrated a petaled thistle plant with meaty hearts that enhance salads and inspire culinary creations. California produces 97% of the nation’s fresh artichokes, and 75% of those are grown in Monterey County. The artichoke is the county’s official vegetable, and tourists flock to restaurants and farm stands along the Artichoke Trail, which opened in 1957. Yet artichoke production on California’s Central Coast has steadily fallen over the past three decades since its peak of 18,000 acres in the 1980s. In 2022, Monterey County farmers grew 4,750 acres of artichokes. This year, acreage dropped to about 4,300, according to the California Artichoke Advisory Board. This is partly due to a transition from perennial artichoke plants to an annual or seeded variety in the 1990s, after a lengthy cold snap killed acres of perennial artichokes in the county. Seeded varieties can be more densely planted and produce a more uniform crop that can be harvested in weeks vs. wilder perennials that require months of harvesting. “(Seeded artichoke) varieties are higher yielding, so you don’t need as much land to get the same yield,” said Michael Cahn, a University of California Cooperative Extension irrigation and water resource advisor in Monterey County.
See ARTICHOKES, Page 11
10 Ag Alert November 29, 2023
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