From The Fields ®
From the Fields is a firsthand report featuring insights from farmers and ranchers across the Golden State, including members of the California Farm Bureau. If you would like to be a contributor to From the Fields, submit your name, county of membership and contact information to agalert@cfbf.com.
Photo/Ching Lee
Ag Alert file photo
Domenic Carinalli Sonoma County winegrape grower and organic dairy farmer
Paul Sanguinetti San Joaquin County farmer
For the winegrapes, we grow pinot, chardonnay and pinot grigio. We got done harvesting for the year about two weeks ago. Everything went well. We had a dif- ferent harvesting season with the rain and the heat, so we had to work through it with the wineries and pickers. Everybody was very cooperative, and it went very well. The grapes were off just a little bit from my average, but we had a nice crop, and the quality was excellent. The dairy business is tough. We’re just trying to survive. I’m not milking that many cows, but we’re trying to hang on. We’ve had about three dairies go out of business here in Sonoma County in the last few weeks. With the dairy industry, once you go out, you’ll never go back again. It’s kind of a different world. The costs are just so high. It’s crazy. The cost of everything is up. The cost of hay and grains is up, and I’m sure a lot has to do with the war in Ukraine because they have a huge amount of grain. It goes all over the world, and that’s been basically stopped. We’re getting hay from Nevada and ev- erywhere; it’s almost like gold. Our prices are decent, but under these conditions, there’s just not a lot of money. It’s just a matter of trying to hang on right now. The tertiary-treated water that we get from the city of Santa Rosa came to an end last week. The city finally got their ponds down where they want them, but we’re basically done irrigating anyway. We’ve got some pasture that we’d like to irrigate, but right now, that’s not going to happen. It’s the end of the season.
We just finished harvesting tomatoes. Now that the tomatoes have been harvest- ed, we’ve got to chop the vines, and we’ve got to work up the ground and get it in shape. We’ve got to go through the walnut varieties that we’ve harvested already. We’ve still got Chandlers and a little block of Tulares that we have yet to harvest. We’ve got some dead wood that fell out the trees, so we’ve got to chop that. Then, we’ve got some lime to spread on a couple of fields that need to be treated. We’ve got to strip spray them and give them a little shot of water. The boys finished harvesting the almonds, so they are all done. Frost from early this year affected the boys’ almonds, and the crop was really light because of it. With the drip irrigation, if you turn the drip on, I don’t know if it really does any good, so they may have to go to some microsprinklers or something. As far as the walnuts, frost didn’t hurt anything like it did last year. Last year, the walnuts got hurt from the frost, but we didn’t have any problem this year. We’re working some ground for next year, trying to get it worked up for toma- toes and probably some silage corn. I might have some garbanzos, but it just de- pends on what the weather does and if it rains. Part of this ranch relies on surface water, and when I don’t have enough rain and enough surface water, I have to use deep wells to irrigate. We’re just paying bills and hoping to collect some money. Fuel or the off-road, red- dye diesel is about $5 a gallon right now. A few years ago, it got down to below $2.
Jocelyn Anderson Glenn County walnut and almond grower
Walnut harvest has been very busy since we began in late September. North coun- ties had a later start due to rain in the fields and having to wait for fields to dry out. Harvest has been nonstop since then. In the order that they are harvested, we grow Gillet, Howard, Hartley and Chandler walnut varieties. The walnut crop is decent this year, but it would be larger if there were fewer impacts from the high temperatures. The heat waves that affected the state during the summer really took a toll this year. It is too early to know the figures on total crop damage from heat, but we will have a better understanding after harvest when numbers are finalized. Periods of high heat damage the trees by causing them to stress, resulting in burnt (black) and shriveled walnuts, blanks and overall lower yield. We are seeing grades come back with a good range of light-colored kernels overall. Defects have been minimal. At the walnut huller, we are working our way through the Chandlers and have a few more weeks to go be- fore harvest is complete. We expect to wrap up harvest by Oct. 22, since there could be more rain in the forecast, and we’d like to get the nuts off of the trees by then. Related to our almonds, we wrapped up harvest in mid-September. Due to the damage to the trees caused during periods of frost this year, we saw a 10%-50% decline in production amongst fields depending on the area and how hard they were hit by frost.
Ag Alert file photo
4 Ag Alert October 19, 2022
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