ment of the forest is going to have to happen for safety reasons. We have communities right now that are in incredible jeopardy. We’ve got a little bit of rain, which could help, but we could still lose towns. It’s one thing to have some fires out in the woods, but when we’re losing whole communities, we need to say this is enough and come up with ways to manage forests more actively. Brian Fedora ColusaCountywalnut farmer The long days
of drought. As we move into harvest, we be- gin to plan for next year. That is also proving to be more difficult than usual, as we don’t know how much water we will have. More than ever, California needs to move forward with more water storage and a new and improved plan for water deliveries. If we want to have more people in this state and continue to farm, we need to improve the infrastructure that we already have. Denise Godfrey SanDiegoCounty nursery producer It has been a good year so far. This sentiment
demand happened organically. On the whole, this year is shaping up to be better than last year. With a lot of production coming on, we are hoping ev- erybody’s appetite is still pretty good for plants in the fall. At the start of the pandemic, everyone was just trying to get their hands on any kind of foliage. Lately, we have seen con- sumers starting to become more selective about the plants they buy. I think that’s going to continue in the spring. We are always trying new varieties, so we can continue to focus on providing durable and interesting houseplants. Along with many other operations, raw-material costs and labor availability are a couple of the biggest challenges we have seen over the last year. This did prompt a mid-year price increase. We continue to focus on how to use our re- sources more efficiently. Doug Dickson SacramentoCounty pear grower Both Bosc and Bartlett bloomed simultaneously this year. We didn’t have a lot of blight pres-
We finished Bartletts on July 29. We fin- ished Bosc on Aug. 14. Timing of irrigation was essential this year to get fruit to size, so we spent a lot of time measuring soil moisture. We irrigated probably more this year than we had in previous years because of the drought. This ranch has been farmed since the 1880s, so we have senior water rights, and we kept the water going as the fruit was sizing. The Bosc responded well to irrigating. Both vari- eties sized pretty well in June. The yields on Bartletts were pretty good. We had a record crop on the Bosc this year. As usual, the market during the first part of harvest is always the best and deterio- rates very quickly once we get into harvest. We’re all trying to get fruit to size and hit the market early, and oftentimes it’s difficult. You want to wait for more size and for the fruit to mature, so you get a bigger crop. But if the market drops in half, it didn’t do you any good. One of the reasons a lot of stuff didn’t get picked this year is if you didn’t get water on it, there were some sizing issues. We didn’t see that on this orchard, but there’s quite a bit of stuff that didn’t get picked around here because they just didn’t size. If you’re late and you’ve got smaller fruit, there’s no market for it anymore. Labor was way better than last year. Many days last year we didn’t have any pickers come. This year was pretty stable. We had some inexperienced pickers that were not doing very well, and we had to make some changes, but the labor contrac- tors had decent crews.
of bringing in the crops is here. The walnut crop looks average at this time. However, you never really know until we get the crop into the
was echoed at Cultivate in Columbus, Ohio this July. Everyone has been selling lots of plants, both
dryer. Most farmers have a love-hate rela- tionship with harvest. While every farmer and rancher wants to know how good or bad the yield will be, we also dread seeing grade sheets and price estimates. But I am hearing the price will be up from last year, so that is always a good thing. The cost of everything has gone up—fuel, labor, insurance, chemicals and more. Added to all our normal worries is still COVID and keeping employees safe. Can we manage harvest without anyone on the crew getting sick? There is no doubt that farming has always been tough, but it sure isn’t getting any easier. We have also struggled with how to keep all the crops irrigated through this summer
color and foliage. At Cultivate, there was a lot of consumer/ customer interest in what’s happening with foliage right now. Everyone was excited to see a younger generation becoming inter- ested in plants. The growing interest in foliage started a couple of years ago but took off during the pandemic as a lot of new people began starting plant collections once they were home more. It is still amazing to see all the Instagram posts highlighting favorite plants and un- usual finds. There has been a lot of talk over the last two decades about engaging with younger generations. However, this latest
sure and insect pressure. With the early bloom,
Bartlett sized well in June. We started fresh-market Bartletts on July 12, which was two weeks earlier than last year. We’re completely finished with harvest.
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September 15, 2021 Ag Alert 5
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