Lemon farmers hopeful for rebound despite drought
ground wet,” he added. “When you’re irrigating, you’re just targeting the root zone”—in which case a farmer might get water to 25%of the soil. “Any time you can reach...those root zones and get those roots to reach out further, you’re just creating more pos- sibility for water uptake in the tree,” Mauritson said. Without the rain, lemon growers say, the fruit won’t grow as big. “Generally speaking, when you have to try to replace Mother Nature, you’re
going to lose a size to a size and a half,” Teague said. “That’s certainly what’s oc- curring now.” Teagueconsiders size140 tobe thepeak of thebell curve, noting that sizes this year are trending smaller, toward 165 and 200. The numbers refer to the amount of lem- ons needed to fill a standard carton. Somegrowershavehad to resort todefi- cit irrigation, inwhich the object is simply tokeep the treealive through the summer. Mauritson said he’s seen some of this in
ByKevinHecteman Lemons are emerging from a devastat- ing 2020 to find aworld of contradictions. The return of food service, decimated last year by shelter-in-place orders stem- ming from the COVID-19 pandemic, is giving lemon farmers and packing hous- es cause for optimism. But the shortage of water in a state suffering from extreme drought is resulting in smaller lemons, and coastal Santa Ana winds have led to cosmetic issues. “Our season this year is certainly bet- ter than last year, because some things are starting to come back online—food service and restaurants,” said Glenn Miller, president of the Saticoy Lemon Association in Ventura. “We’re seeing some improvement over last year, proba- bly comparable to a couple of years ago— whichwerenot thebest yearsweeverhad, but not too bad.” He estimated food service demand at about 85%to 90%of normal, compared to last year’s range of 30% to 35%of normal. Inaddition,headded, competitionfrom imports—especially from Argentina—is depressing prices. Alex Teague, senior vice president and chief operating officer at Limoneira in Santa Paula, described the beginning of the year as “very depressed, not nec- essarily from production, but from the market standpoint.” “However, as we got to March and ev- erything startedopening, the food service business ricocheted back much quicker than anticipated, which is a nice change after having almost two years of not such good news,” Teague said. “As that came back, the business picked up quite a bit, luckily on our medium and small fruit, whichwas a godsend.” In the absence of rain, many farmers turn to irrigation, but that only goes so far. “Because of the lack of rain, our most recent pick was probably 10 or 15 truck- loads short of what we thought it should be,” said Russell Doty, who grows lemons and avocados with his family in Goleta, west of Santa Barbara. “You can irrigate all you want, but the actual rainstorms, andgetting that into the soil, is going toget your lemons togrowmuchmore than just irrigation.” Rainfall in his area was down about 8 to 10 inches fromaverage. “Even thoughwehada lot of fruit on the tree, the size wasn’t there,” Doty said. He’ll normally have a winter pick in February, a second pick inMay and June, andonemore in September andOctober. “We didn’t get a lot of storms later in the year that would have blown up that second pick for us,” Doty said. Blake Mauritson, who grows lemons near Lemon Cove in Tulare County, said he’s been trying to play catch-up since January onwater. “It has been a very warm spring and summer thus far, which increased de- mands for water that is stretched thin as it is,”Mauritson said.
Mauritson compared the effects of rain vs. irrigation to a sponge. “If you just filled up a part of a sponge, that water doesn’t last as long, but if you fill up the whole sponge, the water travels and it sinks deeper, and it moves laterally more,”Mauritson said. With rainfall, “you get 100% of the
See LEMONS, Page 11
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August 4, 2021 Ag Alert 3
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