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/Cody Wirz
Photo/Caleb Hampton
Pat Wirz San Benito County winegrape grower and cattle rancher
Tom Slater Yolo County winegrape and field crop farmer
In January, we had some wheat underwater from the heavy rainfall. We lost a little bit, but it has turned out better than we hoped. We had a record number of inches of rain, and for everything to look this good, I think we’re pretty lucky. In the vineyards, it’s been a late year in terms of starting our tractors because of the wet ground. We need the tractors to get in and disk the weeds and do some mechanical pruning. Things are a little further behind than in years past, but we’re catching up. It’s still a little early to predict crops. But for the most part, everything looks good. We haven’t had any frost. It was a year ago, April 12, when we had the major frost in the delta, Lodi and the foothills. We have escaped that to date. I think I’m safe in saying grape prices have not kept up with the cost of managing a vineyard—not just the development of a vineyard, but the day-to-day cost of raising the commodity. You look at planting a vineyard as a 25-year investment, but we are seeing diseases come in and disrupt that cycle, so all of a sudden, you’ve lost the vineyard before it has paid itself off. Most people believe (grape prices) should be much higher. The cost of labor has soared. We use labor contractors a lot, as do most grape producers, and we’ve been able to get by. Some of that is due to new mechani- cal equipment. More of that is needed to be able to move forward. Our California Association of Winegrape Growers is working very hard to try to get the Legislature and regulators to assist us with tractor automation. We really believe more money for mechanization will save this industry.
On winegrapes, we’re spraying our first round of sulfur for mildew protection. Our buds are just starting to break. They’re just opening up with about an inch and a half shoots. With all the nice rain that we had this year, everything’s coming out, and ev- erything’s pushing real hard. They’re saying we might get a cold front coming in this week. I’m a little bit concerned about frost damage, but I hope we can get by without getting a frost. Sometimes when we get those cold fronts the first of May or end of April, we will get dinged a little bit with frost because I’m in the Cienega Valley in San Benito County, and we’re about a thousand feet. We’re kind of a sheltered valley, so if there’s any cold air, it’ll sometimes affect us. As far as the cattle, the feed is just fantastic this year. We’ve got probably more feed this year than we’ve had for several years. Our normal rainfall is about 16 inches. This year we had 33 inches. We had a storm about the 10th of March, and we got 4 inches of rain overnight. The soil was so dry going into this winter that it soaked so much up. We’ve got a couple of reservoirs on one of our leased cattle pasture. All of our reservoirs are full this year and spilled over for the first time in probably four or five years. It’s what California needed. At least where we’re at, if we didn’t have this kind of a year, I’m afraid we would’ve been in pretty bad shape. Everything was so dry last year that it was getting pretty serious. I haven’t sold or shipped any of my calves yet, but I understand the price is pretty good because there’s a demand for cattle this year.
Greg Tesch Kern County farmer
We’re beginning lilac harvest. We’re one of the very few people in California that grow cut flowers anymore. We grow some in the southern valley near the Lamont area. We started 10 days later. There’ll be about a two-week season. Most of our lilac cut flowers end up in the grocery store distribution. Trader Joe’s is a heavy distributor of what we grow. The crop currently looks good, with no frost damage. We’re about to start cherries this week. Ripening cherries cause rain, and that seems to be every year right when we’re about to start harvest. We see a little bitty rainstorm on the forecast. For me, the cherry crop looks early. For the rest of the industry, it’s slightly later. Cherries, in general, are late by around two weeks. Some are late by three weeks. I’m on the front end of the lateness. We picked April 18 last year, so we’ll be exactly two weeks late. Everyone else is most likely in the same category from where they started last year. The very cold spring helped tremendously on the chilling, but it also delayed develop- ment of the fruit. We thought the crop, in general, was going to be light, but we actually have a variety that sets very well. It looks like the crop might have some periods of heavi- ness and lightness. We think that certain varieties might bunch up and have peaks and valleys as far as availability. We think the crop will be, in general, good, with some light pe- riods and some heavy periods, depending on the varieties, through the California season. Peaches appear to be a lighter than normal crop as far as the southern valley. It’s start- ing later by approximately two to three weeks.
Photo/Cecilia Parsons
4 Ag Alert May 3, 2023
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