From the Fields ® IRRIGATION EDITION
Sponsored by:
Ray Yeung Yolo County farmer
Kyle Harmon Monterey County vegetable grower
The processing tomato company Morning Star developed a system called Gradient for irrigating their tomatoes. We use it on our tomatoes. It takes pic- tures of the plant, and it uses some kind of algorithm to measure the plant’s health and how much water it needs. It reads how much moisture is coming off the plant, and it uses all kinds of complicated mathematical formulas for when you should irrigate. It’s a total game changer because a lot of times when you use a moisture me- ter, it may say the soil is wet, but the plants still need water. This thing is amazing because it goes in the soil, and it has a camera that takes a picture of the plant, and it figures out whether the plant needs water. It’s unbelievable because we have fields that we haven’t given a drop of water. There’s another product called Skeepon made by Ac-Planta out of Japan that prevents transplant shock and heat damage. We’ve been using it since last year. I’m always willing to try something because you just never know. When I first tried it, I waited for the absolute hottest day of the year to plant the tomatoes, and amazingly, they survived. We’re working with it again this year. You apply the material, which is like vinegar, to the transplant at the green- house. You mix it with water and spray it over the top of the plant, and then you can put another application on before you plant. It makes the plant more resil- ient to heat. I’m so excited about this. That’s why I jumped on board because every other product out there tries to change the environment for the plant. This is the only product that changes the plant for the environment. Because of this product, we’re probably the only guys in the state planting to- matoes in this heat because no one else is willing to take the risk. They’re afraid the plants are going to burn.
We grow 38 different commodities throughout the Salinas Valley. Eighty- percent are organic, and 20% are conventional. We have another 2,000 acres of organic crops in the Imperial Valley. We are mostly sprinkler irrigation. Within the last year and a half, we have expanded our drip irrigation practices. We are using more buried drip instead of surface drip tape. We’re doing drip germination on romaine, iceberg, and our red and green leaf lettuces, both conventionally and organically. We’re seeing a reduced input on water, less weeds and better germination uniformity. There is definitely some labor savings. Once we put the drip tape in place, it is there throughout the crop cycle, and we’re not having to go through and check sprinklers. In the desert, we still do some furrow irrigation, which is pretty typical. But even in the desert, we are expanding our drip tape impact both for uniformity distribution and for water savings. In the desert, we’re seeing a 40% water savings by doing drip tape compared to our traditional irrigation practices. We are planting and harvesting. We’re finishing our first round of crops in the Salinas Valley and are getting ready to start our second round. Back in November, we used some drip tape, but because we have Mother Nature on our side, we don’t tend to use much drip tape because we rely somewhat on rainfall. We use recycled drip tape, the ReGen brand from Netafim. It’s made from 50% recycled drip tape from the previous seasons. All the drip tape we use is picked up and recycled. They have a regenerative certification program for growers that use the recycled program. The markets are a little soft this season, both for conventional and organic. We are seeing that lettuce and celery have some strong demand, but our other commodities are a little slow to move. I don’t know what the cause of that is. I think that’s the golden question.
Jim Morris Siskiyou County rancher and farmer
We are a cow-calf operation and a sheep operation producing lambs for sale. Cattle prices are at unheard of numbers right now. Prices are off the charts, so I don’t know how sustainable it is, but cow guys are smiling. Lamb prices are fair, and there’s no market at all for wool. We also grow forage crops and hay crops for retail. We’re within a week or two of cutting hay. We’re exploring the world of seed crops—grass seed and vegetable seed. These crops allow us to grow using a little less water because our water is very regulated in Scott Valley and Shasta Valley. Until very recently, we were under an emergency declaration for drought, and this was at the same time that our county had issued an emergency declaration for flooding, which is a bit of a conundrum. The state has tried to deal with the situation by just perpetuating the regulation that we had during the drought through legislation. We have tons of water in the river, and it’s leaving to the ocean, so adding more storage would be valuable. We are doing groundwater recharge research, and the results at this point look very promis- ing that we can store wet-season water when the river is high. There is plenty of water, so we think the water year should be fine, but we don’t know if the state is going to shut us down. The state has asked us to write a local cooperative solution that shows how we’re going to cut our irrigation by 30% under 2020 levels. It’s tough to do, but that is why I am looking at water conservation crops. The local cooperative solution program is like an insurance policy that we start paying the premium right up front and we cut our irrigation by 30%—even if we find out later there was plenty of water. We’re going to remain optimistic that we will find a way through this water situation.
4 Ag Alert May 21, 2025
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