From the Fields^®

From a weather perspective, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we experienced consistently cold temperatures. All the early vegetables were affected. We had minimal growth in everything—alfalfa, vegetables—it almost stopped.

Vegetable prices reflected the limited supplies. We saw very strong prices. Then right about Christmas, the weather turned and temperatures have been above average for the past couple of weeks. Things are growing more normally and I'm encouraged by the quality I see in the fields.

We've got lots of sunshine.

The prices have really changed. After the holiday buying stopped, virtually all vegetable prices took a downward turn. Weather in the East has taken the edge off of consumer demand and we're seeing a lull in pricing.

Insect pressure has been minimal this year. Quality is what we'd expect, with the exception of very minor frost damage on the leafy greens. It's not severe.

In coming weeks, we hope weather throughout the country improves, which will help support better demand and get us back into balance. That should help with upward movement on FOB prices.

In general, crop production in Imperial, Yuma, Blythe and Coachella valleys is steady, without too much change in crop mix by the shippers. Early corn struggled a little coming out of the ground, but now we're seeing improved stands and early melons are just going in. Market onions look good.

We're in a nice run right now.

We've got a very good avocado crop set. Mexico and Chile are fighting it out for market share right now and it's too early for California fruit.

We'll do a little harvesting in February and March as a byproduct of pruning and tree shaping. Everyone is worried about labor and my approach is going to be picking with small crews, probably in late May, and then stay on it. It might take me three months to complete harvest.

The lemon crop looks good. We're anticipating a decent year and good prices. The desert was hurt by a freeze and that has increased prices due to more limited supplies.

At the moment there's nothing unusual about pest pressure, but I despise irrigating in winter. It takes me away from chores that need to be completed at this time of year. And it's a grind to continually manage irrigations.

I've been looking at the weather forecasts and just don't see much chance of rain as far out as the weather reports go. Irrigating costs money for electricity and equipment. We're fortunate that most of our water comes from our own wells, but if we're facing a real drought, supply will become problematic down the line.

I'm looking forward to a lull in our daily activities so I can step back and look at the big picture. So far this year I haven't had a chance to do that.

We're busy planting our spring potato crop and harvesting our fall crop, which is our main business. But we've got carrots, onions and some other things that are in different stages of development. We've got a lot going on at this time of year.

The issue we're dealing with now is lack of rain. It has been dry, no fog and lots of frost. I don't think we've had any rain for about 70 days. Lack of rain has been compounded by lack of moisture in the air.

Another element of concern is cold weather. Although we haven't had pipe-breaking severe cold, the month of December saw every morning starting out at 28 degrees to 30 degrees. That zaps moisture out of the soil, too.

With my potato plantings, I've been putting the plants in and then giving them a shot of water to get them going. It's been 10 years since I've had to start a crop that way.

This early in the season, water availability isn't an issue. We're using some district water and some well water and we're OK for now.

But, the fact that we're irrigating right now, when we don't ordinarily think about it until February, is unique. Usually our potato crop finds its way out of the ground without us even having to think about it at this time of year.

Our crops aren't labor intensive so getting enough workers hasn't been an issue. We are excited about our certified organics program, which has been steady in terms of prices and demand. Now we're looking at adding peppers and other vegetable crops to utilize the ground during rotations, which tend to be longer with organic production.

But the organic market is fragile. It only takes a few acres of a commodity to tip the canoe in terms of supply and demand. For farmers established in a program, it's a pretty reliable business.

We just purchased an existing cold storage facility to increase our capacity and closed escrow a few days ago. It was exciting the day we closed. The next day your job just got bigger.

We've finished our annual alfalfa harvest and find we're about 7 percent off our historic yields. But price has made up for any loss in yield. We came out OK.

Right now sheep are grazing a lot of our alfalfa ground to harvest as the crop overwinters. We get a lot of frost damage and the grazing helps remove it. If there's need for a winter herbicide application, the grazing helps with the effectiveness of the application.

We've just finished our first pick of the cotton crop and expect to go back in the next couple of weeks and second pick what we can. That usually yields anywhere from a quarter to a half bale that otherwise would have been left in the field, although the quality and price isn't as good as first pick.

In the past 11 of 16 days, cotton prices have closed up. It's trading at 96.48 cents a pound. A few weeks ago prices were down to the 87-cent range. Commodity prices have been volatile, but looking out, futures prices are strong.

I'm booking cotton long for December 2012 and 2013 at these prices. I'm saying I'll sell some bales in the futures market at set prices higher than what we're seeing right now. Hedging is risky, but I've been right about the prices better than half the time. If you bat better than .500 in baseball, you're phenomenal. I'm OK with the results we've achieved through hedging and I'm willing to commit.

This year, we've got some three-way, oat-barley-wheat forage for the horse market. All three of the grains are mixed and germinate together. It's becoming more popular due to higher alfalfa prices. We'll probably harvest and bale sometime in April.

All our cotton ground work is done and we planted alfalfa through the end of December. We had to irrigate our wheat hay early.

Right now our irrigation district is filling canals with water. It'll be the end of the week before we can get deliveries. I'm trying to sit tight, hoping the weather will change.

We're going to plant cannery tomatoes this year. That will be a venture into a new deal. Processors cut way back on green bean acres last year and we still don't know what's going to happen this year.

In our area, we've got a couple of major tomato processing facilities nearby and that makes it easy to deliver.

Everything is at a standstill at the moment. I really hate the thought of irrigating this early, but in the back of my mind, I'm gearing up for it. We'll have to see how things go.

The cold has set the crops back and the air has been dry, too.

While 2011 may be the year the drought was broke, it has failed to generate enough honey-producing plants to create a bumper crop of honey. However, we do anticipate better production for next year if rainfall returns to a normal pattern.

An improvement in the condition of bees remains to be seen. While looking well through the summer and into the fall, bees have a tendency to crash and dwindle or develop colony collapse disorder. Many beekeepers seem to have a magic formula on hive top for the bees to consume, though it is too early to tell.

This brings us to almond pollination pricing, which should be consistent with last year's price. However, based on possible winter losses, this could change as we close in on pollination time. Also, fluctuating and unpredictable fuel costs could become a hindrance for last-minute pollination demands.

One item most fail to mention is the mountain of paperwork due towards year's end, some regulatory and some non-regulatory.

Like most places, it has been a really good year for us. Hay production was probably a little bit above average. We had a good, wet year, so our irrigation costs were down about 30 percent, but hay prices were $100 a ton over average. So we had a very good year as far as the hay. The cattle business also was good as beef prices were up, so financially we probably had the best year we've ever had. So we are looking to upgrade some equipment, upgrade our irrigation and things like that.

We are at 5,000 foot elevation and typically we get three cuttings. When there is a really extended season, we might get a fourth cutting, but we don't count on that. We had three cuttings this year. We had a late start this year, so we were really concerned about getting the third cutting put up in time, but luckily the fall extended long enough that we were able to do that.

We put in a solar project this year. Our utility company is allowing us to net-meter and aggregate all of our irrigation pumps together. We have about nine different meters on our irrigation pumps. So whatever we produce on the solar project will go directly against whatever we use on the irrigation pumps. The system is designed to completely offset on an average year our irrigation power usage, which is about $150,000 a year. It covers about three acres. It is up and running and so far things are looking pretty good.

We are figuring it will be about a 10-year payback, but if utility rates continue to rise, which we expect them to do, that will shorten that because we will get a benefit of getting that price back on the net metering.

December is a transitional month for dairy producers. We have finished planting winter forages, so farming is behind us and now we turn our attention to preparing the dairy for rain. It was a fairly dry fall and so far winter is cold.

Feed supplies are very tight. Many traditional byproduct feeds like cotton seed and distillers grains have priced themselves out of many dairy rations. Alfalfa hay is rare and quality is low.

Margins are likely to be tight and remain that way into 2012. The milk price has decreased in the last month as butter, cheese and nonfat dry milk all have been softening.

The beef market is strong and should help to reduce the milk supply a little bit.

Trinity County is a very unique county in that it is extremely large, with most of it in public land. Because we are so remote, our shipping costs are much higher than other locations, which means that we automatically have lost 25 percent of our profit. That's the bad news.

The worse news is that the timber market is pretty low so that when we do a harvest, we have the cost of the fall involved. We have loading equipment, we have the trucks and then we have the cleanup. So a timber harvest is a large, complex task, all of which is covered under the forest practices rules for the state of California, which are the most stringent forestry rules in the United States, bar none.

We have to deal with the water rules and the air rules on a regular basis. These regulations make life very difficult for people who own timberland.

The good news for our particular property is that there is so much native regeneration that we have more trees than we need. We would have to go through and trim them out on a regular basis. It's just like if you plant a row of carrots in the spring. Two or three weeks later you go through and thin them. If you don't, you have carrots the size of your little finger. And trees are the same except the growth time is more like 30 to 50 years. It is the same process; you have to thin your crop. When you thin, you get rid of the fire hazard and have a healthier forest and you have more groundwater available. You have a larger tree, it is going to grow faster and it will leave more water for the other trees.

In Marin County, we are just finishing up the calving season. Most all of our cows are calved out and so are our neighbors'. We had some early rains that were challenging for some of our farmer-neighbors over in the valley, but the rain turned out quite well for us. We actually have a little bit of green grass started already and cows are backing off of the hay stack. With feed prices as high as they are, it is always good to see the hay last as long as possible.

We are just getting ready to start marking the calves, giving them their first round of shots. Bulls got turned out at the first of the month, which means we'll be looking for next year's calf crop starting already.

We are fortunate enough that we didn't downsize at all, so we will keep our herd size right about where it is. It is extremely difficult to find any pasture to expand to, so you just have to do the best you can with the resources you have available.

We are also in a part of the world where the demand for pasture has gone way up. As organic dairy producers are facing the new rules as to the number of days that they can leave their cows on feed, these dairies are becoming very aggressive in seeking out pasture to rent.

Our calves in the coastal area arrive around the first of September and are usually wrapped up by the first of December. They will be marketed when the feed season wraps up, which is normally June or July, depending on late rains. Typically in our part of the state we get our calves a little bit bigger, with weights of 750 pounds on occasion.