From the Fields - Nick Rocca

By Nick Rocca, Fresno County farmer 

Harvest in the Central Valley has started for the early wine varieties (such as) the low-sugar Thompson seedless for wineries to make champagne. We have had really good weather, although it has been a bit on the warm side. We hope for about 1 point per week of sugar, or brix. When measuring brix in winegrapes to determine the best time to harvest, we aim for about 20 to 22 brix, depending on variety. We cannot start the harvest process until we get that sugar, so we’re counting down the days. I expect harvest will be about a week earlier than usual this year. The sugar is coming on good, and the crop looks pretty average. We are probably 10 days from starting harvest.

Harvest has started for the raisin and high-sugar wine varieties. The early raisin varieties like the Selma Pete will get laid down in the rows of the vineyard for drying this week. This year, the raisin price is hopefully north of $2,000 per ton, but being in a cooperative like Sun-Maid, we won’t know the final price until this time next year. It’s definitely not a rich game farming raisins. Fortunately, I have all the equipment and institutional knowledge to do it. It’s a good thing I own the equipment because if I didn’t, I’d probably be doing something a lot different.

We previously custom farmed almonds, but we are no longer doing almonds because the owner sold the property last year.

Getting ready for fall, our pumpkins are planted. This is going to be a nice little crop. Thankfully, the weather has cooled off enough at night for pumpkin growth to be pretty good. If it is hot at night, there’s no respiration in the vines. We traditionally have anywhere from nine to 12 pumpkin varieties that we grow. We do pumpkin deliveries and host a few field trips for schoolchildren to visit the pumpkin patch, which we love.