From the Fields

We've had an unusual start to summer. Typically, May and June are hot and dry, and this season we had heat and lots of humidity. Our monsoon season usually comes during the later part of July, August and September, and this year our monsoon weather arrived May 1.

The cotton market offered a short window of opportunity to sell cotton at over 80 cents, which is great. However, because we had such hot, humid weather in May and June, which is typically when we set the bottom of our cotton crop, it was so humid and hot that lots of fruit got aborted. So I'm holding back on our marketing. I think our valley average is going to be 30% below historical levels now because of hot, humid weather in May and June, which we typically don't have. We've got nighttime low temperatures above 85 degrees. It triggers a response in the plant that starts to automatically abort fruit, and that bottom set on a cotton crop is really the foundation of our total production.

In alfalfa, it means your yields go from one and a quarter tons per acre down to half a ton to three-quarters of a ton per acre. We're in our fifth cutting of alfalfa and the alfalfa market has been holding relatively strong.

We do have strong water rights in our valley to Colorado River water. We're the first in line to receive Colorado River water in the state of California. We have chosen to help the crisis situation on the Colorado River, voluntarily fallowing 20% to 28% of the valley, so that is saved water that will go to Lake Mead to try to prop up those lake levels. Lake Mead in particular is in a state of crisis right now. The important message is that farmers have voluntarily decided to fallow some ground to create surplus water that benefits the entire system.