From the Fields: By Jim Morris, ​​​​​​​Siskiyou County rancher and farmer

By Jim Morris
Siskiyou County rancher and farmer

We’re in Scott Valley. It was an excellent water year, which makes a big difference in the Scott Valley, where water and wildlife, particularly fish, have been right on the forefront for a number of years. We didn’t have water concerns this year, and that’s continuing. We’re still above average on our rainfall at this point. The abundance has been unusual. 

We’re a livestock, hay, small grain and seed ranch. The livestock, particularly the cattle, are definitely the bright spot this year. Forage crops, not so much. We’re very thankful that we’re in the cattle business. We sold about a week after President Trump made a statement about importing beef and the market softened a little the day before we sold, but not much. We still did very well. We’re very thankful for the prices that we got this year.

We kept as many heifers as we could possibly stand. I feel like building our numbers back up makes good sense right now. 

We do have wolves coming through. My neighbors have had significant problems. I’m having problems with some coyotes right now, and that’s typical. We always have problems with predators. But the wolves are difficult because we don’t have many tools to address the problem. When people do have problems, there’s not much there to address that problem, so that’s a big concern. On this ranch, we have not had a problem yet with the wolves, but they’re in our backyard. We’ve gotten pictures of them on game cameras, and they’re here, but they’re not a problem yet.

Hay prices are very soft right now. There’s lots of feed. People don’t need as much hay right now. We’ll see where that goes in the winter. It depends upon what kind of winter it is and how much people need in the way of stored hay. It’s always a waiting game.