From the Fields - Tom Ikeda

By Tom Ikeda, San Luis Obispo County vegetable grower

In preparation for another good rain, we made sure all our drainage ditches are clear and fields are graded properly. The sooner we can get the water off the fields, the sooner we can get back in once it dries.

With all the rain, we’re struggling to get the ground worked. In some fields, we’ve been waiting for almost two months. Instead of waiting, we’re working it up little by little to try to minimize the work we need to do to get the ground ready. We’ve been planting for spring since December, but wet conditions have made it challenging to stay on our planting schedule.

Because of the wet weather, crops aren’t going to grow at 100%, so there may be some gaps in the spring market, which could be good for farmers who have crops in the ground but not so good for the consumer. Lettuces could be a challenge. During the transition in the growing season from the desert to the Central Coast, if the desert has warm weather and their crops mature quicker and the coast stays cool, there’s going to be a gap. If the coast has wet weather and we can’t stay on our planting schedule, it’s going to create shortages and spikes in price.

Wet weather creates opportunities, and things need to fall into place for us to realize those opportunities. Anything we have in the ground we’re trying to take care of because it may fall into that window where there’s a good opportunity. You have to be on your toes, and you have to be an optimist. You know where the opportunities may be, and those are the places you may take a little more risk.

Whenever we can get rain, it’s a good thing. It may not be convenient; it may make things a mess and create more work, but in the big picture, I’d rather have too much than not enough.