From the Fields - Joe Zanger

By Joe Zanger, San Benito County farmer 

It’s a mixed bucket of fruit so far this year. The vineyard cover-crop seed is sitting on pallets under the open shed. Due to early winter rain, the window to disk the November rain-fed weed crop and plant the cover crop never occurred. It was not till early March that we could get into the vineyard with a disk. The squirrels have just found those pallets of seed. I knew it should have been put away in the warehouse.

The vineyard canopy in July is a jungle of growth from all the winter rain’s deep moisture. The crop is a heavy set and will need many of each vine’s fruit clusters dropped to the ground. Mildew has tried its best to set in because May and June have been cool months. I walked my neighbors’ apricot orchards, and the crop is very light. February weather was the cause. The cherry crop was light but looking OK until the quarter inch of rain at the beginning of June left cracked fruit and the orchards not worth harvesting.

Open ground here in San Benito County has come in greater demand from Salinas lettuce growers who lost acreage from the valley’s winter floods. All the county’s creeks have had significant flows, and groundwater is replenished. Interestingly, the state of California in all its wisdom is still requiring drought reporting for conditions and consumption. But every now and then we get surprised by finding a helping hand. Emergency creek entry and work have been allowed to protect our banks in advance of future winter storms. As long as one uses good judgment on what work they do and how they do it, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife will accept an after-the-fact report. I know many neighbors who have taken advantage of this. Keeping the water from eroding the banks and flowing through rather than over helps all concerned. Our strawberry-growing neighbors and their workers in Pajaro surely understand this.