From the Fields - Chris Jergenson

By Chris Jergenson, Merced and Stanislaus counties farmer

Everything I farm is organic. My peaches look a week or two later than last year. We were thinking this heat would make them ripen a lot quicker, but it actually slows stuff down. The crop looks very good, with minimal insect damage. For sweet potatoes, the heat is nice because they’re underground, and they want that warm dirt.

Because I’m organic, we don’t mow or spray any herbicides, so we have a lot of native grasses and beneficial pests like praying mantis and ladybugs that take care of all the other pests. For peach twig borer and oriental fruit moth, we put organic mating disruptors out in the springtime. Our pest numbers are very small on peaches and almonds. I’m one of Dole’s only organic growers in California for peaches, and the plant manager can’t believe how clean my fruit is.

I started planting sweet potatoes in May and finished June 1. The plants are completely vined out. All I’m doing now is flood irrigating and hand pulling weeds. Our main weed is pigweed.

I like to flood because it helps leach out a lot of the salt, and I don’t have to have an employee setting gopher traps. I furrow irrigate with siphon pipe. I don’t use a diesel pump or electric pump. I use water out of the canal. With flood irrigation, it takes me six hours to irrigate my 20-acre blocks, and I don’t have to go back for 21 days. It’s not too expensive. It also helps the sweet potatoes grow on both sides very well. As far as cultivating and getting rid of the weeds, it’s a lot easier for me because I don’t have to move hoses. I can get in there with the tractor, put my sweets in and cultivate.

I’ll probably be harvesting my sweet potatoes in late September. I start harvesting peaches in about three weeks, and I harvest for about two weeks. Then I harvest my almonds.