From the Fields® - July 6, 2022

By Jennifer Beretta, Sonoma County dairy farmer

We're full force in our irrigation. This year, we got 2 extra acre-feet of water from the city of Santa Rosa. It's tertiary treated, reclaimed wastewater, so we're really fortunate. We've been irrigating, trying to get our second cutting.

We planted some sudan this year, so that's new for us. We planted it because my dad wanted to try something new to put in silage. It doesn't need as much water, and with our hotter weather that we're having in Sonoma County, we figured it would do really well, so we're giving it a try. Our nutritionist helped us as we were deciding what to put in. We were trying to decide what to put in for a second cutting with us having a little extra water last October-November.

All of our pastureland is starting to dry up, so we're bringing animals home to start to supplemental feed them. We're preparing for hotter days. Our cows aren't used to 100-degree days, so we're having conversations about how to keep them comfortable. I never thought we'd even have that conversation right here in Sonoma County. We want to make sure that our cows are comfortable.

We did get a little bit of a raise from our creamery maybe two months ago, but fuel prices are high, and everybody's dealing with that, so hopefully we'll see another raise.

By Greg Panella, Lake County pear grower

Our Bartlett pears are decent, and I think we're going to have a reasonable crop. They're starting to size up pretty well and show in the foliage, so when you stand back and look at the trees, it's starting to look like a pretty decent crop. Based on heat hours during bloom and the 30 days following, the original estimated (harvest) date for pears is around Aug. 5 or the first part of August for the Big Valley area. In preparing for pear harvest, I've spoken to the labor contractor, and he said they have the same crew as last year, and they don't see any issues with finding people to harvest the crop.

We're being very careful with our water. We're staggering our irrigations out a little bit more to keep the aquifers from drawing down, and so far, we haven't had any issues. We did have some issues last year towards the end of the year. We've had less rain this year, so I'm assuming we'll have to be really careful towards the end of the growing season. We do our own trucking, so I haul my own pears to the packers, and then the packers handle the trucking from there. Hauling fruit to the packers this year is going to be expensive with the high fuel costs. That is going to be a tough one, but if we keep the water on the trees, we'll be good.

By Stuart Mast, Calaveras County winegrape grower and vintner

Farming at 3,300 feet elevation can have its challenges, but for the past 29 years, we have been fortunate to be able to produce premium Bordeaux varietals. We have had a couple of years when smoke from nearby forest fires has affected the fruit; it will always be a concern. Our first smoke taint was in 2013, the Yosemite-area Rim Fire, when it was a novelty. The novelty has worn off as fires have become endemic in the West. We had some concern, but the vintage pulled through, and sales were brisk with the Fire Season Red label.

We added an early-spring irrigation from our wells because of ongoing drought conditions: 20 inches of rainfall instead of the usual 50 inches. We still follow our regimen of mildew control by spraying sulfur every three weeks. This year, for the first time, our bud break took place earlier than normal with 80-degree temperatures in April. Then came two nights of freezing, 26-degree temperatures that burned off most of the new shoots. The vines now have a lot of new growth, but the crop load is about 30% of normal. We hope to harvest the first week in October.

In conference with other foothill growers, I learned nearly everyone is looking for grapes from out of the area to keep their wine programs on track. Here at Brice Station Vineyards, we normally sell about half of our crop but will be unable to supply others this year. Over the past 10 years, we have diversified by adding agritourism, including concerts, weddings and theater. Tasting-room sales are improving. We owe a debt of gratitude to our wine-club members who kept us going with case orders during the heavy restrictions of COVID-19.

I am a fifth-generation California farmer, and I have seen the ups and downs of agriculture. I still wouldn't give it up.

By Darrell Cordova, Stanislaus County tree nut farmer

In almonds, when the hull splits, we'll be putting in product for the navel orangeworm, and we'll be putting the fungicide on the Independence, which is a little more susceptible to alternaria (leaf spot).

The heat stresses them pretty fast. We don't want to stress the trees because we'd lose crop that way. We've been having to irrigate. It's so hot in the afternoon that we'll start the water in the evening, let it run through the night and shut it off at noontime. We've also had a lot of wind, especially on the older trees, that we've reduced the amount of water time, because if they get too much water, it'll knock trees over.

We've been adjusting our irrigation schedule because of the heat and wind. We were trying to do weed spraying, but with this wind, it's been hard to find days that were calm to even get out there and do any weed spraying.

We don't have any surface water. We have a deep well. Our water district finally had to submit a plan this year, so we'll see what happens. We had to pay $30 an acre every other year to have the district do groundwater recharge. We're hoping that groundwater recharge shows that we're being proactive and we won't have the severe cutbacks.

We're going to be doing pistachios to diversify. We planted some pistachio rootstock the end of March. They're about pencil size. We're going to be budding them the middle to the end of July. We're trying to get them to grow right now because the rootstock has to be a certain size to be able to do the budding. The heat makes them grow, but for a long time the weather was on the cooler side, so the trees weren't growing. Now that it's warmed up, they're finally getting some growth on them.