From the Fields: Mark Hall, Kern County table grape grower

By Mark Hall
Kern County table grape grower

This season has been much better than last year. Prices last week were in the $30 range per 19-pound box instead of the $20 range like they were last year. I’m currently harvesting green grapes, and that market has also been in the $30 range versus the $20 range. So far, the market has started out well, and we’re also much earlier than normal. 

Normally, I don’t start harvesting Flame grapes until around the Fourth of July and the green grapes about a week later. This year, I’m almost finished with the green grapes, so we started about two weeks earlier than normal. 

We’re the first grapes in the San Joaquin Valley because it’s a little warmer down here at the southern end of the valley. We like to harvest early and get our fruit off before the market gets flooded with grapes from the rest of the growing regions. 

The warm weather early in the season brought the crop on ahead of schedule, but it wasn’t excessively hot. We always worry about sunburn on the grapes before they mature, but we didn’t have much sunburn this year. I’m also in a good water district, so we haven’t had any issues with water.

We’ve had normal pest pressures. With table grapes, we have zero tolerance for mildew, but this has been a low-mildew year. Overall, things are looking good. Yields look good, although I expect the market to decline once the rest of the San Joaquin Valley begins harvesting, which is what normally happens. Everything is running about two weeks earlier this year. All the varieties are ahead of schedule, so there may be a shortage at the end of the season because everything is coming off early. You can’t really hold grapes on the vine much longer than they’re ready, so growers will be trying to predict the market and deciding whether to put fruit into cold storage later in the season.

In this edition…

• Mussels plague farms and water districts
• California awards $2 million to curb attacks by wolves
• To protect groundwater, policies need reality check
• Early crop boosts prospects for California pear growers
• From the Fields: Jim Durst, Yolo County farmer
• From the Fields: By Jim Rickert, Shasta County rancher and farmer
• From the Fields: Mark Hall, Kern County table grape grower
• From the Fields: Ian Garrone, Monterey County mushroom farmer
• Growers look to grafted watermelons to battle pests
• It's not too soon to prepare for screwworm response
• Advocacy in Action: New dairy order, grizzly bear reintroduction, H-2A reform and a Supreme Court victory
• Supplies of dairy heifers expected to recover in 2027