From the Fields - Josh Barton

By Josh Barton, San Joaquin County walnut grower 

It’s kind of uncharacteristic to have these high, triple-digit temperatures in the beginning of June. This year, specifically, given where the industry is on the walnut side, we have made an aggressive effort to focus any and all of our resources on preserving quality on our products.

Quality is what’s going to try to raise all tides. We’ve done a lot in preparation for this season knowing that our goal was to put the emphasis on quality. We’ve made a very mitigated irrigation schedule to be on top of it, irrigate more intermittently to satisfy the water demand in the trees. With the heat that we’ve had in early June, we have gone through and applied Surround on our early varietals in a hope that we can alleviate any sunburn that may or may not come from this heat.

It’s also a really important time because we’re trying to get size right now, and when you get into this high-heat index, as your crop is trying to size up, it can hit stall points with really hot temperatures. We really need more of those mid-80-degree, low 90-degree days right now to get really good, consistent size as we transition from post bloom into the heart of the growing season. It’s a two-prong approach. We’re doing everything we can to monitor our irrigation closely, to not overirrigate but not underirrigate and hit size and quality early on. That helps set the tone for the rest of the growing season.

Early-season fertilizers are going out as well. We’re trying to take our nitrogen management plan, and we’re already starting to spread or inject fertilizer on the walnuts as well, to try to meet the early demand on our nitrogen budget at this time.