From the Fields - Kulwant Johl

The cling peach crop looks good and is sizing nicely. Plus, the weather is good and has not been too hot, so that helps. The state’s cling peach crop is estimated to be a little larger than last year. In 2023, the crop was light because some varieties did not set well due to rain during bloom.

The Yuba-Sutter cling peach-growing area has about 8,400 bearing acres of peaches that are sold to canners. This is a good area for growing peaches. Farmers in other areas of the state can grow other crops. We are relatively limited in this area. Due to the salt, we can’t grow pistachios. We do have almonds, but they don’t produce as well here.

We are about three weeks away from cling-peach harvest. We have extra-early, early, late and extra-late varieties. From extra-early to extra-late, these are: Calaveras, Loadel, Stanislaus, Carson, Kader, Andross, Vilmos and Kingsburg. Harvest for these varieties lasts from about the first week of July to the first week of September.

To prepare the orchards for harvest, we had to spray for Oriental fruit moth and peach twig borer. We are also mowing and getting other things ready. We have some harvesting machines. I keep them ready just in case, but I don’t use them because canners only allow use of machine harvesting on a limited basis.

Because I have varieties coming off one after the other, I have a better chance of finding employees for harvest than some other farmers who may only have one crop to harvest. We believe we will have enough workers for harvest this season.

Inflation and the cost of inputs are high, and sales for peaches are coming down. Canned and dried fruit is not selling as much as it did before. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was good. Everything sold—peaches, prunes, whatever people got hold of, they bought it.