From the Fields - Greg Panella

By Greg Panella, Lake County pear grower

Right now, everything is dormant. We’re wrapping up all our pruning and applying dormant sprays. We have a lot of fruit buds on the trees, so we’re optimistic for that. Normally, end of March, beginning of April will be full bloom for us. It’s been shifting earlier and earlier. We’re usually almost a month behind the Central Valley as far as our bloom and our harvest.

Frost is not an issue right now. Even hail is not an issue right now. The buds are starting to swell, so the trees can sense spring is coming, but this cold weather we’re having is going to hold them off for a while, so we’re not concerned about frost at this point.

It’s going to depend on the weather during bloom what our crop looks like. If we have beautiful, warm weather, it’s going to be a real heavy crop. If we have bad weather during bloom, at least we have a lot more fruit that has a chance of setting, so there’s a potential for a really good crop. It just depends on the weather during bloom, which lately has been pretty sporadic. It’ll warm up and push all the flowers out and then turn back to winter for a couple weeks and have real terrible bloom weather. Then you end up with a light crop.

The water levels in the local lakes and reservoirs have come up significantly, so I think we’re going to be in a spot waterwise this year.

2022 was the best year I ever had as far as the pear market goes. We’re talking to the packers, and things look really good for 2023 as well, so we’re pretty optimistic. I think supply and demand has evened out a little bit. As long as we get a healthy crop to the market, we’re pretty certain we’ll have a decent year, which is a change from the past.