From the Fields: Dan Errotabere, Fresno County farmer

By Dan Errotabere
Fresno County farmer

We’re getting ground prepped for tomato planting. That will be for the next 10 days. We’re in the back of blooming on the almonds. They’re pushing quickly, and with the warm days, everything will take off on our pistachios. We’re getting prepared for pruning and such. Our garlic looks good. 

This year we’re beginning with a 15% water allocation, which is pretty low, driven by weather complicating operations. We hope the allocation will continue to climb, but there’s no assurance. So, we have to kind of blindly plan out how our spring will completely look when we’re finished. 

The uncertainty of water supply causes some concern because we’re starting low. Even though these recent rains are helpful, they haven’t changed the modeling or produced a more robust allocation.

That puts in jeopardy going forward how much we can farm. It’s not just surface water delivery that’s lighter. We also have groundwater management. Those two together can cap our supplies without any sense that the number will go higher.

Cannery tomatoes are somewhat in surplus, so marketing and pricing may be challenging. We’re hoping it’s on the higher side. We also grow garbanzos, but we’re not growing any this year because that market is in surplus. We grow some pima cotton; that is also in surplus. When I say surplus, it may be more lack of demand. Pima has been dramatically lower than it has been in the past. I think turmoil has a lot to do with that. We hope trade deals get done so markets can find firm footing.

January was a dry period going into the first part of February, and then it got wet. The challenge is that a lighter hydrological year also caused delays in getting our ground prepped. We’re now finally able to get ground worked out. But again, we’re not sure where our allocation goes, so we’re not pushing too fast yet until we know more.