From the Fields

In the Scott and Shasta valleys, the water board is curtailing all agricultural water use at this time. We, of course, still have domestic water use. The board will allow us a small amount of water for livestock watering, but that's it.

Most people are on the end of irrigation for crops at this point. Some people are concerned about the ability to irrigate pastures and keep livestock feed available without having to feed hay that's going to be very expensive this year.

Hay prices are very strong, and demand is off the charts. I don't think we have produced enough hay in California to meet the needs this year. With curtailments and a very dry year, we're going to see very high prices. Hopefully, there's enough forage to get people through this winter. It's going to be a tough one for the livestock people this winter.

We have some significant fires causing a tremendous amount of smoke. Our growing days have been very affected by the heavy smoke in all of Siskiyou County, as well as threatening many of our communities. It's becoming more obvious that active management of the forest is going to have to happen for safety reasons. We have communities right now that are in incredible jeopardy. We've got a little bit of rain, which could help, but we could still lose towns. It's one thing to have some fires out in the woods, but when we're losing whole communities, we need to say this is enough and come up with ways to manage forests more actively.