Ryan Metzler Juggles Many Farm Operations

Ryan Metzler Juggles Farm Operations—Large and Small

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Ryan Metzler grew up as a fourth generation California farmer, as his dad and uncle had a fairly big farming operation producing tree fruit and winegrapes in the Fresno area throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Eventually, Ryan’s dad spun off on his own, enabling Ryan to work with his dad for many years.

Today, Metzler is a graduate of Fresno State, lives in Fresno, and as vice-president of Capital Agricultural Property Services—the property management division of Prudential Ag Investments—he manages many farm operations in the West. “Most of our clients are large investment groups,” said Metzler, “so these clients will typically look at large agricultural properties as an investment.”

As these investment companies typically know little about farming, Metzler explained, “our role is to not only make recommendations about what to plant, but also how to diversify, how many acres, how to process, and who gets to buy the fruit. So we end up growing fruits, nuts and vegetables and just about anything that is consumed,” he said.

“My charge is the western region of the U.S., but we manage farms in the Midwest and the East,” Metzler said. “It does give me opportunities to be involved with a lot of different commodities, but I have to say that growing winegrapes is probably my favorite.”

Managing many properties takes a very strong team. “I work directly with some managers and then we hire a secondary layer of management to do the tractor work and the day to day operations. We have both the economic responsibility, but also the practical farming responsibility to maintain these properties because they do change over time.”

Metzler also farms 200 acres of winegrapes and tree fruit in the Fresno/ Sanger area. “What I find the most interesting, is that I get to be a small grower and deal with small grower issues, and I also get to be a large grower and deal with large grower issues. And I love to marry up those two challenges because it gives me a great perspective on decision making. Sometimes you have to make a strategy choice and other times you have to make a tactical choice, and I find that mix to be really rewarding,” said Metzler.

Metzler summed up farming as “an absolute thrill. I wake up everyday and pinch myself to be lucky enough to do something like this for a living.”

California Ag Today2016-08-26T12:05:07-07:00August 26th, 2016|

Frieda’s Karen Caplan Fears No Fruit

Frieda’s – A Legacy of Introducing Americans to Exotic Fruits & Vegetables

By Laurie Greene, Editor

Karen Caplan, CEO and president, Frieda’s Inc., the 54 year old family business that first introduced kiwi fruit to America in 1962, recounted, “We’ve probably introduced close to 200 exotic fruits and vegetables to American consumers, mostly through supermarkets, but also through restaurants. We continue to introduce new and exotic fruits and vegetables. You’ve got the kiwi fruit; you’ve got sun-dried tomatoes; you’ve got habanero chilies, spaghetti squash, alfalfa sprouts, hothouse cucumbers, shallots, purple sweet potatoes, and purple potatoes.

Caplan knows consumers love to try new products and new foods. “We really credit the TV Food Networks,” she explained. “If you’re watching ‘Chopped’ one night or any of the other food shows and you see these exotic fruits and vegetables like our purple snow peas as a secret ingredient, and you watch a couple of chefs cook with them, you say, ‘Wow that’s really exciting. I never would have picked that up at the grocery store.’ Consumers go to their local grocery store and find those products. It works in a synergistic way, but we continue to have new varieties of fruits and vegetables to introduce.”

Caplan continued, “It is wonderful that American supermarkets seem to realize consumers are passionate about trying these new foods. I think they realize that if they don’t offer the exotic fruits and vegetables, like tropical fruits, different varieties of citrus fruits and some of the peppers, consumers are going to go online and either order them as meals through Blue Apron or purchase the products on Amazon Fresh.”

Fear No Fruit, The Frieda Caplan Documentary

At Frieda’s, we represent about 1,000 different suppliers, mostly farmers. About half of them are in California; the rest are outside of California and around the world. I think the biggest challenges shared by all our farmers, are first of all—water and how to use it efficiently, and then number two—how do we find the labor to pick our products.

When asked how farmers are doing, Caplan replied, “I in awe of farmers. I heard a peach and plum and grape grower speak this morning about his passion. He said, ‘I love this business. I could stop growing this product right now and make more money by putting in nuts, which I could harvest automatically.’”

Caplan continued, “I think what’s so admirable about farmers is they do have a passion for the land and for their products. We’re seeing resurgence in young people wanting to come into the business because everyone has to eat of course; but they love the lifestyle that goes along with it and the work-life balance.

Frieda Rapoport Caplan, Ph.D., founder & chair of the Board, Frieda’s Inc. established Frieda’s Finest/Produce Specialties Inc. in 1962, in the male-dominated Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market. One of very few women in the produce industry at the time, and the first to own and operate a U.S. produce business, Frieda debuted with a purple sign, which later became the company’s signature color, and her premier product was fresh brown mushrooms – an unusual specialty at that time. She quickly developed a reputation for buying and selling new and unusual produce specialties.

Frieda’s two daughters, Karen Caplan and Jackie Caplan Wiggins, head up the family company and the third generation, Karen’s eldest daughter Alex Jackson, has linked in too.

California Ag Today2016-08-25T12:32:20-07:00August 25th, 2016|

Like Mother, Like Son: Passion for Grape Growing

Mother-Son Team Share Passion for Grape Growing

By Lauren Dutra, Associate Editor

Diane Laub and Jared Allred, Fresno County mother and son grape growers, shared their passion for grape growing and some insight on their raisin and winegrape operations. “We have mostly Thompson Seedless,” Allred began, “which has been made into raisins for the last couple of years. Sometimes we send them to the winery if the price is right. We also have about 75 acres of overhead trellis dried-on-the-vine (DOV) Fiesta grapes that we use for raisins every year.”

With the harvest season behind them, Allred summarized, “in the first week of August, we went through and cut all the canes on the DOV grapes. The raisins started drying on the vine for a few weeks, and then we sent a mechanical harvester through.”

The mother and son team also farm 85 acres of French Colombard. “We used to have 40 acres of Syrah,” Allred added, “but we took [the variety] out this last year because the price hasn’t been good and the vineyard was not in very good shape.”

“In years past, we used to send all of our Thompson’s Seedless to the wineries,” Allred explained, “but the price hasn’t been good the past three years, so we’ve been making it into raisins. This year, the only thing we have going to the winery is our French Colombard.”

Allred also commented, “The crop this year looks pretty good, actually as good—if not better than—last year. ‘Not a lot of powdery mildew except on the Fiestas, which are always prone to a little bit of mildew.”

Diane Laub, Allred’s mother, explained her role on the family’s farm. “I mainly oversee everything on the farm and also do all the office work. That is what I was brought up doing. I still do all my own work: irrigate, parts runner—you name it.”

Laub is the daughter of the late Don Laub, a well-known and respected leader in agriculture and in the Easton community where he farmed. For 50 years, Don Laub was active with the Fresno County Farm Bureau and served as president from 1986-1988. In 1996, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the Sacramento-based California Farm Bureau Federation. He also served on boards of many other agriculture organizations, including Ag One Foundation at Fresno State and California Association of Winegrape Growers.

Following in her father’s footsteps, Diane Laub explained her passion for the business, “It’s just something that I love to do. I don’t know what I’d do without it. You know, it’s my job; it’s my life,” she said.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:00:50-07:00August 23rd, 2016|

CULTIVATING COMMON GROUND: Economic Analysis of Drought on California Agriculture

Editor’s note: We thank Aubrey Bettencourt for her contribution to California Ag Today’s CULTIVATING COMMON GROUND commenting on the report, “Economic Analysis of the 2016 Drought for California Agriculture,” released this week. Lead UC Davis author Josué Medellín-Azuara’s response can be read below.

By Aubrey Bettencourt, executive director, California Water Alliance (CalWA)

Josué Medellín-Azuara, Duncan MacEwan, Richard E. Howitt, Daniel A. Sumner and Jay R. Lund of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, ERA Economics and the UC Agricultural Issues Center reported their views on the economic impact of California’s continuing drought on agriculture this week. The study, “Economic Analysis of the 2016 Drought For California Agriculture,” proved to be uncommonly riddled with errors, questionable metrics and inaccuracies; it’s a continuation of a disturbing recent trend.

The authors claim that about 78,800 acres of land might be idled due to the drought, but a quick Google search shows a single water district that had more than 200,000 acres of fallowed land in 2016. There are more than a hundred other water districts throughout the state, and most are reporting idled acreage.

In another irrigation district in Yuba County, more than 100 agricultural users have been cut off entirely, leaving their nearly-mature crops and fruit and nut trees without water. [North Yuba Water District (NYWD)]

This year the federal and state water projects announced they would provide agriculture with 55% of their water. Two months ago, they reduced the estimate to 5% south of the Delta, and they are struggling to even deliver that amount.

Across the state, water prices have increased dramatically, whether pumped from the ground or bought on the faltering water-exchange market. Water that costs less than $250 per acre foot in 2012 now costs up to $750 or more.

It doesn’t take a doctoral or economic degree to understand that when the price of water goes up, the cost to produce food also goes up. Farmers may be getting more money for the produce they grow, but they are watching their bottom line shrink because it costs more to grow it. Even water from their wells isn’t free; pumping takes energy, and energy costs money too.

Adding to rapidly increasing costs are the new minimum wage, capped work hours, and hundreds of regulatory mandates from the 80+ local, state, and federal agencies that oversee every aspect of California farming and bury farmers in paperwork and red tape. Compliance takes time away from growing food, and it costs money.

Take a look at rice farmers. Growing rice today is a losing proposition. After the labor, cost of rice plants, fuel, fertilizing, care, harvesting, drying and milling, growers pay substantially more to grow rice than they can charge for their crop. Many have converted rice paddies to other uses, and some sell their water or take money from federal agencies and conservation groups to create wildlife habitat in order to simply stay afloat. Some are selling off their land to developers, a lose-lose decision affecting everyone.

On main street, consumers are another group taking a second, alarmed look at their grocery, water and sewage bills. All are rising far faster than inflation. Whether you are talking about the price of fruit, bread and eggs or the cost of taking a shower, all have been increasing over the past five years because of the drought.

To really understand what’s happening, take a drive out of the city and into the countryside where your food is grown. Stop at a roadside produce stand or park your car and strike up a conversation with some ranchers and farmers in a small town cafe.

After you hear their stories, you may realize that almonds and pistachios are not as labor intensive as strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes, beef, lamb or many others out of the nearly 450 crops grown in California. Some crops are thirstier than others, too. This doesn’t diminish the value of these fruits, nuts, vegetables, and proteins. The value of water is what it provides us: in this case, safe, local, and hopefully affordable food.

But commonsense interviews and case studies of actual operations — once the heart of any competent agricultural economic study — are virtually missing from the report’s statistical models built on university computers, research hypotheses and tables of statistics.

The drought has hurt California farmers, and it is hurting Californians wherever they live. Gross income may be up, but net profits are down, and the rate of decline hasn’t hit bottom yet.

Aubrey Bettencourt is the executive director of the California Water Alliance (CalWA), a leading educational voice and authority on California water. CalWA advocates for the water needs of California families, cities, businesses, farmers and the environment.

Editor’s note: California Ag today thanks Josué Medellín-Azuara, senior researcher, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, and lead author of “Economic Analysis of the 2016 Drought For California Agriculture,” published this week, for his response to several claims made by Aubrey Bettencourt (above).

Josué Medellín-Azuara told California Ag Today, “I will not go over debating the comments which I very much welcome and respect, but I would like to provide some thoughts instead.”

1) “Through remote sensing,” Medellín-Azuara said, “we estimated summer idle land in Westlands by the end of the irrigation season to have been 170K acres in 2011 and just above 270K acres in 2014,” based on NASA data. The difference can be explained by some drought effects and other conditions, according to Medellín-Azuara, “so idled land differences should be taken with a grain of salt. As a point of interest, most of the fallow land we estimated was on the Westside of the south San Joaquin Valley.”

2) In addition, Medellín-Azuara clarified, “My understanding is that there is a cost issue and a cutoff issue. We estimated about 150 TAF (Thousand Acre-Feet) of [water] shortage in the Sacramento Valley in our study. At current conditions for North Yuba Water District (NYWD) agriculture is no more than 3 TAF from my reading of the attached document. I am not saying the cutoffs are not hard for the more than a hundred users, but [I] also want to put numbers into perspective.”

3) “From what I’ve heard and read,” Medellín-Azuara stated, “the timing [of] more than quantity of the projected releases is unfortunate. One of the things we highly encourage in this and past reports is easing of low environmental impact water transfers among users.”

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:48-07:00August 22nd, 2016|

UC Davis Researchers Point to Government as Culprit for Fallow Land

Government Policies—not Drought—Blamed for Fallow Land

By Patrick Cavanaugh

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed”¹ water deliveries.

Not even drought can be blamed for land fallowing due to lack of water deliveries to Central Valley federal water users.

Jason Peltier, manager of the Federal water district, San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority, said, a UC Davis study released this week, “Economic Analysis of the 2016 Drought For California Agriculture,” has confirmed that failed government water policies—not a lack of rainfall and snow pack—are responsible for the widespread water shortages and the fallowing of more than 300,000 acres of land in the federal water districts on the Westside of Fresno and Kings Counties.

“It raises this question,” Peltier asked, “When do we get honest and start talking about the regulatory drought—the man-made drought, the policy-induced drought, the policy-directed drought? We can’t even have an honest conversation about that.”

“That our opponents want to deflect and obscure that whole conversation is telling,” he continued, “because we have a tremendous story of adverse economic impact as a result of failed policies. When they tried to protect the fish, they took our water away and they made the supply unreliable. ‘Just a huge failure and they don’t want to address it; they don’t want to deal with it. The same agencies are fixated with their false confidence or their false certainty, their false precision, in terms of how to help the fish.”

Peltier explained the regulators failed to deliver all of the 5% allocation [née water delivery reduced by 95%] to growers in the federal water districts south of the Delta. “It’s nonsense,” he reiterated, that part of the insufficient 5% was never delivered this season. “It’s avoidance of the reality that the regulators have constricted the heck out of the water projects and made it so—even in wet years, and like this year, a normal to wet year—we’ve got huge amounts of land out of production,” Peltier said, adding that almond growers in the federal water districts are not getting a late, post-harvest irrigation, which can hurt next year’s production.

¹Inscription on the James Farley Post Office in New York City

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:49-07:00August 19th, 2016|

UC Davis Foundation Plant Services Serves the Ag Industry

UC Davis Foundation Plant Services, Critical Service to the Ag Industry

By Brian German, Associate Editor

UC Davis is home to Foundation Plant Services (FPS), a plant repository the world relies on for plant importation and quarantine, disease testing, virus elimination, and DNA identification services for a variety of plants and rootstocks. FPS also coordinates the release of UC-patented horticultural varieties and provides an essential link between researchers, nurseries and producers.

“Established at UC Davis in 1958, FPS has grown from a small kind-of-mom-and-pop scientific effort sourcing out cherry and grapevine cuttings that have been screened for virus to nurseries so that they could make better plants for growers,” said Deborah Golino, director of FPS since 1994. “FPS has grown to the point where it is a self-supporting center. We owe a lot to the growers and nursery industry that have supported us over these years,” she said.

Today FPS employs about 35 people on “soft money,” including scientists in the lab and people in the green houses, as well as propagators, and field workers. About 250 acres of various plantings—largely grapes of course—plus programs with strawberries and sweet potatoes that are mostly run in green houses,” noted Golino.

“All other programs circle around getting correctly identified, valuable commercial plant materials (cultivars). Many times, great people save varieties, and screening them for virus and making sure that commercial nurseries have that virus screened materials, so they can make plants for farmers that have the added productivity and sustainability that comes with clean material,” explained Golino.

FPS advances clean material in the lab by cutting out a meristem shoot tip and grow a plant from that. “Let’s say we have a valuable Chardonnay that came in from France. It’s a new clone and it has a couple of viruses in it. In a process that takes about a year, we take a micro-shoot tip culture and regenerate a plant,” Golino said. “For reasons that aren’t really fully understood, regenerating that plant from the tiny .5 millimeter piece gets rid of viruses. That’s our therapy, but what we give to most nurseries and growers who buy material from us is that little plant grown up in the field, and we might have hundreds or even thousand of cuttings of some root stocks.”

“The most common route for advancing a clean plant cultivar is by nurseries coming in to buy several hundred cuttings,” Golino explained, “and plant them in a field. Those plantings grow big mother plants from which they harvest more cuttings to be grown and eventually sold to growers. It’s a multi-year generational process.”

“We have over 900 cultivars of grapes and over 5,000 accessions because we have multiple clones of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir,” Golino said. “All of that material is improved by the technology we have used, technology that has been developed by other UC researchers to conduct DNA identification to ensure accuracy, which is part of the FPS mission.”

“That material is held as a trust to improve our agricultural offerings to growers of fruit trees and other crops,” Golino said. “Even though much of the material is not produced by UC growers and might even be produced by a Cornell or a Michigan breeder, it is still important to our agriculture here in California and across the country since the 2008 Farm Bill was passed. I think we owe Congressman Sam Farr (CA -20) a tribute for that. Since then, there has been money for the National Clean Plant Network with USDA’s Animal and Plant Inspection Service (APHIS) and they have funded about 20 clean plant centers around the country.”

“FPS certainly provides the highest level of screening in the world,” Golino stated, “and I think we might be the biggest too. In this modern world where margins are so thin, the universities are so tight for money for research and especially for teaching, and they have so many challenges taking care of those things, the experiment station does not have much money for service work, like the work that is done at FPS.”

“FPS conducts its work for industry, and that isn’t really directly relative to the university’s mission which has to be strictly accommodated. That is why California grape and fruit tree nurseries have assessed themselves to fund our programs since the mid 1980s,” said Golino. “And then we have the clean plant money on top of that, and our grape nurseries actually pay user fees on the plant material they make from our material. That keeps the doors open and keeps us doing world class work,” Golino said.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:49-07:00August 18th, 2016|

Jamming Leafhopper Signals

Jamming Leafhopper Signals to Reduce Insect Populations that Vector Plant Disease

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

An innovative team of researchers at the San Joaquin Valley Agricultural Sciences Center, USDA Agricultural Research Services (ARS) in Parlier Calif., are trying to confuse leafhopper communication in hopes of reducing certain devastating plant diseases. Of particular interest is the glassy-winged sharpshooter, a large leafhopper that can vector or spread the bacteria Xylella fastidiosa from one plant to another which causes devastating plant diseases such as Pierce’s disease in grapes and almond leaf scorch.

Dr. Rodrigo Krugner, a research entomologist on the USDA-ARS Parlier team since 2007, explained, “We started on this glassy-winged sharpshooter communication project about two years ago. These insects use substrate-borne vibrations, or sounds, to talk to, identify and locate each other; actually do courtship; and then mate,” Krugner said.

Click here to hear LEAFHOPPER SOUNDS!

Glassywinged Sharp Shooter

“This area of research started probably 40, or 50 years ago with development of a commercially-available laser doppler vibrometer (LDV), a scientific instrument used to make non-contact vibration measurements of a surface,” Krugner said. “Commonly used in the automotive and aerospace engineering industries, the LDV enabled an entomologist to listen to and amplify leafhoppers communicating,” Krugner said. “We’ve been doing recordings in the laboratory, learning about their communication with the idea of breaking, or disrupting, that communication. Once we disrupt that, we can disrupt mating and thereby reduce their numbers in vineyards and among other crops.”

Krugner noted the research team is evaluating two different approaches: one is to discover signals that disrupt their communication, and the other is lure them away from crops or towards a trap. “We may be looking at female calls, for example. An analogous system would be the pheromones, or long-range attraction volatile chemicals released by female lepidoptera, to attract males.” However, since leafhoppers use only sound, Krugner said, “We’re trying to come up with signals to disrupt their mating communication. We’re also looking at signals to jam their frequency range, 4000-6000 Hz, so they cannot hear each other,” Kruger said. “We’re also looking at signals that can be used to aggregate them, or lure them, into one section of a crop, or maybe repel them from the crop. These are all different approaches that we’re investigating right now.”

Krugner explained, “Researchers are attempting to perfect the disruptive sounds in order to do the things we need—to actually implement a management strategy for disrupting not only glassy-winged sharpshooter, but anything in a vineyard that actually communicates using vibrational communication. We know what they are saying to each other, which is very important. In the laboratory, the signals that we have look promising in disrupting the communication of these insects, so we’re taking them into the field.

Current mating disruption trials are underway in Fresno State vineyards. “We’re going to finish that research, hopefully, next year,” said Krugner, adding, “usually, fieldwork takes two to three years to show something.”

(Featured photo: Rodrigo Krugner, research entomologist, USDA-ARS, Parlier)

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:49-07:00August 15th, 2016|

American Pecan Council Begins with Nominations

NOMINATIONS TO THE AMERICAN PECAN COUNCIL TO BEGIN SOON

UPDATE: September 1, 2016. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is seeking nominations of 15 growers and shellers (handlers) to serve on the American Pecan Council. Members of the council will be appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to administer the federal marketing order with oversight by AMS.

Nomination forms are available on online at https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/moa/986-pecans or by contacting AMS at (863) 324-3375.

Completed nomination forms must be received by AMS no later than Sept. 6, 2016.

Forms may be submitted by mail to USDA, AMS, Marketing Order and Agreement Division, 1124 First Street South, Winter Haven, Fla. 33880 or email Jennie.Varela@ams.usda.gov.

The Final Rule for the Federal Marketing Order for Pecans was published in the Federal Register on Thursday, August 4, 2016. Posted by the Pecan Board, the historic event culminated a three year grassroots effort of pecan stakeholders who collaborated with USDA to write and support the order that is now federal law. This action initiates the process of nominating, selecting, and seating of the administrative body of the FMO, the American Pecan Council. A likely schedule over the next few weeks is as follows:

Week of August 8

OMB approves Nomination Forms
Call for Nomination Press Release; nomination forms mailed to Shellers and Growers, electronic versions available to download

Week of August 22

Deadline for Nominations to be returned to USDA

Week of August 29

USDA to mail ballots to growers and shellers to vote on Nominees

Week of September 19

Deadline for Ballots to be returned to USDA
Deadline for background statements (Nominator should seek to gather this document from the Nominees as soon as someone agrees to be nominated.) Only those with completed background statements can be sent forward on the selection order to the Secretary.

Month of October

Selection Press Release for the new Council
Conference call with USDA Staff and new Council Members (1/2 day) for FMO Orientation
Council meets in person

UPDATES WILL BE POSTED TO THE APB WEBSITE AS THEY BECOME AVAILABLE

FAQ about the Nomination Process:

How will Nomination Forms be made available? Upon approval by OMB, official forms will be posted on the USDA website, mailed to growers and shellers on current USDA lists, and posted on the American Pecan Board website.
Who can nominate? Any grower within a region can nominate another grower within the same region. Any sheller within a region can nominate another sheller within the same region.
Who is a grower? A person who has produced an average of 50,000 lbs. of inshell pecans over the last four years or who has 30 pecan acres. All production or acreage must be within the 15 state production area (domestically produced).
Who is a sheller? A person (entity) who has shelled at least one million lbs. of domestically produced inshell pecans in the prior fiscal year.
What determines a large grower and small grower? A large grower is defined as having pecan acres equal to or more than 176 acres, and a small grower has less than 176 acres.
What determines a large sheller and a small sheller? A large sheller is defined as having handled 12.5 million lbs. or more of domestically produced inshell pecans in the prior fiscal year, and a small sheller is defined as having handled less than 12.5 million lbs. of domestically produced inshell pecans in the prior fiscal year.
Can a large grower nominate a small grower and can a small grower nominate a large grower for the appropriate seat? Yes
Can a large grower second the nomination of a small grower, and can a small grower second the nomination of a large grower? Yes
Can a large sheller nominate a small sheller and can a small sheller nominate a large sheller for the appropriate seat? Yes
Can a large sheller second the nomination of a small sheller, and can a small sheller second the nomination of a large sheller? Yes
If a grower grows pecans in more than one region, in which region can he/she be nominated? In the region in which he/she grows the largest volume of their production.
If a sheller handles pecans in more than one region, in which region can he/she be nominated? In the region in which he/she handled the largest volume of domestically produced inshell pecans within the preceding fiscal year.
Can a vertically integrated pecan operation (grows and shells) be nominated as a grower and a sheller? No, a decision must be made by the person (entity) being nominated whether to be nominated as a grower or a sheller.
Who nominates the candidates for the accumulator and public member seats? Once the 15 member Council is seated, they nominate candidates for the accumulator and public member seats.

(Source: Pecan Board)

California Ag Today2016-09-01T17:31:06-07:00August 12th, 2016|

Winegrape Cultural Practices Go Mechanical

Winegrape Cultural Practices Must Go Mechanical for Sustainability

By Emily McKay Johnson, Associate Editor

Higher wages handed down by the California Legislature are driving California winegrape growers to mechanize many farming operations. Doug Beck, geographic information systems (GIS) specialist and agronomist for Monterey Pacific Incorporated who works with winegrowers in the Salinas Valley, commented, “We don’t have the people; that’s the main problem. We can put bodies out in the field, but we can’t get the work done the way it needs to be done, at the time it needs to be done,” he said.

Mechanical Box Pruning on Winegrapes

So the industry has no choice but to go mechanical on pruning, leafing as well as harvesting. Beck explained pruning has been tough to mechanize. “We’re basically just trying to do a system that is pruned by a tractor, creating a box head that self-regulates—it sets the amount of crop it needs and grows the size canopy it needs in order to balance that vine, produce good quality grapes and produce enough to be economically viable,” noted Beck.

Economic viability—profit—is critical, according to Beck. “In fact, it is true sustainability. Otherwise we’re not in business,” he said.

Mechanical pruning essentially creates a hedge every year. Beck explained, “Typically we have pruning spurs that have two buds or three buds, a hand space apart, coming off that cordon that we cut by hand. Instead of just having spurs, we let that grow into a box, and the mechanical pruner cuts along the sides and then across the top of the vine in one pass,” Beck explained. “It looks basically like a long box,” he said.

Beck has discovered that mechanical pruning into a box shape on the trellis wires, “works across all varieties we’ve tried. We’re definitely in a cool area for grape production,” Beck said, “so those are the kind of grapes that we’re growing: Pinot Noir, Grenache, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris, along with some Cabernet.”

Beck said that winegrape vineyards have a lot of vigor in the Salinas Valley. “You also have big crops, which may also require some shoot or crop thinning. You have to come up with other machines to do the rest of the operations that they usually do by hand.”

“The mechanical process appears to be working well because growers are seeing a bump in yield of 30 to 50 percent,” Beck commented, “and they are saving about $1,000 per acre. Economically, it makes a lot of sense.”

“Quality is definitely acceptable. It’s as good as any other trellis system we have out there. Quality comes from vine balance and fruit exposure to light, and that box prune system accomplishes both,” said Beck.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:49-07:00August 11th, 2016|

CULTIVATING COMMON GROUND: Almond Board on Assessment Increase

Almond Board’s Response on Assessment Increase

Editor’s note: We thank Mike Mason for his contribution to California Ag Today’s CULTIVATING COMMON GROUND, in response to the letter submitted by John Harris.

By Mike Mason, chairman of the Board of Directors, Almond Board of California

Over the history of this [almond] marketing order, assessments have risen and fallen to meet changing business conditions. This increase was voted on by the Board of Directors after much input from growers and handlers. After the vote, the industry had an opportunity to weigh in again during a USDA-administered comment period. They will get another chance during a second comment period.

Only after growers have had all of these opportunities to voice their opinions will the USDA make a final decision on the assessment.

The Almond Board of Directors welcomes your feedback and is available to discuss any questions you may have about the critical investments and justification for this assessment increase.

Below you will see a memo I sent to the industry, dated April 14 2016. It covers why and how the assessment is needed and will be used.

Sincerely,

Mike Mason

Mike Mason is a first generation almond farmer and partner of Supreme Almonds of California, a family owned and operated almond handling operation in Shafter. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Almond Board of California.

To: Almond Handlers and Growers

From: Mike Mason, Chairman of the Board of Directors, and

Kent Stenderup, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors

Re: Almond Board of California FY 16/17 Budget and Assessment Increase

Date: April 14, 2016

On April 12, the Board of Directors met to review the program and budget recommendations coming forward as a result of the extensive strategic planning efforts which have taken place over the past year.

The Board unanimously agreed to recommend a budget for FY 16/17 with an increase of the assessment from 3 cents per pound to 4 cents for a three year period. The increase is limited to three years due to the expectation that almond production will increase significantly during that time period thereby providing additional funding. This decision was made after extensive dialog among Board members as well as outreach between Board members and Handlers and Growers in the almond community.

There are three principal reasons the Board determined an assessment increase was needed. They are:

30% increase in production anticipated by 2020. This estimated 600 million pound increase needs to be planned for now, to invest in global demand prior to the production hitting the market.

This substantial volume increase is nearly as much as our largest market currently consumes, and is more than the consumption of our four largest export markets combined. This will require doing more of what has been working, as well as implementing innovative new marketing programs.

Strain on agricultural resources has never been higher. Almonds are currently California’s highest value agricultural crop and soon will be its largest acreage crop. With this leadership comes responsibility. Additional investment will allow us to take a leadership role by investing in and accelerating research which will enable us to address concerns, such as:
- our changing water supply and quality system,
- air quality as it relates to harvesting, pesticide and energy use,
- bee health, which is critical to our success
Transformation of the consumer landscape. The environment in which we are growing and marketing almonds is quickly changing. Consumers are more interested in where and how their food is made. In response to this, the industry needs to take a leading role in the world of sustainable farming, as we have done for so long in the world of nutrition, by transparent communications regarding our meaningful and measured sustainable improvements.

To plan for and address these challenges, your Board of Directors has worked across the Environmental, Production Research, Almond Quality, Technical and Regulatory, and Global Market Development Committees to develop a plan of action. This plan is a two pronged approach including investment in research, via the Accelerated Innovation Management or AIM program (launched at our annual conference), and global marketing:

AIM Program: Expand and Accelerate sustainability and production research in 9 areas:

Irrigation and nutrient management
Orchard and rootstock development
Harvesting innovations
Pest management tool development
Pollination research and management practices
Bio-mass and by-product innovation
Food safety leadership
Soil health research
Energy Innovation

Global Marketing: Expand our programs to address production growth & changing consumer needs by:

Accelerating programs and results in current markets
Considering additional markets for investment
Increasing communication transparency and trust
Ensuring confidence in our sustainability efforts

Your Board of Directors welcomes your feedback and is available to discuss questions you may have about the critical investments and justification for this assessment increase. The assessment increase will be reviewed by the USDA and an opportunity for public comment will be provided before any change is implemented.

1150 Ninth St., Ste. 1500 * Modesto, CA 95354 USA

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To read the original post to which the Almond Board is responding, go to: CULTIVATING COMMON GROUND: Almond Growers on Assessment Increase, by John Harris.

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California Ag Today2016-08-10T17:24:51-07:00August 10th, 2016|