Atmospheric Rivers Hit California

Many Atmospheric Rivers Hit State

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

California needs an average of three atmospheric rivers annually to reach its average yearly rainfall. So far this year, the state has seen an incredible 46 atmospheric rivers. This intense rainfall has pushed much of California out of longstanding drought conditions.

California Ag Today spoke with Steve Johnson, a private meteorologist for farmers in California. We discussed atmospheric rivers (AR) and the abundance of rain California has seen in late winter and early spring.

“We had four very big AR flows, and that made a big difference. I think we’re up to 46, and that’s what has made the big difference this year,” Johnson said. With the additional 41 smaller AR, we have seen a very wet California; it is an astounding amount of atmospheric rivers.

Johnson explained that because the storms have been so difficult to predict, it has made things difficult for farmers planning their season. “This year, there was no signal at all. These storms crept up on us this winter. It was very, very dicey for forecasting,” he said. “The year was difficult because some of these storms – in fact the big ones – even though they showed up in the 14, 16-day period, they didn’t look gigantic until about day seven or eight. Then they start gaining and gaining and gaining, and by day four or day five they looked monstrous. Well, that’s not very much time to prepare.”

Johnson noted that these unpredictable storms were caused by an anomaly in the Pacific Ocean that is a remnant of last year’s El Nino. “The predominant reason that we kept getting these atmospheric rivers has been the fact that the sea surface temperatures across the Pacific Ocean have been in a very unusual anomaly,” he said. “They’ve been cold in the Gulf of Alaska, and we have a leftover bit of warmth from last year’s record-setting El Nino that has spread north to just west of the California coast – very warm waters that go all the way over to Japan.”

“If you take a look at the differentiation between the cold water in the Gulf of Alaska versus the warm water, the anomalies between Japan and California, that has created a zonal flow since October.

“Those atmospheric rivers have been grabbing a lot of moisture coming up from that warm water off the California to the Hawaii coast, and then coming into California. It’s just been one right after another,” Johnson said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2021-05-12T11:05:16-07:00April 25th, 2017|

Indoor Heat Regs: A Solution to a Problem?

New Regs Target Indoor Heat Illness Prevention

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Many agricultural organizations have submitted written comments opposing Cal-OSHA’s proposed heat illness prevention in indoor places of employment. California has long had an outdoor heat illness regulation, but now an indoor regulation is a possibility. Roger Isom, President and CEO of the Western Agricultural Processors Association – which includes California’s nut processors, cotton gins and other industries – spoke to California Ag Today about the issue.

“This is a solution looking for a problem,” Isom said. “There’s no problem here. The incidents that drove the legislation came out of the Riverside-Ontario, area where you had warehouses that don’t have air conditioning. Most of the time, the temperature in that area is in the 70s and 80s, occasionally in the 90s. Every once in a while they’ll get that rare heat wave that gets up to 100, and if you’re not used to it, yeah, you’re going to have a problem.”

Because Central Valley agriculture is used to the higher heat levels, the buildings are designed differently for the workers, Isom explained. “They’re adequately ventilated. The air moves through it, and we’re used to that heat, so it’s not what we’re talking about in the San Joaquin Valley. Why throw everybody under the bus, so to speak? Makes no sense in this case. It really should be a targeted regulation. The legislature’s allowed for that. Cal-OSHA just need to be directed,” Isom said.

Nearly all the farm buildings have big open doors and are well ventilated with fans and some portable evaporative coolers. Workers who come out of the field where it’s 105 degrees and then walk into those buildings find it quite comfortable.

“It’s going to not make a lot of sense that if we’re telling the guys that are working out on the gin yard to come into the gin for shade if you’re feeling hot or you’re feeling ill. Now you’re subject to another rule regarding higher heat in the building that might be contrary to what you’re doing. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Isom said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2021-05-12T11:05:17-07:00April 21st, 2017|

California Rice Growers are Model of Environmental Stewardship

Understanding Water Usage For California Rice Growers

By Brian German, Associate Broadcaster

The amount of rain California received in March has put a hold on rice planting. In a normal year, California rice growers would be finishing up their fertilizer regimen, getting ready for their April planting. Luis Espino, a UC Cooperative Extension Farm advisor in Colusa County, explained that the wet weather has caused many farmers to push back their planting schedule. “We had a lot of rainfall, so the ground is pretty soaked. There are some areas that are still flooded; they still have water in the field. It’ll be a while before tractors can get in there, but I’m guessing that as things dry out, things should start moving soon,” Espino said.

Photos Courtesy of Matthew Sligar of Rice Farming TV

After five years of drought conditions, California finally had a considerable amount of rainfall over the winter months. Available water supplies are at a much better level than they were in recent years, but there is another aspect that could hurt rice planting this season. “There’s been a good winter, so they’re going to have enough water to plant acreage as they would on a normal year. What’s not helping is the price of rice. It’s a little too low, and so that might hinder some of the plantings,” Espino said.

The California rice industry is a model of environmental stewardship, working closely with regulatory agencies and conservation groups to ensure that rice production improves wildlife habitats while promoting sound management of water resources. The rice industry has faced quite a bit of scrutiny over the past few years because of misconceptions regarding flooded rice fields. It is important to understand that the water used to flood rice fields has more than one use and eventually goes back into the water cycle. “There is a constant flow of water coming into the field and then leaving so that water is going back to the canal, going back eventually to the river and so it does get recycled,” Espino said.

Rice production in the state has changed remarkably over the past 50 years, with improved varieties, increased yields and improved marketability. With water on the minds of many Californians, Espino explained some of the reasons why rice fields are flooded for planting. “It can produce biomass and grain when the field is flooded. Maybe more important than that is the fact that water functions as a herbicide. By having water on the field, you have a way to suppress weeds from growing,” Espino said.

Aside from a small percentage of water being lost to evaporation, most of the standing water in rice fields stays in the overall water cycle. “The water used in rice fields – before it gets back to the river – is used four times, so in four different fields,” Espino said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-04-13T16:39:24-07:00April 13th, 2017|

Water District Talks Low Water Allocation

Water District’s Water Allocation Disappoints

By Brian German, Associate Broadcaster

The Bureau of Reclamation announced an initial 2017 water allocation for the Central Valley Project, and it’s considerably lower than what was expected. Despite a wet winter and a significant snowpack, the Bureau has only allocated 65 percent of their contract supply to South-of-Delta contractors.

Johnny Amaral is the Deputy General Manager for the Westlands Water District – the largest agricultural water district in the United States. Amaral thinks the deck is stacked against area growers as a result of water policy. “There are laws on the books that were deliberately put into place that created this bottleneck in the CVP and have hamstrung the CVP. This is the outcome that you get when you purposely curtail project operations or pumping: You get shortages,” Amaral said.

San Luis Reservoir is full this season, yet the allocation is only 65 percent.

The 65 percent allocation is especially disheartening since the announcement was not released until well into the planting season, forcing farmers to make decisions about land use and labor without any assurance of water supplies. Amaral thinks there’s a need for a serious policy discussion as to whether the government truly values what growers produce. “Those laws are going to have to be changed if we’re ever going to restore water supply to a situation where the westside ag contractors get 100 percent,” Amaral said.

Westlands Water District is made up of more than 1,000 square miles of premier farmland in western Fresno and Kings counties and provides water to 700 family-owned farms, averaging about 875 acres in size. Amaral believes that it is time for legislators to reevaluate their priorities. “It really comes down to a very simple but more fundamental policy question about, ‘Do we value being able to grow our own food in a safe way? Does that matter to people?’ ” Amaral said.

During election season last fall, then-candidate Donald Trump vowed to fix the water problems in California. Farmers are going to need to be patient in their desire to see some action on those promises. “The agencies that have direct influence over western water issues and western resources issues, it’s really the Department of Interior. The Secretary of Interior was just confirmed a couple of weeks ago. … There are a whole host of positions and people that need to be nominated and put into place for the Trump Administration to really have a day to day impact over how the decision’s made on water supply and project operations,” Amaral said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-04-06T11:42:51-07:00April 6th, 2017|

Westland Initial Water Allocation 65 percent

Initial Water Allocation 65% for Westland Water District

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Patrick Cavanaugh2017-04-20T13:49:07-07:00March 22nd, 2017|

Saving Fish May Have Caused Oroville Disaster

Were Fish Cause of Oroville Dam Disaster?

By Jessica Theisman: Associate Editor

Reportedly, an effort to save millions of salmonoid fish below the Oroville dam may have caused a delay in releasing water from Oroville Dam on February 12. It set up the evacuation of at least 188,000 people in the area after authorities warned of an emergency spillway in the structure was in danger of failing and unleashing uncontrolled floods of water on towns below.

It was a near disaster and would have taken agricultural irrigation water with it, which has a lot of people asking questions. One person is Edward Needham. He provides agricultural services for growers throughout the state.

“I was trying to figure out what the missing piece was, why they could all of a sudden release 100,000 CFS and go from 65,000 to 100,000,” he said. Needham had spoken with a friend who worked at the refuge that day, who had told him he had been down at the fish hatchery, cleaning it out and saving all of the salmon.

“You’re telling me that they delayed the releases on the dam to save the four million salmon that were downstream?” Needham asked.

That may be correct! Many local news stations had reported that approximately 40 employees from the refuge were saving the salmon and loading them into trucks to be hauled away.

“That was two days before the dam nearly failed because of all the water it was holding back” Needham remarked.

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-04-21T15:00:38-07:00March 21st, 2017|

Temperance Flat Could Control Floods

Association Calls for Flood Control through Temperance Flat

With the rising San Joaquin River in the background, board members of the San Joaquin Valley Water Infrastructure Authority (SJVWIA), assemblymen, city officials and stakeholders of the Temperance Flat project gathered recently to discuss the importance of flood control.

The Western Ag Processors Assocation (WAPA) Director of Regulatory Affairs Jodi Raley spoke at a recent news conference highlighting the impacts of flood damage as it relates to agriculture. Noting the acres of valuable agricultural land along the river, Raley expressed that while it is important for the future dam to capture water, this season, we are seeing how the project would play a critical role in flood control.

Many acres of orchards and fields have experienced saturation or an inundation of water during this heavy rain season. These conditions on an extreme not only lead to situations concerning crop health, but could also result in loss of jobs for ag workers in affected areas.

In addition, it was highlighted that the amount of water released from Friant, currently 9,000 cubic feet/sec (cfs), has very little to no demand. It is being said that with the rain received and the significant snow pack in the Sierras, Millerton Lake will receive enough water to be drained and refilled seven times over.

The SJVWIA and the Technical Advisory Committee, along with the large breadth of stakeholders, are calling upon Governor Brown to recognize the need for this project’s construction. Raley said that the association will continue to push and fight for the construction of Temperance Flat to bring more water not only to the Central Valley, but to the entire state.

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-04-24T19:33:04-07:00March 9th, 2017|

Pyrethroid Review Deadline Nearing

Pyrethroid Review Commenting Deadline is March 31

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

The EPA is reviewing the pyrethroid class of crop protection materials and it’s concerning the Ag industry, which often turns to the materials as part of an integrated pest management strategy – recommended by the University of California.

David Haviland – an entomologist with UC Cooperative Extension Kern County – said he is not too concerned with the EPA review.

“Every pesticide should be periodically reviewed to make sure that all new information about a product gets reconsidered. Our ability to test for products changes over time. Our experience with products changes over times. The role of products changes over time, so a re-review is warranted. I don’t have any concerns with that,” Haviland said.

Of course, the big question is what is the current role of pyrethroids in the grower’s toolbox?

“It absolutely has a role. The best way to manage pests we know is through integrated pest management, and integrated means using lots of different tactics. Sometimes, there’s a way to control a pest completely with biological control, sometimes there’s a cultural control, but there are cases where pesticides are needed,” Haviland said.

“There’s a time and a place for a very soft surgical strike against one-species pesticide and there’s also a time and a place for a product that can kill two or three or four different pests at the same time. Sometimes, those broader spectrum products are the only ones available for certain pests,” Haviland explained.

“Pyrethroids fit that role as the last group of broad spectrum products that are effective on a wide range of pests, particularly with organophosphates, which is being phased out of most crops,” Haviland said.

There is time to comment on this EPA review – and this time expires March 31, so it’s critical for anyone who needs these pyrethroids as an IPM strategy to go to www.defendbifenthrin.com and post a comment.

Patrick Cavanaugh2021-05-12T11:05:42-07:00February 27th, 2017|

Recharging Aquifer: Job One Today

Water Districts Recharging Aquifer

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

David Nixon, Deputy General Manager of the Arvin Edison Water Storage District

With the reservoir and all water district canals brimming, there is a great effort to move water into underground aquifer recharge ponds, said David Nixon, general manager of the Arvin-Edison Water Storage District in Kern County.

“Absolutely, we tried to get every acre foot of water in this district we possibly can,” he said. “With that water at this time of year, before it’s needed by agriculture, it’s all about water storage and rebuilding that underground aquifer.

“We have about 1500 acres of recharge ponds that we can use to refill the underground aquifer,” Nixon said.

It has been a great, wet year, with Middleton Lake filling in Fresno County, and water moving Southward in the Friant-Kern Canal all the way to Kern County, right where Arvin-Edison Water Storage District is located.

“It’s beautiful out there. Ponds are full, and hopefully, if everything works out with our water supply, they’ll be full all year long,” Nixon said.

“We take a wet year supply and turn it into dry year water. When we do not have ample water supply for the 53,000 acres that are under a long-term surface water contract with us, then we will run our wells,” Nixon said.

This year will not be one of those years.

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-04-25T15:59:47-07:00February 20th, 2017|

Fresno County Growers Grateful For Rainfall

Rainfall Helps Water Cover Crops

By Brian German, Associate Broadcaster

The amount of rainfall the state has already received comes as a delight for many growers. Joe Del Bosque, Commissioner of the California Water Commission, noted how appreciated the rainfall has been. “It’ll help replenish the moisture in our fields. We also have some cover crops growing that need rain and some dry land wheat that we’re growing that needs some rain,” Del Bosque said.

Del Bosque is also the president and CEO of Empresas Del Bosque Incorporated, a diversified farming operation on the west side of Fresno County in Firebaugh. He talked about a cover crop he’s got going for their organic melons. “We plant it in the wintertime. We don’t irrigate it because we can’t afford to buy water for a cover crop. We plant it in the wintertime so the rains will provide for it, then we mulch it in the spring and then plant our melons,” Del Bosque said.

That cover crop also helps to build tilth and adds important organic matter to the soils, really helping those organic melons grow. The success of that cover crop depends largely on the amount of rain, which is much better this year than many years prior. “It’s good for the trees to get wet, to get cold and go into dormancy. There have been years where we didn’t get hardly any rain in January. We couldn’t put on our dormant sprays because the bark was dry. This year we should be able to do that,” Del Bosque said.

It cab be a bit of gamble planting the cover crop, but it seems to have paid off for Del Bosque this year. “Absolutely, yeah, if we don’t get rain, we don’t get a crop because we can’t afford to buy $1,000 water for our cover crop. We have to save that for our main crop,” Del Bosque said.

Del Bosque said they have laid about a third or more of their acreage fallow because they don’t have adequate water to grow anything on it; but idling farmland has its own set of consequences: “We found that laying land idle because of a lack of water for two or three years in a row starts to hurt that soil. So we decided recently to try putting in dry land grain just to keep something growing on that land and keep it alive.”

At the Empresas Del Bosque farm, they grow cantaloupes, almonds, asparagus, cherries and tomatoes on about 2,200 acres. Del Bosque expressed his hopes that almond prices will stabilize after so much fluctuation. “They came down a lot from 2015. They firmed up a little bit. We hope they don’t go down any further. … That’s the thing that, when we were selling almonds for $4 a pound and paying $1,000 water, we were coming out okay. Now that the almonds are $2 a pound, we can’t afford $1,000 per acre foot of water. We hope the cost of water comes down significantly this year so that it comes out all right.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-01-26T20:48:25-08:00January 26th, 2017|