Strong mid-October storm threatens autumn harvests

Issue Date: October 21, 2009

By Steve Adler and Ron Miller

Heavy rains that swept across the state last week brought harvest activities for several crops to a sudden stop, as fields and vineyards became too wet and muddy to support heavy harvest equipment.

For most farmers who still had unharvested crops, the storm resulted more in delays than in crop losses, though farmers of a number of crops worried about mold, as the storm was followed by several days of high humidity.

While farmers around the state said most crops had been harvested before the Oct. 13 storm, late harvests remain of rice, cotton, winegrapes, processing tomatoes, walnuts and several other crops.

Farmers such as San Joaquin County processing tomato grower Richard Rodriguez and Lodi winegrape grower Joe Valente said they were optimistic that they can complete their harvests in the days ahead. Both expressed the thought that the crops they had already harvested will cover the year's operating expenses, but the crops that remained in the field represent any profit for the year.

"Most of my tomatoes were harvested before the storm. I have about 15-20 acres left. It was a pretty good year up until the rain, but now the profit is left out in the field," Rodriguez said. "I am going to try to harvest these as soon as the ground is dry enough to allow my harvest equipment to move through the field. This is the first time in about 20 years that we have seen this kind of rain.

"At this point it will all depend on how they grade. If it gets warm too fast, the mold may set in quicker. What we need right now is a wind to dry them," he said.

Very few processing tomato fields remained to be harvested, and farm advisors from Kern County to Colusa County reported that only scattered fields were hit by the rain.

Rodriguez also has dry beans, bell peppers and walnuts that haven't been harvested. He said while the harvests may be delayed, that shouldn't cause too much damage to the crops.

"We are only to the middle of October, so normally we should have some good weather for a few more weeks," he said.

Valente made a similar projection, saying he also expected to complete the harvest of his few remaining acres of winegrapes.

"The grapes are ready to go; it is just a matter of whether the ground can support the harvester," he said. "From what I've been hearing from other growers in the Lodi area, it is probably 80-85 percent that has been harvested. Hopefully, it stays dry and we can come back in the next few days and get things wrapped up."

Winegrape growers on the North Coast and Central Coast had similar reports. Monterey County grower Steve McIntyre said farmers received advance warning of the impending storm and sped up their harvest in the days leading to it.

"We were 65 percent through with winegrape harvest, including most of the stuff that is susceptible to rot: the whites and pinot noir. The storm hasn't had a huge impact other than to speed up the rest of our harvest," he said. "The fruit was the cleanest that I've ever seen it leading up to the storm and this is the first precipitation that we've had. The rot will start to show up, but it hasn't reared its ugly head quite yet. I think we will lose a little bit here and there, but I don't think it is going to be a huge issue."

Nat DiBuduo, president of Allied Grape Growers in Fresno, noted that winery scheduling and capacity issues compounded the vulnerability of winegrapes.

"The wineries now all of a sudden are willing to work on Saturdays and Sundays to get in as much as they can. But the reason we have so much out there is that we weren't able to pick earlier on a timely basis," he said. "It is frustrating when you know that you could have been picking last week but you couldn't get into the winery. And now we have rain issues."

While the almond harvest was nearly 100 percent complete before last week's storm, high winds did cause some damage to trees. Most of those were trees that had unseen disease problems. In addition, some farmers with newly planted almond trees report the one-year-old trees have been blown over. Farm advisors are helping those growers replant the trees and say most can be saved.

Bruce Lindauer, a walnut grower in Tehama County, said the rain caused some harvest problems in the Sacramento Valley.

"I was out picking some (Sunday) and so far they're holding up. The biggest problem is the ground is so wet you can hardly get out there to get them," he said. "The sooner we get them up and get them dry, the better. The longer they lay out there in those wet conditions, the worse it is."

Rain also delayed the rice harvest, with about a third of the crop still in the field. Growers report yields had been very good up until the storm. The high wind also brought some reports of lodging, which means harvesting machines must move slower and the yields may be reduced. There are also rice fields that were planted in late May and early June that are not ripe yet and need more warm weather. Cooler-than-average summer temperatures slowed the growing process.

Kern County recorded only about half an inch of rain, so cotton farmers there were back harvesting very quickly. However, rain was heavier in Fresno and Tulare counties and fields were too muddy to work for a few days. There are about 3,500 acres of cotton in the Sacramento Valley and none of that was ready to harvest. It is not known yet how it fared in the storm.

About 75 percent of the state's dry bean crop was harvested before last week, and growers said they're optimistic that they will be able to harvest the remaining beans without much mold developing.

For strawberries, harvest in the Salinas-Watsonville region stopped for four or five days after the rain. Growers in the Oxnard region are just starting production, and the strawberry plants there will benefit from the rain.

The rain will also help rangelands and pastures that have become parched after three years of below-average precipitation.

But the storm took a heavy toll on a Northern California agritourism operation.

The world's largest corn maze was flattened by the hard rain and strong winds that swept through Solano County. The timing of the pre-Halloween storm couldn't have been worse for the Cool Patch Pumpkin Maze in Dixon.

"It's just a flattened mass of green," said Matt Cooley, one of the brothers who created the 43-acre maze that is listed in the 2009 Guinness Book of World Records as the largest in the world.

Cooley estimated wind speeds of 45 to 50 mph blew across the farm and maze. He said the corn just couldn't stand up to that.

(Steve Adler is associate editor of Ag Alert. He may be contacted at sadler@cfbf.com. Ron Miller is a reporter for Ag Alert. He may be contacted at rmiller@cfbf.com. Reporter Kathy Coatney also contributed to this report.)

Permission for use is granted, however, credit must be made to the California Farm Bureau Federation when reprinting this item. Top