From the Fields

Tim Larson
Kings County diversified grower

Right now, we're busy getting our fields ready for next year, including getting our tomato beds ready for spring planting, getting our drip hoses all fixed and maintained.

We are putting the herbicides on in the winegrape vineyards and putting the vines to sleep for the winter. With pistachios, we're treating the berms with herbicides, and hopefully we will get some incoming rains over the winter months to get us started for next year.

Our tomato crop was excellent. The tonnage was high. We were going with drip irrigation and that sure helps the production factor. Pistachios were down a little bit and it looks like the walnut crop is down probably 20 percent to 30 percent below last year, but prices look like they will be a little bit better than we had last year, so we are hoping for positive things there.

On the winegrape side, we had a little better production than last year and it looks like our region will pay a little bit better for the variety we grow, French colombard. We are benefiting from the fact that there are more consumers purchasing the $5 to $7 bottle of wine vs. the $10 to $20 bottle or even higher varietals. We are enjoying this for now, because we need to make ends meet in the short term.

We've typically been a 500 to 1,000 acre producer of cotton. This year we didn't have any cotton and next year we are planning on having anywhere from 100 to 300 acres, depending on what the water supply looks like. One of the reasons that a lot of the guys are going back to cotton is because of uncertainty in the dairy industry for the forage crops that we produce.

As a farmer, I'm always optimistic. Realistic, yes, but we have to have a certain level of optimism.