[AT] Agriculture in Coastal Central California and weather

[Grant Brians]

Since my last post about the tomato harvest and this season's weather, there
has been weather! I know, I know that is self evident, but its worth
mentioning in this context. The Cannery Tomatoes all or nearly all got
picked before the canneries closed - sometimes that is anything but true.
And they finished picking the day the first fall rains hit, amazingly.
Unfortunately, my fresh market tomatoes are not so lucky.... We got a half
inch here in the Santa Clara Valley where I have all of my tomatoes this
year. The flavor has been amazing, but the amount sold so far is pretty
abysmal thanks to the year's weather. I've known since August that this was
going to be a hard year for the tomatoes, but I will be beyond lucky if I
come close to breaking even on them by the end of the year. All I can hope
for is that it gets dry, warm and Mexico doesn't have much product out
there.... We shall see.
     At least we got our walnuts harvested on the day the rains started
before the rain started a week ago Saturday. Some farmers are still in the
position that their nuts are on the ground and that is a really bad thing
with precipitation. We had another farmer shake our little orchard, and then
we picked up the nuts by hand - lots of labor! But then I just bought a
harvester that I am hoping I can refurbish and use in the future. This will
naturally involve a lot of work, but hopefully the 1950's vintage machinery
will work well. There are plenty of other similar age units still in use in
California, but the issue will come soon of whether the pollution
regulations make it impossible to use these old but operational units. A new
set of harvesting machinery of this type for the Walnuts would exceed
$100,000 - possibly $200,000. Yes it would be faster, but it would not pay
for anyone at this point in our area to acquire a new setup because it would
never pay for itself with our small orchards.
     Does this sound typical of life as a farmer? It should! Also I am going
to offer a warning to all list members to practice what I have been
preaching and usually do myself, but did not do on Wednesday to my immense
pain.... When lifting a trailer tongue - especially one exceeding 350# in
weight, use a jack unless you KNOW you are lifting correctly. I messed up my
back muscles (but fortunately not spine) as a result of ignoring my normal
practice because I was in a hurry.
           Grant Brians