February 6, 2015
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California
Pistachio growers fret over
Stock dogs deal with stiff
competition at Red Bluff sale warm nights, dry conditions
By TIM HEARDEN
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
Capital Press
RED BLUFF, Calif. — Ed-
gar Ortega picked a high-cali-
ber venue to test his skill as a
stock dog breeder.
The Fort Klamath, Ore.,
resident entered his border
collie, BC Buck, in the Red
Bluff Bull and Gelding Sale,
where three days of compe-
titions preceded a sale of 16
dogs.
His dog sold for $2,900
to L9 Livestock in Modesto,
Calif.
“I wanted to bring him here
and try him out, try my luck,”
Ortega said. “This is my first
dog that I’ve trained up to this
level. ... I would consider this
to be probably one of the best
sales here on the West Coast.”
Buck was up against stiff
competition at the 37th annual
dog sale Jan. 30 at the Teha-
ma District Fair grounds. The
top dog, Klamath Falls, Ore.,
breeder Jaime Gonzalez’s PR
Canelo, sold for $13,000. The
average sale price was nearly
$5,219.
In an era when dog com-
petitions are becoming a
popular tool for breeders to
improve the quality of their
kennels, the Red Bluff event
has gained a reputation as one
of the best and toughest, en-
trants say.
The sale limits its entries
to 20 each year, and the dogs
face three graded workouts
— two outdoors and one in-
doors — at which they must
show their ability to herd cat-
tle. They can be sifted at any
time, and they must perform
in front of large crowds; about
5,000 people watched the
freestyle final just before the
sale.
“People love to watch the
dogs,” said Ron Anderson, a
bull sale committee member.
“Anybody can buy a dog. You
can buy it for ranch work, for
cattle work, or just for a pet.”
Ranchers who breed and
sell working cow dogs have
been embracing the growing
popularity of stock dog com-
petitions for several years.
The meets can help a rancher
compare the quality of his or
her dogs to others, and in-
creased participation in trials
has led to an overall upgrade
in the quality of dogs that are
available, breeders have said.
Hank Pritchard of Manton,
Calif., has been bringing dogs
to the Red Bluff sale since the
late 1980s, he said. He’s no-
ticed a steady rise in prices
paid for dogs.
“I got $4,700 one time, for
the high-selling dog in ’91,”
Pritchard said. “Now that’s
about the average.”
A good dog can fetch as
much as $15,000 in a sale,
breeders have said, and a lit-
ter of pups can bring a good
Pistachio growers in Cali-
fornia’s San Joaquin Valley are
worried about a repeat of last
year, when the drought and a
lack of winter chill hours di-
minished the size of their crop.
The recently concluded pis-
tachio harvest yielded 519 mil-
lion pounds, which eclipsed
the 475 million pounds pro-
duced in 2013 but fell short of
expectations that approached
600 million pounds, said Rich-
ard Matoian, executive direc-
tor of the Fresno-based Ameri-
can Pistachio Growers.
The shortfall came as many
areas in the valley, which is
home to nearly all of the na-
tion’s pistachio acres, failed to
achieve the net 800 hours of
chill that the trees need, Ma-
toian said. Some areas that did
get the chill hours also record-
ed high daytime temperatures,
which offset the nighttime
cold, he said.
The lack of chill hours led
to an uneven bloom, he said.
“The second thing that hap-
pened was the drought and a
lack of water,” Matoian said.
“With those two factors, what
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
A rancher works her dog during outside trials Jan. 30 at the Red
Bluff Bull and Gelding Sale. As many as 20 dogs go through a
series of trials each year before they’re sold.
return on investment. At Red
Bluff, the record price for a
dog was more than $20,000
several years ago, Anderson
said.
Like Ortega, Paige Wine-
barger of Paulina, Ore., was a
first-year entrant at this year’s
Red Bluff sale. After scoring
high in three days of compe-
titions, her dog Lazy D Toad
sold for $8,000 —— second
only to Gonzalez’s entry.
“My son’s been coming
here for several years,” said
her husband, Kirk Winebarg-
er. “He got the champion
dog several times, and the
high-selling dog.”
While its performance in
the competition usually af-
fects a dog’s sale price, it
doesn’t always. Ortega said
he’s seen dogs that scored low
in trials still fetch a decent re-
turn.
“It just depends on what
everybody likes,” he said.
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
Frank Tamayo sells pistachios
for Fiddyment Farms in Lincoln,
Calif., at a recent farmers’
market in Davis, Calif. A second
straight winter of dry conditions
and a lack of chill hours in
California’s San Joaquin Valley
has pistachio growers worried
about their crop.
promised to be a large crop
kept shrinking throughout the
year. We had estimates that
were ... as low as 425 million
pounds.”
This winter, valley com-
munities have again experi-
enced many nights that didn’t
get cold enough to benefit the
trees, he said. And with Jan-
uary having been one of the
driest months on record, the
drought shows no signs of end-
ing soon.
As last year should have
been an “on” year for the al-
ternate-bearing crop, the fact
that it didn’t meet expectations
may portend some promise
this year, Matoian said. But
that promise could be offset by
a lack of water availability, he
said.
“I’ve seen all kinds of pre-
dictions out there — predic-
tions as low as 450 million
pounds and as high as 650
pounds” for 2015, he said.
Exports of U.S. pistachios
have been increasing consis-
tently over the past five years,
as burgeoning global demand
has depleted U.S. stockpiles
from just under 50,000 metric
tons last year to an expected
28,532 at the end of 2014, ac-
cording to the USDA’s Foreign
Agricultural Service.
California growers weren’t
alone last year in turning out a
light crop. The USDA expect-
ed global production to be off
about 20 percent from 2013 as
key competitors Iran and Tur-
key were in the off year of the
alternate-bearing crop cycle,
although Iran ended up with
a larger crop than anticipated,
Matoian said.
Californians
cut water use
by 22 percent
By FENIT NIRAPPIL
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO,
Calif.
(AP) — State officials report-
ed Tuesday that residents in
drought-stricken California met
Gov. Jerry Brown’s call to slash
water use by 20 percent for the
first time in December, when
water use fell by 22 percent com-
pared to the same month in 2013.
But officials at the State Wa-
ter Resources Control Board
cautioned that state residents
may have been aided by a rainy
month in December, which min-
imized the need to water lawns.
“It reinforces what we
thought all along, that the extent
of outdoor water use is a huge
driver of water conservation and
water use,” board Chairwoman
Felicia Marcus said.
Brown called on residents
to cut water use by 20 percent
when he declared a drought
emergency last year. The closest
Californians previously came to
reaching that goal was in Au-
gust, when water use dropped
11.6 percent compared with the
previous year, according to the
monthly surveys of water sup-
pliers.
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