January 13, 2017
CapitalPress.com
3
Calif. storms help fi ll reservoirs but slow ag work
By TIM HEARDEN
California snow
water equivalents
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — Big rains in
California have dumped more than
a million acre-feet of water into the
state’s reservoirs since Jan. 1 but this
week stalled the Central Valley’s na-
vel and mandarin orange harvests,
state and industry offi cials say.
The storms had added 1.1 million
acre-feet of water to California’s
reservoirs by Jan. 9 with more to
come, according to state offi cials,
while prompting the opening of the
Sacramento Weir — a fl ood-control
bypass around the city — for the fi rst
time since 2006.
Shasta Lake, the Central Val-
ley Project’s main reservoir, was at
81 percent of capacity as of Jan. 11
while Lake Oroville, the chief reser-
voir for the State Water Project, was
at 74 percent of capacity, according
to the Department of Water Resourc-
es.
As of Jan. 11, California’s
snow-water content had vaulted to
158 percent of normal statewide af-
ter being just 70 percent of normal
a week earlier. The southern Sierra
Nevada’s snowpack was at 187 per-
cent of normal for this time of year,
according to the DWR’s California
Data Exchange Center.
This week saw a one-two punch
of “atmospheric river” mega-storms
aimed at California, with the fi rst on
Jan. 7-8 bringing rain, heavy winds and
local fl ooding and the second on Jan.
10-11 expected to pile as much as 6 feet
of snow on the mountains, according to
the National Weather Service.
But the rain wasn’t all good news
for farmers.
More than 2 inches of rain in the
Central Valley’s prime citrus grow-
Percent of the historic average snow water
equivalent for Jan. 11, measured in inches.
Northern Sierra/Trinity:
131% of normal
Redding
Central Sierra:
156% of normal
5
Sacramento
80
Southern
Sierra:
187% of
normal
San
Francisco
Fresno
N
50 miles
5
Statewide
average: 158%
Eric Risberg/Associated Press
Vineyards remain fl ooded in the Russian River Valley Monday in Forestville, Calif. A massive storm system
stretching from California into Nevada lifted rivers beyond their banks, fl ooded vineyards and forced people to
evacuate the area.
ing region has made the ground
too wet to move equipment and in-
creased the risk that wet fruit could
be blemished, said Joel Nelsen, pres-
ident of the Exeter, Calif.-based Cal-
ifornia Citrus Mutual.
While the rain is welcome after
four years of drought, the timing has
been a little frustrating for growers,
Nelsen acknowledged.
“We’re in the middle of a good
harvest,” he said. “This is when we
start our exports to Korea and Japan,
and the international scene is quite
attractive right now. It (the weather)
affects volume.”
Another concern for citrus grow-
ers is if temperatures suddenly drop
after the rains clear out and water
still on the fruit freezes, causing sur-
face blemishes that force growers to
destroy the fruit, Nelsen said. But
that wasn’t in the forecast as of Jan.
10, he said.
Most of California has been
soggy since New Year’s Day, with
some valley areas getting as much
as 5 inches of rain in the fi rst week
of 2017 and as much as 14 inches of
rain falling in some mountain com-
munities, according to the National
Agricultural Statistics Service.
On farms, the rain has helped the
growth of planted grains and fi eld
crops continue at an excellent rate,
NASS reports, but it has brought
fi eld work to a standstill.
At Shasta College in Redding,
15
Bakersfield
40
Los Angeles
10
Source: California Dept.
of Water Resources
8
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Calif., frequent storms have prevent-
ed the farm from planting some of its
grain fi elds, farm manager B.J. Mac-
farlane said. The farm grows all of
its hay and grains to avoid having to
purchase feed for its livestock.
“We’re not complaining, but it’s
messed up our farming, the water
coming like it has,” Macfarlane said.
“But I’ve planted grain in January
and February and been just fi ne.”
Fruit and nut growers have been
pruning orchards and shredding the
brush as the weather has allowed,
but vineyard operations had to stop
most post-harvest fi eld activities be-
cause of the rain, NASS reported.
But no major damage to fruit and
nut orchards because of high winds
or fl ooding had been reported, local
Farm Bureau and University of Cal-
ifornia Cooperative Extension offi -
cials said.
“The water, so far, is a good thing
here,” Fresno County Farm Bureau
executive director Ryan Jacobsen
said in an email.
Many orchardists took steps
ahead of time to prevent large-scale
orchard damage from wind and
fl ooding, including applying zinc in
the fall to help drop the leaves and
making sure they have good drain-
age, said Dani Lightle, a UCCE farm
adviser in Orland, Calif.
The biggest worry for nut grow-
ers is developing root rot from stand-
ing water, she said.
Bird fl u detected in
Judge rules in million-dollar disputes
Montana mallard duck
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Virus similar to
2014-15 outbreak
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
A mallard duck harvested
in Montana in late Decem-
ber tested positive for high-
ly pathogenic bird fl u, the
World Organization for An-
imal Health and the USDA
announced Wednesday.
The duck was infected
with a mix of Eurasian and
North American bird fl u vi-
ruses that created a strain
similar to the one fi rst found
in the U.S. in a northern pin-
tail duck in Whatcom County
in northwestern Washington
in December 2014.
In the following six
months, bird fl u spread to 15
states, claiming 50.4 million
chickens and turkeys,
“This appears to be one
of the strains we saw during
the outbreak in 2014 and
2015,” USDA Chief Veter-
inarian Jack Shere said in
a written statement. “This
fi nding serves as a powerful
reminder that there is still
avian infl uenza circulating in
wild birds, and producers and
industry need to continue to
be vigilant about biosecurity
to protect domestic poultry.”
Migratory waterfowl car-
ry the disease, but are im-
mune from its ill effects.
To detect the circula-
tion of the virus, the USDA
and other federal and state
agencies have tested near-
ly 30,000 wild birds in the
past six months. The duck
sampled Dec. 27 in Fergus
County, Mont., was the sec-
ond confi rmed case of highly
pathogenic bird fl u since July.
A mallard duck at a wildlife
refuge in Alaska tested posi-
tive in August.
Two million-dollar-plus disputes be-
tween agricultural interests have been de-
cided.
In one, an Idaho packing company owes
$1.3 million for potatoes that a farmer de-
livered to an intermediary but wasn’t paid
for, a federal judge ruled.
The ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge
Lynn Winmill concludes about three years
of litigation between farmer Kirk Jacobs,
Taylor Produce and the Idaho Potato Pack-
ers Corp.
Previous court decisions held that
Taylor Produce failed to pay Jacobs
for more than $1.3 million worth of
potatoes in violation of the Perish-
able Agricultural Commodities Act, or
PACA, which requires proceeds from
crops to be held in trust for growers.
While Taylor Produce packaged and
shipped the potatoes, the sales were han-
dled by the Idaho Potato Packers Corp., or
IPPC.
Jacobs claimed that IPPC improperly
deducted $1.3 million in expenses for mar-
keting, freight, packaging materials and
commissions from potato proceeds that
were to be turned over to Taylor Produce.
The judge has now agreed that the pro-
ceeds from IPPC’s potato sales were PACA
trust assets belonging to Jacobs that the
packing company wrongly converted by
deducting those expenses.
Winmill said that “IPPC has not estab-
lished that the various expenses it seeks to
recoup can be traced to Jacob’s potatoes”
or that the deductions were even authorized
under its marketing agreement with Taylor
Produce.
For that reason, IPPC and its subsidiar-
ies are liable to Jacobs for the $1.3 million
in potato proceeds, the judge said.
In the other dispute, Winmill recently
resolved a lingering fi nancial dispute be-
tween the H.J. Heinz Co. and a former sup-
plier, the Bright Harvest Sweet Potato Co.
Bright Harvest fi led a complaint against
Heinz three years ago, alleging the food
company had reneged on a contract to buy
sweet potato fries after building its own
processing facility in Ontario, Ore.
A jury found that Heinz hadn’t breached
the contract in 2015, but Winmill over-
turned that fi nding, ruling that the jury’s
conclusion wasn’t supported by the evi-
dence at trial.
After a second trial, a jury awarded
Bright Harvest more than $1.2 million
in damages, which was challenged by
Heinz.
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