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10 CapitalPress.com February 10, 2017 California Storms slow harvest of short navel crop, push up prices Drought Subscribe to our weekly California email newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press CAPAY, Calif. — Winter storms are disrupting the har- vest of navel oranges in Cali- fornia, but the slower pace is helping the fruit gain in price. For Bev Seale, who grows navels in the mid-Sacramen- to Valley, the high winds that came with several storms in January caused trees to lose up to half their oranges, she said. “The weather has been un- merciful on my crop,” Seale said. “The flavor is wonder- ful. The oranges sized up beautifully. But this year I’ve probably lost about half my oranges on the ground.” Such damage has been iso- lated, however. In the prime growing region in the San Joaquin Valley, growers are mostly grappling with muddy orchard floors and having to apply treatments against the fungus that can come with heavy rains, said Bob Blakely, vice president of California Citrus Mutual. “It’s disrupted the harvest- Tim Hearden/Capital Press Capay, Calif., navel orange grower Bev Seale has sustained some crop damage from high winds in recent weeks, she said. Other growers have had to contend with muddy ground in groves and had to treat trees for fungus that can develop after heavy rains. ing schedule,” Blakely said. “They’ve been able to get in and get the market supplied. It’s made for some muddy conditions, but they’re getting the crop out.” The crop was already turn- ing out to be smaller than originally estimated, he said. Going into the season, grow- ers were expecting an 81 million-carton crop, down from the 88 million cartons weighing 1.76 million tons that came out of groves in a weather-bolstered 2015- 2016 season, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service office in Sacramento. The smaller crop wasn’t a surprise considering last year’s abundance, but it’s turning out to be as much as 18 percent below last year’s production, Blakely said. “It’s sizing, but it sized slower,” he said. “We don’t have an abundance of large fruit, and big fruit makes more boxes. We’re seeing really good quality right now and the fruit is eating well.” A silver lining for grow- ers is that the slow pace and undersized crop has pushed up prices. Mid-sized oranges, which make up the bulk of the crop, have risen $1 a box since December and are now between $11 and $12 a box, Blakely said. “I think we’re going to see that continue to come up grad- ually,” he said. Prices typically increase after New Year’s Day, but this year the increase was espe- cially needed, he said. “Prices had been low- er than they had been for two or three years,” Blakely said. “They were getting to the point that growers were reaching a break-even or loss scenario, so we needed to see the price move up. I would expect prices will continue to rise in the next few weeks, es- pecially as the market realizes this crop is going to be short.” The navel harvest typi- cally runs from mid-autumn until the following summer. Early in the season, pickers usually focus on blocks with larger fruit and leave smaller oranges on trees to continue to grow, as smaller fruit often must be discounted to move it out. The harvest is now about 35 percent complete, Blakely said. Lower prices, acreage squeeze California Wheat Commission budget By MATTHEW WEAVER Online Capital Press http://www.californiawheat.org/ The California Wheat Commission expects less revenue this year as a re- sult of low prices and fewer acres planted, its executive director says. With low prices, execu- tive director Claudia Carter expects fewer acres to be planted, which will mean lower revenue from assess- ments collected from grow- ers. “It’s not an optimistic pic- ture that we see for this com- ing fiscal year,” she said. “The commission has been trying to see which areas we can retain some funding.” Carter’s not sure yet how much lower next year’s bud- get will be. For the current year, the Courtesy of Matt Salvo/California Farm Bureau Federation Claudia Carter, executive director of the California Wheat Com- mission, says assessment revenue will likely be lower this year because prices and acreage are down. commission is doing better than the $600,000 it budget- ed — roughly $40,000 more, Carter said. The commission has a milling and baking laborato- ry, which receives a fee for its services. The lab income has increased, which has helped cover the commis- sion’s operating expenses, Carter said. The commission also re- leased its variety survey the week of Jan. 30. The commission typically conducts an annual survey, but missed last year due to staff changes, Carter said. “It helps the growers to make decisions, helps the commission to know the area that’s being planted and how much will be harvested for grain,” Carter said. The survey asks growers if they plan to grow wheat this year. Growers typically select a high-yielding vari- ety with high protein con- tent and good disease resis- tance, Carter said. In the survey, the com- mission also asks the num- ber of acres; whether the land is dryland, irrigated or organic; and wheth- er the crop will be cut for green chop or forage. The survey also covers plant- ed acres lost to drought or flooding. The information helps the commission board as it prepares its new budget. The commission collects an assessment on wheat of 7.5 cents per hundredweight. California growers raise hard red, soft white, hard white and durum wheat. 6-1\#0N4 debate intensifies among lawmakers By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press SACRAMENTO — Is Cal- ifornia still in a drought? It de- pends on who you ask. A group of legislators and water district officials at the northern end of the state say the winter’s deluges and heavy snowpack prove the drought is over, and they want Gov. Jerry Brown to declare it so. “Our reservoirs are filled or are filling, and our ground- water is replenished,” said state Sen. Jim Nielsen, one of the handful of officials asking Brown to end his more than 3-year-old state of emergency. The governor’s executive orders mandating continued, long-term water savings were appropriate, “but this power should not be abused,” Nielsen said. “This drought is over.” Not so fast, state officials argue. There are still about two months left in the current rainy season, and even if it continues to be wet, eight of the last 10 years in California have been dry, they contend. “Many Californians con- tinue to experience the effects of drought and a number of Central Valley communities still depend on water tanks and bottled water,” state De- partment of Water Resources spokeswoman Nancy Vogel said in an email. She notes that after the pre- vious drought declaration was ended in March 2011, severe drought returned the follow- ing year, leading to the driest four-year period in the state’s history. The debate comes as the U.S. Drought Monitor shows that drought has completely receded from areas north of Sacramento and conditions have dramatically improved elsewhere, including the San Joaquin Valley, which has been hit the hardest. California’s statewide snowpack was at 173 percent of normal on Feb. 6 — a de- velopment that has prompted the California Farm Bureau Federation and other groups to ask for more generous wa- ter allocations for growers this summer. As rain continued to fall this week, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation increased flood-control releases into the Sacramento and American rivers, and local agencies re- sponded to numerous reports of localized flooding. Nielsen and others — in- cluding state Sen. Ted Gaines and Assemblymen Brian Dahle, James Gallagher and Kevin Kiley, all Republicans — said the latest drought taught Californians to con- serve by substituting more drought-tolerant plants, tak- ing shorter showers and using more efficient watering sys- tems. “With the recent rainstorms, most of the major reservoirs are above average so significant- ly that the local water districts are currently at or above their normal operating ranges,” stat- ed the letter, which was also signed by Northern California Water Association president David Guy and a dozen local officials. But state and federal offi- cials have pushed back against suggestions that the drought has ended. “The state is still respond- ing to requests for assistance related to impacts arising from the drought,” National Weather Service warning coordinator Michelle Mead said in an email. “These impacts stem from a variety of conditions and local water management capabilities that are not necessarily alleviat- ed from the extreme events of the last month.” There is no “rulebook” for when a drought is declared or rescinded, Vogel said. Lo- cal governments can declare drought emergencies, and Cal- ifornia governors through the years have declared both regional and statewide droughts, she said.
