10 CapitalPress.com
February 10, 2017
California
Storms slow harvest of short navel crop, push up prices Drought
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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.