8
CapitalPress.com
April 14, 2017
California
Subscribe to our weekly California email
newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters
Growers struggling to make use of
‘overwhelming’ data, experts say
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
The harvest of navel oranges in the San Joaquin Valley is about 70
percent complete as the blossom for next year’s crop is at its peak.
Navel oranges in good
condition as harvest
enters home stretch
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — Navel
orange growers are slogging
through their season, as 70
percent of the harvest is com-
plete despite rains that have
slowed their progress.
The picking continues as
the blossom for next year’s
crop is at its peak, prevent-
ing growers from using pes-
ticides, said Alyssa Houtby,
spokeswoman for the Exeter,
Calif.-based California Citrus
Mutual.
But the crop has remained
in good shape despite wild
swings in the weather. Utili-
zation rates — the percentage
of oranges that can be sold
as fresh and not discarded or
diverted to juice — have re-
mained above 80 percent, she
said.
“We’re moving along,”
Houtby said. “There’s a lot of
harvesting going on in Exeter
right now.”
The harvest of navels in the
San Joaquin Valley typical-
ly begins in mid-autumn and
continues until the following
summer. Storms disrupted the
harvest this winter, as growers
grappled with muddy orchard
floors and had to apply treat-
ments against the fungus that
can come with heavy rains.
Growers were concerned
that the intermittent storms and
warm sunshine would com-
bine to cause issues with rot,
but so far those issues haven’t
materialized, Houtby said.
Growers have reported
their crop is smaller than
originally estimated. Going
into the season, farms were
expecting an 81-million-car-
ton 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 in Sacra-
mento.
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, CCM vice presi-
dent Bob Blakely has said.
The slow pace and under-
sized crop have enhance the
increase in price that normal-
ly happens after New Year’s
Day, which was needed as
prices earlier this season were
lower than they had been for
several years.
As of March 31, an
8-pound bag of navel oranges
sold for an average of $6.44,
up from $5.33 the previous
week and $5.46 at the same
point last year, according to
the USDA’s National Retail
Report.
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 slower pace of har-
vest helped some fruit gain in
size.
Demand has been steady
this spring for mid-sized to
larger oranges, Houtby said.
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
WOODLAND, Calif. —
There’s a wealth of digital
data available to growers, but
the challenge is to put it all to-
gether and present it in a way
that’s easy for them to use, ex-
perts say.
The advent of drones,
smart sensors and robotics is
revolutionizing farming and
enabling growers to “trade
knowledge for effort,” said
David Slaughter, a biological
and agricultural engineering
professor who runs the Uni-
versity of California-Davis
SmartFarm project.
The challenge, however, is
keeping track of it all and be-
ing able to access it quickly,
said Bob Payne, a tree nut and
row crop farmer in the south-
ern Sacramento Valley.
“Now we have so much
data that managing the data is
just overwhelming,” he said.
“There are different platforms
for every program.”
Payne said he’s looking
forward to the day when dif-
ferent sets of data “can talk to
each other.”
“Sometimes right now it’s
hard to make a decision be-
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
From left, Monsanto strategic account manager Candace Wilson
moderates a panel discussion on ag technology with David Slaughter
of the University of California-Davis, Erik Ehn of Blue River Technolo-
gy and nut and row crop farmer Bob Payne. They agreed that a lot of
data is available to farmers, but the hurdle is putting it to good use.
cause there’s just too much of
it,” he said.
Slaughter and Payne were
taking part in a panel discus-
sion on the opportunities and
challenges of new ag tech-
nology during a recent me-
dia tour and presentation at
Monsanto’s vegetable seed
research and development lab
in Woodland.
The discussion comes as
new technology is becoming
a game changer for many
commodities. For instance,
the dairy industry is develop-
ing technology that can distill
cow manure into dry fertilizer
and clean water, making pol-
luted runoff from dairies a
problem of the past.
UC Cooperative Extension
researchers are also testing
tree monitors and weather
gauges connected to online
data systems and new ad-
vances in aerial imagery to
help growers with precision
irrigation. And automation is
being developed for harvest-
ing everything from raisins to
apples.
Blue River Technology,
a Sunnyvale, Calif., com-
pany with about 50 em-
ployees, has developed a
machine that helps lettuce
growers thin their crop.
Growers typically overplant
to be sure to get enough
top-quality lettuce, and the
camera-equipped machine
weeds out the rest by apply-
ing a lethal dose of fertilizer
that won’t harm neighboring
plants or the soil, said Erik
Ehn, Blue River’s director of
product management.
“There’s a tremendous
amount of innovation going
on in agriculture,” said Sam
Eathington, chief scientist for
The Climate Corp., a Mon-
santo subsidiary. The com-
pany examines weather, soil
and field data to help growers
determine potential yield-lim-
iting factors in their fields, ac-
cording to its website.
Variability is a factor in ev-
ery agricultural field, and the
key is finding the right inputs
and hybrid plants that will
work better in each soil type,
Eathington said.
Groups say new fuel, vehicle taxes disproportionately hit ag
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — Farm
groups are displeased over
the Legislature’s passage of
$52 billion in new vehicle and
fuel taxes over the next de-
cade that they say will dispro-
portionately impact growers.
Lawmakers late April 6
approved Gov. Jerry Brown’s
more than $5 billion-a-year
plan to fund major road re-
pairs, which will hike vehicle
registration fees while raising
gas taxes by 12 cents a gallon
and increasing diesel sales
taxes from 16 cents to 36
cents per gallon.
Western Growers presi-
dent and chief executive of-
ficer Tom Nassif argued the
tax increases will add to the
“staggering regulatory bur-
dens and costs placed on Cal-
ifornia farmers” that “have
already placed our industry
at a competitive disadvantage
relative to other states” and
countries.
California Citrus Mutual
leaders agreed.
“Any increase in transpor-
tation costs cannot be passed
on to consumers,” CCM
spokeswoman Alyssa Houtby
told the Capital Press. “We
are price takers, not price set-
ters. Any time the government
imposes fees or regulations
… it directly impacts the bot-
tom line to the grower.”
Western Growers and
CCM were among more than
two dozen agricultural groups
that had urged lawmakers
to oppose Senate Bill 1, the
transportation bill by Sen.
Jim Beall, D-San Jose. Other
groups included the Califor-
nia Farm Bureau Federation,
the California Fresh Fruit
Association, the Almond Al-
liance and the California Cat-
tlemen’s Association.
The groups asserted the
new taxes will dramatically
increase costs for farmers and
ranchers who use large vehi-
cles to manage their opera-
tions and bring their products
to market, while a significant
portion of the money will go
to urban public transportation,
trails and commuter corridors
that are far removed from ru-
ral areas and won’t benefit the
growers.
Trucks that producers use
will likely be subject to the
top tier for registration fees,
while many agricultural ve-
hicles are also subject to
weight fees, the groups told
lawmakers in an April 3 let-
ter. New registration fees will
range from $25 to $175 de-
pending on the value of the
vehicle, and the taxes and
fees will rise each year with
inflation.
The 20-cent-per-gallon
increase for diesel fuel is “a
pretty significant number,”
said Justin Oldfield, the Cal-
ifornia Cattlemen’s Associa-
tion’s vice president of gov-
ernment affairs.
“It’s a tax that everyone
is going to have to pay for,”
Oldfield said. “Whether
you’re poor or in a business
… you’re going to be required
to pay it.”
However, the bill does re-
strict future regulations on
greenhouse gas emissions for
commercial trucks — a con-
cession to the trucking indus-
try that displeased environ-
mentalists.
The bill passed the Senate
and Assembly by the two-
thirds majorities needed for
tax increases after a week
of campaigning by Brown,
Assembly Speaker Anthony
Rendon and Senate President
Pro Tem Kevin de Leon.
15-7/#8
15-1/#4N
15-2/#8