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CapitalPress.com
May 19, 2017
About one-third of California’s farmland is irrigated
DROUGHT from Page 1
California’s newly created
position of senior manager of
irrigation and water effi cien-
cy.
Much is at stake. Califor-
nia’s 80,500 farms and their
supporting industries create
nearly 3 million jobs, accord-
ing to a legislative report. In
2015, California’s farms and
ranches received about $47
billion for their crops and
livestock and exported $20.69
billion in crops and products,
more than their counterparts in
any other state, according to the
USDA.
And irrigation is the linchpin
of California agriculture. About
one-third of the state’s 25 mil-
lion acres of farmland is irrigat-
ed, representing the majority of
harvested cropland, according
to the USDA Economic Re-
search Service.
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
Kevin Day, left, of the University of California Cooperative Exten-
sion, talks with retired USDA researcher Claude Phene about a
subsurface drip irrigation experiment they’re doing in a Parlier,
Calif., fruit orchard. Researchers are developing ways to save
water when the next drought comes to California.
Research ongoing
In the heart of the San Joa-
quin Valley — the only part
of California that remains in
drought — two UC research
farms are combining technolo-
gy with management practices
to put every drop of irrigation
water to work.
“This is one of the few
places in the world where you
can do drought research on a
fi eld level,” said Jeff Dahlberg,
director of the UC’s Kearney
Agricultural Research and Ex-
tension Center in Parlier. “What
I’m planning is a world-class
drought nursery.”
Among the many projects at
Kearney, UC Cooperative Ex-
tension vegetable crop special-
ist Jeff Mitchell is working on
a concept called “conservation
agriculture.” It involves using
subsurface drip irrigation, min-
imizing tillage and using cover
crops and crop residues to im-
prove the soil’s ability to hold
water.
“This is not done right now
in California,” said Mitchell,
who chairs the university’s
Conservation Agriculture Sys-
tems Innovation Center. “In the
future, there may be a strong
likelihood of certain agricultural
sectors adopting these practic-
es.”
About 40 miles away, the
UC’s West Side Research and
Extension Center has been
working with growers to perfect
micro-irrigation effi ciency and
test drought stress on the area’s
most prevalent crops, including
cotton, sorghum, corn and to-
matoes.
“We’ll grow a tremendous
number of cultivars of a crop”
and identify “what seem to be
the most promising cultivars
when you grow them under
drought conditions,” said Bob
Hutmacher, a cotton specialist
and the center’s director.
Meanwhile, the California
Water Institute at California
State University-Fresno has
been trying to plan water use
on a regional level, aiming to
determine what the valley’s wa-
Jeff
Dahlberg
Bob
Hutmacher
tersheds can support if manage-
ment techniques are optimized.
On May 12, university of-
fi cials dedicated a 36-acre al-
mond orchard block on the
Fresno State campus to test an
automated drip irrigation sys-
tem. It will independently study
three different soil types to de-
termine each’s specifi c needs,
according to a news release.
The project is funded
in part by Netafi m, an Isra-
el-based manufacturing fi rm
that is working with the Almond
Board to develop technology to
help growers micromanage an
orchard’s water, soil, fertiliza-
tion and fertigation needs.
Industry leaders have placed
a high priority on irrigation effi -
ciency “for a long time, but nev-
er more than the present,” said
Richard Waycott, the Almond
Board’s president and chief ex-
ecutive offi cer.
Debilitating drought
There may not be much time
before the next drought.
California has experienced
two severe droughts in the past
10 years as atmospheric patterns
associated with droughts in the
state have become more com-
mon in recent decades, Stan-
ford University scientists said
in a series of studies.
They said the stubborn
offshore pressure ridge that
marked the most recent drought
was “very likely” linked to
global warming, and scientists
warn that droughts could be-
come longer, more frequent
and more severe as climate
change takes hold.
Within agriculture, the dev-
astation from the 2012-2016
drought in California is still
fresh in everyone’s mind —
and its impacts are still being
felt.
Jeff
Mitchell
The UC-Davis Center for
Watershed Sciences estimated
the drought cost California’s
agricultural economy more
than $5.2 billion during its peak
in 2014-2016. Water shortages
during the period caused the
fallowing of more than 1 mil-
lion acres and the loss of nearly
40,000 agricultural jobs, the
center estimated.
The Pacifi c Institute, a think
tank that studies water-relat-
ed issues, found that Califor-
nia growers maintained re-
cord-high crop revenue at the
height of the drought through
massive groundwater pumping,
which it called unsustainable.
State water experts agree,
arguing that all the drought-re-
lated pumping in the Central
Valley caused land to sink at
historic rates while drying up
numerous wells in Porterville
and other places, forcing them
to truck in water. They point
to a 2015 National Aeronau-
tics and Space Administration
study that showed land in the
valley was sinking by nearly 2
inches per month in some plac-
es.
A subsequent NASA report
in February noted that subsid-
ence — the sinking of land as
the water table is drawn down
— is getting worse in two
“bowls” in the San Joaquin Val-
ley. Subsidence-related damage
to the California Aqueduct and
other man-made canals has
prompted state water regulators
to consider restricting pumping
near those structures.
Looming on the horizon
is implementation of the Sus-
tainable Groundwater Man-
agement Act, a 2014 law that
requires local governments to
regulate pumping and aqui-
fer recharge. Local leaders in
the most troubled areas face a
July 1 deadline for setting up
new groundwater management
agencies.
Groundwater recharge proj-
ects may help. UC research-
ers are working with growers
throughout the valley to fi nd
fi elds with soils conducive to
recharge and set up pilot proj-
ects, as are groups such as the
Almond Board.
State-funded aquifer re-
charge projects already under-
way put at least 306,727 acre-
feet of water per year back into
the ground, according to Stan-
ford University estimates. Proj-
ects are mainly concentrated in
the eastern San Joaquin Valley,
along the Central Coast and in
Southern California.
“I actually think we’re doing
OK in that with annual crops and
fi nding ways to make it work in
permanent crops,” Hutmacher,
the UC’s West Side Research
and Extension Center director,
said of developing groundwater
recharge projects. “They’re a lit-
tle reticent (irrigating) too late in
the spring … until they see it’s
not going to cause them harm.”
But there’s widespread con-
sensus the groundwater that
helped growers make it through
the last drought won’t be nearly
as available the next time.
“It’ll change a whole lot of
economics,” Hutmacher said of
the groundwater management
act. “If they say anything that
depletes the water table is un-
sustainable, wow.”
Change in approach
To adjust to the new reali-
ties, many growers may have to
change their approach to water
use, explained Mitchell, the UC
vegetable crop specialist.
Researchers have noted that
California agriculture is essen-
tially based on tillage and irri-
gation, he argues, adding that
there’s a lot of emphasis on
precision irrigation technology,
but because of tillage and loss of
biodiversity in the soil, growers
need more water.
Conservation
agriculture
takes a more holistic approach,
minimizing soil disturbance
while preserving residues for soil
cover, diversifying crop rotations
and using cover crops, Mitchell
said in a recent presentation.
No-till
systems
have
changed cropping practices
in parts of the Central Great
Plains because of their bene-
fi cial impacts on soil health,
which improved water reten-
tion and crop performance,
according to a report by Randy
Anderson of the USDA’s Agri-
cultural Research Service.
Mitchell said the approach
will save growers money be-
cause it requires smaller equip-
ment and less labor.
“When you couple all of the
benefi ts, it’s hard to imagine this
not happening,” he told the Cap-
ital Press. “In Brazil, people are
doing it. Seventy percent of Bra-
zilian farmers are already doing
this. The other side of this is
these systems are storing more
carbon in the soil. … It certainly
The court has received more than 40,000 emails about weed issue
WEEDS from Page 1
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The farm proposed methods
that, depending on the weed,
included heavy fertilization and
then deep cultivation to get at
roots, spot use of Boron, citrus
pulp mulch, covering weeds
with landscaping fabric, salt,
mowing before seeds form and
spraying with calcium, man-
ganese and boron before cul-
tivation. “This causes the new
blooms to wilt and not seed
out; doesn’t kill the entire plan,
though, but controls the spread,”
the farm suggested.
The issue has blown up on
social media.
The manager of Azure
Farms, Nathan Stelzer, urged
supporters to “Overwhelm the
Sherman County representa-
tives with your voice.” A vid-
eo posted on the farm website
called for people to express their
outrage.
McCoy, the commissioner,
said the county court has re-
ceived more than 40,000 emails
about the issue, “and the number
is increasing rapidly.” On social
media, critics have called the
county’s stance outrageous and
accused the county of trying
to poison the organic farm on
behalf of “Big Ag” or Monsan-
to, which has no apparent role
in the matter. McCoy said the
charges against county offi cials
are inaccurate.
David Stelzer, CEO of Azure
Grass
Approximate
Valley
site of Azure
Farms
206
GILLIAM
SHERMAN
5 miles
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Standard said he has tried some
of the methods suggested by the
county’s weed control supervi-
sor.
Stelzer said Azure Farm has
used and will continue to use
heavy tillage, mowing and cov-
ering weeds with landscaping
fabric to cut off sunlight. He said
a permitted organic herbicide
typically would include ace-
tic acid, which “just burns the
tops off” weeds and doesn’t kill
them. He said it would have to
be reapplied multiple times over
a large area, which is not prac-
tical and is expensive besides.
Stelzer said he might be open
to using chemical herbicides
if it was limited to a particular
patch of weeds that is causing
problems for neighboring farm-
ers. “If we took two acres out,
that wouldn’t be the end of the
world,” he said.
Timeline
In a memo prepared for the
county’s May 17 meeting, weed
Supervisor Asher laid out the
timeline of his interactions with
the farm.
March 2: Asher sent the
farm’s parent company, Ecclesia
of Sinai at Dufur, a weed control
ordinance violation notice. The
letter listed 15 company prop-
erties covering 1,922 acres in
the Moro area. It gave the farm
30 days to submit a plan to con-
trol Rush skeleton, classifi ed
by the county as a Class A nox-
ious weed, and Canada thistle,
Morning Glory and White Top,
all Class B noxious weeds.
March 27: Ecclesia of Sinai
responded that the county didn’t
have jurisdiction over it and cit-
ed biblical justifi cation for not
spraying.
April 19: The County Court
discussed the issue. By then,
some of the properties had been
mowed, “but this was seen as a
poor method of control as the
weeds will grow back and root
systems will fl ourish and contin-
ue to spread, as they have done
over the many years,” Asher
wrote.
Local residents attending
the meeting expressed “deep
concern” over weeds and were
skeptical that methods other
than herbicide would control
them.
May 1: Asher sent a second
letter to the farm, suggesting
various control methods.
May 2: The county’s Weed
Advisory Board agreed to de-
fer to the county court on fur-
ther action.
May 5: Asher met with
Nathan Stelzer, the Azure Farm
manager, who said he was un-
aware weeds were such a big
problem. Asher felt he’d made
progress in the discussion.
May 11: Asher viewed
Azure’s social media campaign
and said it “clearly misstated the
situation.”
“My thoughts of progress
and working together in the fu-
ture were dashed,” Asher wrote.
The campaign, which in-
cluded videos of the farm’s prin-
cipals urging viewers to express
their outrage at the county’s
stance, resulted in an estimated
40,000 emails to county offi cials
from around the world
May 16: Azure Farms sub-
mits a weed management plan.
It lists methods the farm will use
to control Rush skeleton, Canada
thistle, Bindweed and White Top.
May 17: The county court
meets to discuss the issue. The
meeting is moved from the
courthouse to the high school
gym, the only space large
enough for the anticipated
crowd.
has benefi ts for the function of
the overall system.”
The new approach is not
without its growing pains.
Durst, the Yolo County grower,
said he’s using subsurface drip
irrigation in his organic aspara-
gus fi elds.
“One of the challenges that I
have is trying to control pests that
want to chew on the drip tape,”
he said. “Gophers love it.”
Showing results
But Durst also recognizes
the benefi ts.
“I don’t have any tail water
to contend with, so I don’t have
to worry about where that water
goes or how to recycle that wa-
ter,” he said. “It’s easy to apply
the water uniformly to the fi eld.
In the past, I’d tend not to get
equal distribution. … The drip
system is very exact.”
Researchers see benefi ts,
too. Mitchell, of the Conserva-
tion Agriculture Systems Inno-
vation Center, cites a study pub-
lished in the journal California
Agriculture in 2012 that found
more water was retained in a
surface foot of soil in no-till than
in tilled soil.
No-till and high-residue
practices could reduce summer
soil evaporative losses by about
13 percent, he said.
Other subsurface irrigation
trials are showing dramatic in-
creases in yields. Khaled Bali,
an irrigation water management
specialist at the Kearney facility,
said underground drip systems
in alfalfa fi elds have achieved
20 to 30 percent more yields
while in some cases using 20
percent less water.
In the Imperial Valley, which
produces alfalfa year-round,
some growers with subsurface
drip systems are getting 15 tons
per acre, whereas 8 or 9 tons per
acre in a season is normal, Bali
said.
Kevin Day, a UC Cooper-
ative Extension pomology ad-
viser in Tulare County, is trying
subsurface drip in a peach and
nectarine orchard after work-
ing with the USDA to use it
for pomegranates. He’s seen as
much as a 90 percent reduction
in weeds because there’s no sur-
face water to feed them.
“Fewer weeds, fewer pes-
ticides,” he said. “We use
high-frequency irrigation. We
irrigate as the crop needs it.
When you do that, you keep the
roots deeper, which makes for
better aeration.”
The gross cost of installing
subsurface drip irrigation can
average between $500 and $800
an acre, according to the Uni-
versity of Nebraska. Research-
ers note that once a system is
in, it can last 10 years or longer,
even with crop rotations.
Day believes systems that
give plant roots “little sips of
water” are the wave of the fu-
ture.
“The advantages are huge,”
he said. “I visualize that in
another 20 years we won’t
see fl ood irrigation or furrow
irrigation. There won’t be the
water to allow it.”
Ready for drought?
Other scientists and industry
representatives largely agree,
noting that many lessons were
learned from the recent severe
drought that will make growers
more prepared for the next one.
“I do think one of the lasting
things was the shift toward more
precise, targeted irrigation,” said
Hutmacher, of the West Side re-
search center.
Some farms also shifted
crops. The planting of sorghum,
which is more drought-tolerant,
grew from about 10,000 acres
to about 90,000 in the Central
Valley during the drought, the
Kearney center’s Dahlberg said.
“It’s a good forage,” he said.
“It’s not corn … but for the dairy
folks, looking at sorghum as an
alternative forage crop is an op-
tion.”
Some growers that bull-
dozed older almond orchards
planted pistachios, which use
half as much water as almonds
and are more tolerant of salt in
groundwater, Hutmacher said.
“I do think most people are
more aware and have learned
valuable lessons, but the pres-
sure is still there to grow
high-value crops” that use more
water, Hutmacher said. “That’s
going to be in confl ict with cut-
ting your risks during the next
drought.”
The Almond Board recently
set aside $4.7 million to boost
overall grower effi ciency, in-
cluding $1.3 million for irriga-
tion. The funding follows $2.5
million the board set aside in
2015.
Almonds have been por-
trayed by environmentalists as a
particularly thirsty crop. But the
Almond Board has been quick
to respond that growers use one-
third less water per pound of
nuts than they did 20 years ago.
The board has also issued
best-practices guidelines for
water management and advised
growers on how to take advan-
tage of state water effi ciency
grants. About 80 percent of
almond growers now use drip
irrigation systems, Waycott said.
“That keeps improving ev-
ery time they replant,” he said.
“It’s not just putting in drip, but
it’s managing those systems. It’s
part of a continuum of helping
growers be more consistent in
how they manage it, to make
sure water distribution is correct
throughout the drip line.
“I think they’re far more
prepared, generally speaking,
than they were for when the last
drought came on,” he said.
Durst had to reduce his
planted acres by about 20 per-
cent at the height of the drought,
but he achieved better yields
than in wetter years when he
had to plant under unfavorable
conditions, he said.
Will he be more prepared for
the next drought?
“Oh defi nitely,” he said,
“because of the drip tape and
(knowing) how to manage
shortages of the water.”
New well permits cannot
be issued unless the
commission changes rules
WELLS from Page 1
There’s no sunset clause for
the prohibition on new agri-
cultural wells, so new permits
cannot be issued unless the
commission changes the rules,
he said.
It’s possible the commis-
sion could reach such a deci-
sion if new data show that ad-
ditional well drilling in some
areas would not be harmful,
he said.
Even before the new rules
were adopted, OWRD was de-
nying new groundwater rights
applications on a case-by-case
basis, since hydrogeological
evaluations have consistently
shown the water isn’t avail-
able, said Brenda Bateman,
administrator of the agency’s
technical services division.
The situation has gotten
to the point where the agency
needed to establish a broader
policy against new well per-
mits, she said.
However, there are people
in the Walla Walla subbasin
who have already obtained
permits but have yet to drill
wells, Bateman said.
OWRD is currently in
discussions with those per-
mit holders about possible
It’s possible that
additional water
is still available in
deeper basalt levels.
I defi nitely think the
department is jumping
the gun.”
John Stadeli
well driller
extensions, she said.
During the meeting, well
driller John Stadeli said he’s
disappointed in the commis-
sion’s decision, since it’s un-
likely people in the region
will ever be able to obtain new
groundwater rights.
It’s possible that additional
water is still available in deep-
er basalt levels, Stadeli said. “I
defi nitely think the department
is jumping the gun.”
Gary Key, a water right
holder, said he appreciated the
commission has taken action
to begin getting groundwater
declines under control.
“Three to four feet of water
a year is just unsustainable,”
Key said.