Winter Irrigation

Hi there. I'm back. Had a great trip to Spain and Paris with Mum. We visited the region where her Dad was born. Re-entry was a bear. Jet lag wasn't the issue, but I got sick the end of last week.
Meanwhile, there is always something happening on the farm...

I often get asked, "Why do you guys irrigate when it is raining?" Good question.

We are re-filling the soil profile with water. To get crops like wheat and cotton ready for harvest we let them dry down, so there is very little moisture in the soil when we pick. Then we work up the ground while it is dry to avoid compacting the soil. Now it is time to re-fill the soil profile with water.

Even with a wet month like December that was only five inches of water. We need a foot of water to fill our soil all the way down to the bottom of the root zone. So during the winter we re-fill to soil profile. then we plant our cotton, for example, in April and we won't water that field again until mid-June. So, the water we put on now is very important and really doesn't get utilized until summer. We are storing the water in the field now to get ready for the summer heat.

For crops like wheat, of course, we are not pre-irrigating. We planted our wheat in December and we will water the wheat into late April. For those who have any doubt about the value of irrigation- last year was a wet winter. Some farmers tried to grow their wheat on rainfall. Their yields averaged about half a ton per acre. Our wheat, which we irrigated, produced three and a half tons per acre. That, folks, is why we irrigate.

Other jobs on the farm this week? We are prepping forty acres to plant almonds, spraying weeds in the orchard and tinkering with equipment. There is always something to do on the farm.

I hope y'all have a great week.

P

A New Year

 Happy New Year Y'all!
I hope you had a great time with your families over the holidays. We sure did. We celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas because it takes about that long to get up to the Bay Area to see Sheryl's family and then down to San Diego to visit my family.

We all appreciate the rainfall this last month. That will give us some water to farm with next summer. Of course it takes about 125% normal rainfall for us to get a 75% supply. If you think I am kidding look back to 2006. Those were the numbers.

While the rainfall was nice, the wind is not such a good thing. The picture  above are some of the 18 year old trees that went down in the wind last week. The ground was soft from all the rain and when the wind hit, that was it.
   You can also see that the berms have gotten a little weedy. I would like to spray the weeds, but we have to get the brush out from the pruning. To get the brush out the ground has to dry out some more. We'll get it all done. It just might take a while longer. 
   While the almonds didn't like the wet and windy weather, the wheat is doing quite well. In fact, the rain got the last of the wheat germinated and the fields look great with bright green wheat seedlings on a sunny afternoon.

We are getting back in the field. We'll finish pruning in a few weeks. Then we will prepare two fields to put new almond trees in to next month, weather permitting. We are also pre-irrigating fields for next summer's cotton
There is always something to do on the farm.

I hope y'all have a great week.