From the Fields - Richard Bianchi

By Richard Bianchi, San Benito County vegetable grower

It’s been a tough winter with all of the flooding. Everybody’s had some flooding. There’s been thousands of acres that went underwater. We’ve had a fair amount. We have ground that’s too wet to get in to do anything. We’ve had a lot of rain, which is generally good for agriculture and the soil, but it is a problem. It affects everything. Product that is supposed to be planted in the Salinas area is still getting planted down in the desert, which it shouldn’t be. It is going to affect the economy, and it is going to affect the workforce. H-2A workers are getting their contracts extended in the desert because they’re not able to start here in Salinas.

For growing vegetables, they’re going to start transitioning from the desert season to the Salinas season in the next few days. It is going to be a slow transition and a long transition. The Salinas season is going to take a while to get started because plantings haven’t been consistent just because of the weather.

It is going to mess with planting schedules and ground availability. We’re planting lettuce, spinach, broccoli and cauliflower, all of the summer-season vegetables. For a crop that you would plant three days a week, we’re planting it once a week because that’s the only time we have to get in (to access the fields). After rain slowed down two weeks ago, we started tractors and planted through the weekend. We planted one day last week, and then it rained again. The rain makes everything hard to do, and it’s not ideal. Yields are going to suffer.