From the Fields - Daniel Bays

By Daniel Bays, Stanislaus County farmer 

We’ve had good rainfall so far through December and the first part of January, with some localized flooding with minimal damage to most fields. We’re optimistic as far as a water allotment for the 2023 season and hoping that the state and the federal projects are able to capture a little more and store some of this water so we have it in the growing season.

It finally started to dry out. We were able to get out and do some weed spraying and winter maintenance in some of the orchards. In some of the wheat, we are spraying weeds or getting ready to do a weed spray.

We get bees delivered from our beekeepers within the next week or so. The roads are pretty busy with bee trucks and forklifts, getting the beehives put out. Beekeepers have been watching and waiting for it to dry out to get the beehives put out.

On our traditional plantings, we’re sticking with the two to two-and-a-half hives per acre. On some of our newer plantings that have Independence or Shasta—the self-fertile varieties—we’re still putting a few bees out because it does seem like the bees help set a heavier crop on those trees. Hopefully, it’s dry during bloom. If we get more wet weather, we want to make sure we have enough bees out there that if their flight hours are limited, they can get out and do their job when they can.

Not sure of what our water allotment is going to be. We’re putting together budgets and making decisions of what we’ll be able to grow on the open ground. We are evaluating our orchard budgets for the nuts with the low walnut and almond prices and seeing where we can make cuts and what orchards we need to remove in the next year or two.