Cold weather may pose risk to some crops
Early Tuesday morning, the mercury in Lodi hovered at just about 28 degrees — some of the area’s coldest weather this winter.
This morning should be a little warmer at 35, but temperatures are likely to dip below freezing again on Thursday and Friday, and maybe a few times next week, too, at least according to private forecasting firm Accuweather.
That could be bad news for some local crops.
“It’s too soon to tell,” said Bruce Blodgett, executive director of the San Joaquin Farm Bureau Federation. “I think we’re definitely concerned.”
In San Joaquin County, the main danger is to crops like almonds, which have already blossomed, and cherries, which are beginning to bud.
“Everything can take a little chill if it doesn’t last very long,” Lodi cherry grower Dean Devine said. But no one’s sure yet if this week’s cold snap is bringing too much chill for too long.
Devine, like some other local cherry growers, has been taking steps to protect their crops. He’s left his water systems going in the orchards overnight — microsprinklers and drip systems, all just on low pressure. The water helps add moisture to the air, which raises the temperature just a little.
“That’s about all we can do,” he said.
Cherry trees in the Lodi area are budding but haven’t blossomed yet, so they may come through the freezes fine, Devine said.
He should know in a week or two, once his trees blossom, if they’ve taken damage. If the leaves and blossoms look normal, his crop should come through. If the leaves are wrinkled with brown tips and the blossoms show damage, then he could be looking at a poor harvest.
“We’ll see what happens,” he said. “Maybe I’m being overly optimistic, but I think for right now we’re probably OK.”
For almonds and other trees and vines that have unfurled their leaves and blossoms, knowing if the cold brought damage will be a little trickier.
“Sometimes we don’t know the full impacts until the fall,” Blodgett said.
What looks like a good crop may, at harvest time, be a wash.
“It’s a hard thing to play out,” he said.
In other counties, crops like strawberries and lemons may suffer from the freezing nights, said Ken Clark, a senior meteorologist with Accuweather.
In Napa, that includes grapes, he said. The warmer-than-normal winter — until this week — means some of the Napa vineyards have already seen buds appearing.
“That is a significant thing to worry about,” Clark said.
But in this area, at least, Lodi is lucky.
“Right now, the grapes are dormant still in the Lodi area,” said grapegrower Bruce Fry of MohrFry Ranches.
The first local variety to bud is Chardonnay, he said, and it usually buds in mid-March. Even in years when it comes early, growers haven’t seen activity before the beginning of March.
“We still would be a week away,” he said. “It’s not an issue today.”
The cold weather is a threat not just to agriculture, but to garden plants as well. That’s why the staff at Delta Tree Farms nursery took steps to prevent damage caused by the freezing temperatures over the past couple days.
“We have this cheesecloth we cover things with,” said Eric Loughead in commercial sales.
The cloth helps prevent frost from damaging plants, as long as the cold doesn’t last for very long. The nursery’s stock should all survive the sudden appearance of cold, Loughead said.
“If we got a whole week in the 20s, that would be a problem,” he said.
The cold snap is just the latest challenge in a year that has already seen record warm temperatures, and is facing down the prospect of returning to drought conditions by the end of May.
Last year, flooding wreaked havoc on local agriculture thanks to levee breaches. Several years of drought came before that.
“It’s been one challenge after another,” Blodgett said. “It’s not a fun time to be in agriculture production right now, but it’s what we deal with.”
Still, growers are keeping a positive outlook.
Unruly weather is part of life for farmers and ranchers. Growers are concerned by the weather this year, but their parents and grandparents faced challenges, too, Blodgett said.
And they may be more concerned with legislation coming out of Sacramento these days than the freezing nights, he joked.
“All of us are just keeping our fingers crossed and hoping whatever damage is minimal, but only time will tell,” he said.