California Ag Network

Category: Row Crops

  • Growers Spend $500,000 Per Year on Automation

    Growers are now spending an average of $500,000 a year on automation in response to the persistent ag labor shortage, according to the Specialty Crop Automation Report released today and commissioned by Western Growers.

    This is the second year the Specialty Crop Automation Report has been released by WG in collaboration with consultants at Roland Berger. The report, which tracks and measures industry progress in harvest automation across the fresh produce industry, is part of WG’s Global Harvest Automation Initiative, which aims to accelerate ag automation by 50 percent in 10 years.

    “This year’s report takes a deep dive into some new areas: The European market, Controlled Environment Agriculture, and the innovator’s side of automation,” said Walt Duflock, VP of Innovation at WG. “We found progress from a fundraising and traction perspective in key areas like weeding, spraying and harvest assist – and less progress in other key areas, notably harvest.”

    Among the report’s findings:
    • Around 70 percent of participating growers indicated that they had invested in automation in 2022, with an average annual spend of $450,000-$500,000 per grower. This shows a considerable increase since last year when average investments in automation were around $350,000 to $400,000 per grower per year.
    • Most progress was made in the weeding and harvest assist segments; market-ready solutions are able to meet grower economic targets and alleviate key challenges, such as lack of labor availability. Growers reported ROIs for weeding solutions of less than one to two years depending on the type of crop and technology used.
    • Growers want more trained agtech personnel, with 50 percent indicating that they had internal employees who dedicated the majority of their time to the integration of automation investments. This suggests that the process of elevating and upskilling the agriculture workforce is well underway.
    • The time it takes to build automation solutions is getting shorter and the costs are getting smaller thanks to overall advances in robotics and nonagriculture fields that benefit agtech startups, as well as the increasing talent pool that agtech startups are able to add to their teams.The Specialty Crop Automation Report is available for download by clicking here.

      About Western Growers:

      Founded in 1926, Western Growers represents local and regional family farmers growing fresh produce in California, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Western Growers’ members and their workers provide over half the nation’s fresh fruits, vegetables and tree nuts, including half of America’s fresh organic produce. Connect and learn more about Western Growers on Twitter and Facebook.

  • 2023 USDA Cotton Loan Rate Differentials

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Commodity Credit Corporation today announced the 2023 crop loan rate differentials for upland and extra-long staple cotton which are applied to the crop loan rate to determine the per bale actual loan rate.

    The differentials, also referred to as loan rate premiums and discounts, were calculated based on market valuations of various cotton quality factors for the prior three years. This calculation procedure is identical to that used in past years.

    The 2023 crop differential schedules are applied to 2023 crop loan rates of 52 cents per pound for the base grade of upland cotton and 95 cents per pound for extra-long staple cotton. The 2018 Farm Bill stipulates that the loan rate for the base quality of upland cotton ranges between 45 and 52 cents per pound based on the simple average of the Adjusted World Price for the two marketing years immediately preceding the next crop planting. However, the established loan rate cannot be less than 98% of the preceding year’s established loan rate. The loan rate provided to an individual cotton bale is based on the quality of each individual bale as determined by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service classing measurements.

    These differentials are important to cotton producers because they are used to derive the actual loan rate for each bale of cotton – above (premium) or below (discount) the average per pound loan rate, depending on the grade or quality of the cotton. The actual loan rate is significant because it is used to determine any marketing loan gains and loan deficiency payments.

    USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation adjusts cotton loan rates by these differentials so that cotton loan values reflect the differences in market prices for color, staple length, leaf, extraneous matter, micronaire, length uniformity and strength.

    The rates are posted on the Farm Service Agency (FSA) website. To apply for loans or other programs, please contact your local USDA Service Center.

  • Growers Invited to See Benefits of Cover Crops in Orchards, Vineyards

    Growers are invited to tour orchards and vineyards and hear from other growers about their experiences with cover crops.

    UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, UC Cooperative Extension, the Napa Resource Conservation District, and the Community Alliance with Family Farmers have created a searchable database of orchard and vineyard growers experienced in growing cover crops that will help other growers bring the benefits of the prctice to their operations.

    “The tours are part of a project for which we recently unveiled new tools for orchard and vineyard growers to learn about cover cropping from experienced growers,” said Sonja Brodt, associate director of the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program.

    The database describes cover cropping strategies, details of field practices, benefits and challenges experienced by cover crop growers in orchards and vineyards in the southern Sacramento Valley (including the Capay Valley) and the North Coast viticulture region. The cover crop grower database is available at https://sarep.ucdavis.edu/covercropsdb.

    Feb. 8, 1-5 p.m., Capay Valley tour: 

    The tour will visit three organic farms in the Capay Valley that are integrating cover crops and grazing in their orchard and vineyard systems. Topics of discussion will include:

    • Strategies for integrating cover crops into orchards and vineyards
    • Impacts of cover cropping and grazing on soil health
    • Funding and information resources for growing cover crops

    Speakers will include:

    • Rory Crowley, Director of Habitat Programs, Project Apis m.
    • Amélie Gaudin, Associate Professor, Department of Plant Sciences, UC Davis, Endowed Chair in Agroecology
    • Hope Zabronsky, Climate-Smart Agriculture Program lead, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources

    To register for the Feb. 8 tour, visit https://sarep.ucdavis.edu/events/grazing-cover-crops-orchards-and-vineyards-capay-valley-tour.

    March 8, 1-4 p.m., Arbuckle area tour: 

    The tour will visit two conventional farms in the Arbuckle area that are integrating cover crops into their orchard and vineyard systems.

    Topics of discussion will include:

    • Strategies for integrating cover crops into orchards and vineyards
    • Impacts of cover cropping on soil and water balance
    • Frost risk protection and prevention
    • Funding resources for growing cover crops

    Speakers will include:

    • Rory Crowley, Director of Habitat Programs, Project Apis m.
    • Kosana Suvocarev, UC Cooperative Extension Specialist in Biometeorology, UC Davis Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources
    • Hope Zabronsky, Climate-Smart Agriculture Program lead, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources

    To register for the March 8 tour, visit https://sarep.ucdavis.edu/events/cover-cropping-conventional-orchards-and-vineyards-arbuckle-area-tour

    UC Agriculture and Natural Resources brings the power of UC to all 58 California counties. Through research and Cooperative Extension in agriculture, natural resources, nutrition, economic and youth development, our mission is to improve the lives of all Californians. Learn more at ucanr.edu and support our work at donate.ucanr.edu.

  • Food Safety Certification for Specialty Crops Webinar

    The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) and partners are hosting a webinar for stakeholders and producers that focuses on the new Food Safety Certification for Specialty Crops (FSCSC) program. FSCSC will provide up to $200 million in assistance for specialty crop producers who incur eligible on-farm food safety program expenses to obtain or renew a food safety certification in calendar years 2022 or 2023.

    The webinar will be held on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. eastern and will be recorded. Please register in advance of the webinar at www.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_v4FQsCFLROmC8ZvuZ73VrA.

    Webinar topics include:

    • FSCSC overview and eligibility requirements
    • Overview of Food Safety Certification Requirements for Specialty Crops by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service and Toolkit Overview for GAP and Food Safety Plan Quality Management Systems by the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture
    • Additional resources

    The FSCSC application period for 2022 runs through January 31, 2023, and the application period for 2023 will be announced at a later date.

    Producers can visit farmers.gov/food-safety for additional program details, eligibility information and forms needed to apply.

  • Sorghum Producers to Lead $65 Million USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Funded Project

    Quantifying the climate impact of incorporating sorghum and other tools into rotations while serving as a trajectory for the sorghum industry’s continuous environmental improvement throughout this decade and the next is the focus of a five-year, up to $65 million project by National Sorghum Producers.

    Funding for the project was provided by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture through its new Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. USDA announced award recipients Sept. 14 for pilot projects totaling $2.8 billion to create market opportunities for commodities produced using climate-smart practices.

    “This is a watershed day for the sorghum industry,” NSP CEO Tim Lust said. “Sorghum is and always will be The Resource Conserving Crop™. This award affirms that fact in historic fashion, and we appreciate USDA for the opportunity to realize sorghum’s potential as a climate-smart commodity. For the first time, participating farmers will be fully recognized and fully compensated for the good work they do to improve the impact of agriculture on the environment. We couldn’t be more excited to come alongside them in this important effort.”

    Rather than focusing on soil carbon sequestration alone, the NSP project will create a pathway for the impact of all practices to be quantified, tracked and verified with the intent to monetize these practices in ecosystems services markets of all kinds with an initial focus on low carbon fuel markets.

    Payments will be made to producers to introduce sorghum along with a suite of additional practices, and a strong measurement and quantification program will accompany these payments in order to highlight the climate impacts of associated practices.

    The program will center specifically on enabling farmers to take advantage of added value under the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) as this market requires the most rigid quantification, monitoring, reporting and verification systems and already consumes up to one-third of the U.S. sorghum crop annually.

    “The most important aspect of any program to incentivize climate-smart agricultural practices is robust demand from ecosystem services markets,” NSP sustainability strategy consultant John Duff said. “The LCFS is the most reliable and longest-standing such market, and building our program around its rigorous data requirements will enable a five-year beta test of our industry’s readiness for meeting the needs of ecosystem services markets for the coming decades.”

    The target geography of the project includes portions of six states and covers an average of 67 percent of the sorghum industry, or 4.4 million acres annually. The area includes more than 20,000 sorghum farmers and a region vitally important to U.S. agriculture.

    Irrigated agriculture in this area, which is highly threatened, is particularly important. Sorghum has a key role to play in prolonging irrigated agriculture in the region. Furthermore, the U.S. High Plains is the world’s leading region for nitrogen use efficiency and mitigation of nitrate leaching, volatilization and runoff. Sorghum is a primary tool in these mitigation efforts, and incorporating the crop into rotations in this region can improve the carbon footprint of U.S. agriculture overall.

    “NSP’s project is building on significant work to enhance climate-smart agricultural production in sorghum-based crop rotation systems at-scale,” NSP Sustainability Director Adam York said. “The U.S. sorghum industry has piloted numerous initiatives in recent years with key conservation non-governmental organizations, such as Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, to partner with our farmers and identify targeted solutions for working lands conservation. Through NSP’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities project, our efforts will reach new levels of collaboration to deliver on-farm resiliency and profitability throughout this sensitive and important region.”

    Timely consultation and technical delivery to farms is vital to the success of this project. As farmers choose to implement novel approaches to benefit their landscapes, such as improved biodiversity practices, local conservationists and biologists in our partnership network steeped in wildlife habitat conservation will be integral to helping farmers deliver more sorghum products with positive biodiversity impacts.

    “The Habitat Organization is excited and proud to partner in the effort to expand climate-smart sustainability practices while benefiting farm profitability and conservation,” noted Brent Rudolph, Director of Sustainability Partnerships for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. “Working side-by-side with sorghum producers is a wonderful fit for this important USDA program.”

    The project will also include a robust diversity and community outreach program that will focus on in-reach and outreach to underserved communities in the project target area with a primary focus of creating opportunities for underserved farmers to participate in climate-smart sorghum production and realize the benefits of ecosystems services markets.

    In addition to National Sorghum Producers, project partners and supporters include Kansas Black Farmers Association, Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Sustainable Environmental Consultants, United Sorghum Checkoff Program, Arable, Galvanize Climate Solutions, Kansas State University, Texas Tech University, Conestoga Energy Partners, Kansas Ethanol, Pratt Energy, Western Plains Energy, White Energy, American Coalition for Ethanol, Peoria Tribe Of Indians of Oklahoma, Women Managing the Farm, Kansas Agri-Women, Nu Life Market, Pinion, Kansas Department of Agriculture, New Mexico Department of Agriculture, Kansas Water Office, Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, Kashi, RIPE, Trust in Food™, Colorado State University, Prairie View A&M University, Texas A&M University, Oklahoma State University, Argonne National Lab, National Cotton Council, Field to Market, Danone, Colorado Sorghum Association, Kansas Grain Sorghum Association, New Mexico Sorghum Association, Oklahoma Sorghum Association, Texas Grain Sorghum Association, Bayer Crop Science, CoBank, High Plains Farm Credit, ServiTech and No Chaff Group.

    The project is subject to completion of a contract with USDA. Learn more at SorghumGrowers.com/climatesmart.

  • Adjusting Your Alfalfa Cutting Schedule for Maximum Quality & Yield

    California dairy producers want top quality hay for their cows, but they also want to maximize yields in their alfalfa fields.  Watch this interview with Dan Putnam from the UC Cooperative Extension as he shares that the key to finding a happy balance between quality and quantity is in determining the best cutting schedule.  Read more about it in California Dairy Magazine.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor Clean Energy for their industry support.

  • Genetic Insights Help Rice Survive Drought and Flood

    Plants — they’re just like us, with unique techniques for handling stress. To save one of the most important crops on Earth from extreme climate swings, scientists are mapping out plants’ own stress-busting strategies.

    Rice plant with roots visible. (Julia Bailey-Serres/UCR)

    A UC Riverside-led team has learned what happens to the roots of rice plants when they’re confronted with two types of stressful scenarios: too much water, or too little. These observations form the basis of new protective strategies.

    “This one crop is the major source of calories for upwards of 45 percent of humanity, but its harvests are in danger,” said Julia Bailey-Serres, UCR geneticist and study lead. “In the U.S., floods rival droughts in terms of damage to farmers’ crops each year.”

    While it is possible for rice to flourish in flooded soils, the plants yield less food or even die if the water is too deep for too long. This work simulated prolonged floods of five days or longer, in which plants were completely submerged. It also simulated drought conditions.

    In particular, the researchers examined the roots’ response to both types of conditions, because roots are the unseen first responders to flood and drought-related stress.

    Their work is described in a new paper published in the journal Developmental Cell.

    One key finding is about a cork-like substance, suberin, that’s produced by rice roots in response to stress. It helps protect from floods as well as from drought.

    “Suberin is a lipid molecule that helps any water drawn up by the roots make it to the shoots, and helps oxygen from shoots to reach roots,” Bailey-Serres said. “If we reinforce the plant’s ability to create suberin, rice has better chances for survival in all kinds of weather.”

    Rice experiments being conducted in a field. (Julia Bailey-Serres/UCR)

    The researchers were able to identify a network of genes that control suberin production and can use this information for gene editing or selective breeding.

    “Understanding suberin is particularly exciting because it is not susceptible to breakdown by soil microbes, so carbon that the plant puts into suberin molecules in the roots is trapped in the ground,” said Alex Borowsky, UCR computational biologist and study co-author. “This means that increasing suberin could help combat climate change by removing and storing carbon from the atmosphere.”

    The researchers also identified the genes controlling some of rice’s other stress behaviors.

    “One of our interesting findings is that when rice plants are submerged in water, the root cell growth cycle goes on pause, then switches back on shortly after the shoots have access to air,” Bailey-Serres said.

    In the future, the research team plans to test how modifying these stress responses can make the plant more resilient to both wet and dry conditions.

    “Now that we understand these responses, we have a roadmap to make targeted changes to the rice genome that will result in a more stress-tolerant plant,” Bailey-Serres said.

    Though heavy rains and droughts are both increasing as threats, Bailey-Serres has hope that new genetic technology can increase its resilience before it’s too late.

    “With genome editing, the fact that we can make a tiny but targeted change and protect a plant from disease is amazing. Though our crops are threatened, new technologies give us reasons to hope,” Bailey-Serres said. — By Jules Bernstein, UC Riverside

    About UC Riverside

    The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California’s diverse culture, UCR’s enrollment is more than 26,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual impact of more than $2.7 billion on the U.S. economy. To learn more, visit www.ucr.edu.

  • What Can the 2015 Drought Tell us about the Impacts of a Drought in 2021?

    California Farm Water Coalition – Taking a look back at a similar water year can help us understand what might be in store for us through the rest of this year and possibly beyond.

    California is in a critically dry year, the same as in 2015. Water will be extremely tight for thousands of farmers around the state, and many of them have already received notice that their water supplies are being cut by up to 95 percent.

    In 2015, water supply cuts of that magnitude led to over half a million acres of land taken out of production. Had there been sufficient water supplies in 2015, the amount of land that was fallowed could have produced:

    • 8.6 billion heads of lettuce, or
    • 594 million cartons of melons, or
    • 54 million tons of grapes, or
    • 27 million tons of tomatoes. 

    Instead, because no water was available, those fields produced nothing but weeds.

    California is the No. 1 farm state in the nation with tens of thousands of agricultural jobs, with wages at all income levels covering all 58 counties. When farms aren’t growing food for people, it affects jobs, personal income, and their quality of life. In addition, farm-related jobs contribute hundreds of millions of dollars annually to state and local tax revenue which provide services local communities value, like police, firefighters and teachers.

    In 2015, a total of 21,000 jobs were lost with an economic impact of $2.7 billion across the state.

    Preparing for Drought

    Farmers have been preparing for another drought and have invested heavily in water use efficiency projects, including drip and micro-sprinkler irrigation systems, soil moisture monitoring, and computerized irrigation controllers. But the savings achieved by those investments haven’t been enough to avoid wide-scale land fallowing due to the massive water supply shortages farmers are experiencing again this year.

    Info Graph – Long Term Impacts on California From Water Supply Cuts

    Looking long-term, continuing water shortages will have a devastating effect not only on California farms but also on the farm related jobs throughout our economy.

    The Blueprint Economic Impact Report, available HERE, indicates that over the next 30 years, water supply cuts will lead to the permanent loss of 1 million acres of productive farmland.

    Fewer healthy foods will be available from California farms. The report estimates that California will permanently lose:

    • 86,000 acres of vegetables,
    • 130,000 acres of fruit-producing trees,
    • 129,000 acres of wine and table grapes,
    • 327,000 acres of nuts, and much more.

    These reductions translate into the permanent loss of 85,000 jobs, half of which are off the farm, such as food processing, transportation, wholesale, retail, and ports. They also mean the permanent loss of over $535 million in tax revenue which, again, is used to provide the services local communities value, like police, firefighters and teachers.

    Actions, including better flood management for groundwater recharge, improved conveyance to move water to potential groundwater banking areas, new and enlarged storage projects, and regulatory reform designed to improve in-stream flows for ecosystem benefits while protecting agricultural water supplies can help minimize the effects described above. Federal investments toward improving water supply infrastructure is essential to providing a secure water future to sustain the nation’s food supply, meet urban and suburban needs, and provide for a healthy environment throughout California.

  • American Farmland Trust Shares Tool Kit to Quantify Soil Health Benefits

    Today, American Farmland Trust, the organization that for 40 years has been saving the land that sustains us and advancing the principles of regenerative agriculture has launched online access to the methods, tools, and training resources it used in developing case studies featuring soil health successful farmers in its Quantifying the Economic and Environmental Benefits of Soil Health project funded by a USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service Conservation Innovation Grant.

    Becoming all the more evident this year, farmers face enormous challenges. Extreme weather, a trade war and pandemic-related market disruptions have made it difficult for many to make a living. In a normal season, farmers work just to maintain yield, keep costs under control and try to improve the profitability of their operations. And, now we are asking farmers to respond to society’s call to improve environmental outcomes like water quality and help to mitigate climate change.  Soil health practices like cover crops, no-till and nutrient management can help address these challenges.  However, despite farmers’ belief in the science underpinning the practices, they are often reluctant to change management techniques without knowing how much the practices will cost and what the financial benefits will be.

    “AFT encourages our fellow conservationists to use this suite of tools and training resources to produce their own case studies demonstrating the economic and environmental benefits of soil health,” said Michelle Perez, AFT water director. “Our hope is that farmers, who have been considering adopting soil health practices, will find the economic evidence quantified for a farmer in their area, sufficiently compelling, to get them to “say yes” to trying the soil health practices.

    Specifically, partners will be able to use  AFT’s Retrospective Soil Health Economic Calculator (R-SHEC) Tool, an 11-tab Excel-spreadsheet tool, to evaluate the costs and benefits of soil health conservation practices including no-till or reduced tillage, cover cropping, nutrient management and conservation crop rotation on row crop farms that have adopted any combination of the practices, ideally for more than four years and within the last 10 years. The tool presents the net economic benefits in a partial budget analysis table and an estimate of the Return on Investment, or ROI, in the soil health practices. The R-SHEC Tool and the case studies that AFT published underwent a review by five NRCS Economists, five NRCS Soil Health Specialists, three university economists, among other experts.

    Materials explain how to use the R-SHEC and how to identify and interview a soil health successful farmer to obtain the data needed to run the tool.  Additional resources are provided to instruct conservationists how to estimate the water quality and climate benefits associated with the already adopted soil health practices using USDA’s Nutrient Tracking Tool and USDA’s COMET-Farm Tool, and then how to assemble all the findings and present them in a compelling two-page case study. A six-part series of training videos provides instructions on each aspect of the process. To access the methods, tools and videos, go to link.

    In spring and summer 2021, AFT will release several new tools:

    • An almond version of the R-SHEC tool that aids estimation of the economic effects of almond-specific soil health practices such as conservation cover, nutrient management, mulching, and compost application.
    • A Predictive Soil Health Economic Calculator (P-SHEC) Tool that will enable conservationists to partner with farmers who are “on the fence” about soil health practices to estimate the potential short-term and long-term economic effects of an investment in practices which will hopefully give the farmers the information they need to overcome their apprehension.
    • An online, user-friendly, web-based version of the R-SHEC Tool.American Farmland Trust is the only national organization that takes a holistic approach to agriculture, focusing on the land itself, the agricultural practices used on that land, and the farmers and ranchers who do the work. AFT launched the conservation agriculture movement and continues to raise public awareness through our No Farms, No Food message. Since our founding in 1980, AFT has helped permanently protect over 6.5 million acres of agricultural lands, advanced environmentally-sound farming practices on millions of additional acres and supported thousands of farm families.

  • Why Aren’t My Beans Drying Down?

    We cut our blackeye bean (cowpea) research plots at UC Davis almost 3 weeks ago and they’re still too green to harvest. If we tried now, the vines would get wrapped around the threshing cylinder.  Several growers in the Sacramento Valley have mentioned that their corn has sat at the same moisture level for weeks and is not drying down either, as one would normally expect for this time of year. But, nothing is normal this year!

    Why aren’t our crops drying down?

    Tragic fires throughout the West have pushed a lot of smoke and ash into the sky, creating fog-like conditions that reduce the intensity of the sun, shade crops, and lower temperatures. The blanket of smoke is like stepping into the shade under an awning on a 90oF day. This reduced sun intensity has affected the ability of crops to dry down in a timely manner. Increased humidity levels this past weeks haven’t helped either.

    While shading may be good for protecting tomatoes from sunburn with harvests running late due to COVID-related challenges, it is not good for drying down field crops.

    With the smoke finally dissipating, drying conditions are improving. We ended up turning our blackeye bean crop over to increase aeration and help it dry down.  Dry beans are sometimes turned to help dry the crop down, especially if they’re rained on, but the challenge is to be careful to prevent shattering.

    In corn, there aren’t any easy solutions.  One grower said their corn sat at 16.5% moisture for several weeks and finally they had to harvest it anyway. Dryers are available for drying corn and other crops to the proper storage moisture, but as we all know it’s expensive and with low grain prices this affects the bottom line.  — By Sarah Light & Rachael Freeman Long, UC Cooperative Extension