The Almond-Farming Season is Going Well, But There are Water Worries

The Almond-Farming Season is Going Well, But There are Water Worries

Patrick Cavanaugh
Patrick Cavanaugh
Jerry Logoluso is an almond farmer in Madeira County. “Yeah, we've been farming almonds since 2005 after farming grapes forever…seems like,” Logoluso said.

 

We asked Logoluso what type of grapes he had grown. “Raisins, and in the past we had wine grapes,” he said.

 

And like many other farmers, Logoluso converted all that grape acreage to almonds.

 

And we know the industry had a good bloom and nuts set. And we asked Logoluso how his crop is looking. “It's looking like a good crop. “We have a good size on nuts and it's progressing normally and maybe a little bit on fast side,” he said. “We should have our normal May drop happening here very shortly and some nuts are falling off that wouldn't be mature and so they're dropping off as the tree balances the load of the crop,” he added.

 

 

Logoluso commented on the shortages of water for irrigation this year. “We're going to be a restricted, we don't have surface water yet, and that may not come until June, and it may only run for maybe half of June and to the end of July possibly. So we may only have six weeks of surface water. So yes, that's an impact to us. It's so dry year,” Logoluso said.

 

Fortunately, Logoluso has wells that he could supplement the lack of surface water, but still, because of the lack of storage, too much water is flowing out of the ocean, not going to farmers. “Absolutely,” said Logoluso.

 

 

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