One commodity after another is feeling the impact of the state’s epic water shortage. The great Sacramento Valley rice crop, served in sushi restaurants nationwide and exported to Asia, will be smaller than usual. Fewer grapes will be available to produce California’s world-class wines, and the citrus groves of the San Joaquin Valley are producing fewer oranges. There
The public will get another chance Monday to weigh in on La Grange Dam, erected on the Tuolumne River decades before the far larger Don Pedro Reservoir came along. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission launched studies on fish and other concerns after its 2012 ruling that La Grange needs a license. The dam has stood
California Citrus Mutual (CCM) will contribute $150,000 in support of California’s Proposition 1, the water bond measure. The CCM Board of Directors voted unanimously to support the measure in order to secure a reliable and sustainable water supply for California agriculture and communities across the state. “We are in a state of unprecedented crisis in terms
A federal judge in Fresno has ruled that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation did not violate the law when it made special reservoir releases last year to help salmon in Northern California’s Klamath River survive the drought rather than save the water for farms. But U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill wrote in his ruling
As the state ends the fourth-driest water year on record with no guarantee of significant rain and snowfall this winter, Californians face the prospect of stricter rationing and meager irrigation deliveries for agriculture. California begins a new October-September water year Wednesday with total reservoir storage at 36% of capacity, or 57% of average for this
Seen from the air, the USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository for Tree Fruit, Nut Crops and Grapes is a tidy, unremarkable, roughly 70-acre patchwork of varying shades of green and brown. From the ground, it’s a lush, hot, endless expanse of tangled vineyards and sun-blasted groves, alive with chirping birds and buzzing. It contains two
A recent survey of California almond growers shows that the state's devastating drought has forced many farmers to drill new wells, rely on salty groundwater and bulldoze trees. The survey offers a glimpse into farming practices for one of the state's largest crops -- 860,000 acres statewide. Almonds are grown widely in the San Joaquin
The first U.S. detection of the noxious weed Egyptian broomrape, Orobanche aegyptiaca, has been found in a processing tomato field in Solano County. A single Egyptian broomrape plant can produce hundreds of thousands of tiny seeds capable of living in the soil for 15 years. The seeds can be dispersed by wind and farm machinery.
The ongoing California drought has pitted wild salmon against farmers in a fight for water. While growers of almonds, one of the state's biggest and most lucrative crops, enjoy booming production and skyrocketing sales to China, the fish, it seems, might be left high and dry this summer—and maybe even dead. The problem is, most of
Across California’s vital agricultural belt, nervousness over the state’s epic drought has given way to alarm. Streams and lakes have long since shriveled up in many parts of the state, and now the aquifers — always a backup source during the region’s periodic droughts — are being pumped away at rates that scientists say are both