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Rain – or at least the chance of it – continues to be a factor through much of our coverage area. Most areas received at least some over the last 7 to 8 days, and more is in the forecast.

Several of our contacts reported light frost on rooftops Friday morning, though it wasn’t enough to be a concern.

A few growers are likely on their third fungicide treatment in early-blooming varieties in parts of the San Joaquin Valley. Petal fall is progressing or even finished on a wide basis in earlier varieties.

CROP REPORTS

Nick Groenenberg, Independent PCA, Hanford: "We’ve put on our second bloom spray. We had to use a helicopter. That isn’t good, but it was better than not doing anything. Now that we’ve had quite a bit of sunshine, things are looking better. There’s really no rain imminent (3/4), and I think we’ll be okay for a little while. But we’ll probably need a third application coming up soon. On some hard shells there’s still quite a bit of bloom, but petal fall has started, even on those."

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Franz Niederholzer, UC Farm Advisor, Sutter/Yuba Counties: "Most of our orchards are well into petal fall, and not many fresh flowers would be out there now. It’s pretty cool. We had rain the other day, and the forecast still puts us in an El Nino-type wet-weather pattern. We’ve probably had two fungicide sprays through bloom and petal fall. The forecast calls for temperatures over the next two weeks to run one to two degrees above normal. Growers need to be thinking about their fungicide programs and consider the different diseases – shothole, scab, rust and related things – that will be common in a wet spring. We have a window for using materials like Captan, Zyram and some of the older chemistries after petal fall, so that has to be taken into consideration, too. If it’s wet another month or two, spring diseases could really be an issue. For more information, see the UC Efficacy And Timing Of Fungicides guide.

"If the ground is saturated, growers also might think about putting out potassium nitrate with fungicides as kind of a Band-Aid approach to fertility. With these cold, wet soils, we’ll have less nutrient movement from the soil, so a leaf-feeding application could possibly offset some of that shortfall."

Dan Rivers, Research Associate and Almond PMA Coordinator, San Joaquin County: "We got another inch of rain this week in much of the almond growing areas of the county, which brings us up to normal. We did have some brief sunny and warm periods, during which the bees were busy. Optimistic growers with what they consider strong bee colonies are predicting good crops this year. We’re on the waning side of full bloom in the hard-shelled varieties, and the earlier bloomers are mostly leafed out. It was cold, with a little radiation frost at my place closer to the Sierra foothills this morning (3/5), But the five-day forecast is calling for partly-cloudy conditions and lows in the lower 40s, so at least for now we shouldn’t have to worry about frost damage. It’s still a good idea to check that your frost protection sprinklers are functional, and be prepared to mow the middles again while the nuts are susceptible to frost damage.

"On the flip side, if the weather turns warm, it might be beneficial to leave the grass long to cool the orchard, which could aid in early nut development as well as provide some beneficial habitat. Still, many growers like to mow to conserve valuable soil moisture. There are many advantages and disadvantages to maintaining orchard groundcover. Let’s just remain optimistic and enjoy the season."

Dale Deshane, PCA, Supervised Control, Bakersfield: "We started some second sprays last Friday and part of Saturday (2/27-28), then got rained out by a pretty good storm in spots on Saturday. All the early varieties are leafed out pretty good. So far, I haven’t found any blossom blight or shothole on the earliest varieties. It rained in spots yesterday morning (3/4), and the forecast calls for a 70% chance of rain here tomorrow (3/6). Conditions have been kind of bad. These light showery periods, plus warm temperatures, are conducive to disease. Last Friday (2/26) we had a pretty good rain in places, and the wind blew all day. The next day the orchard floors were blanketed with blooms. It was 37 degrees this morning, and I saw light frost on rooftops."

David A. Doll, Pomology Farm Advisor, Merced County: "We’re kind of heading toward the tail end of bloom. Buttes are approaching petal fall. Padres are still in bloom for the most part. In our area there’s a 20% chance of rain today (3/5) and tomorrow. But I’m only seeing high clouds right now (late afternoon), so there’s not much immediate rain potential. The Nonpareils and everything earlier blooming have leafed out enough that you can look down the rows and know which trees probably are Nonpareils. That puts us into the early spring foliar disease period. There’s not that much rain in the forecast, but you never know. So, we need to make sure there’s coverage for scab, anthracnose, shothole and, to some extent, jacket rot.

"A couple of growers probably have put on a third spray, especially if they have some of those early varieties, and they decided to treat before this last rain event on Wednesday. It was a little warmer Thursday, into the 60s. It’s been quickly cooling off at night. It looks like the Butte-Padre plantings have a much higher bloom density this year. Those varieties tended to get hit harder by frost last year. With a lower crop load, they carried over more nutrients and have dumped that into bud formation for this crop. I’m mainly seeing this in Merced County, maybe southern Stanislaus County and parts of Madera County."

Walt Bentley, IPM Entomologist, Kearney Research Center: "We’re really progressing through petal fall. The early varieties are pretty much through it as this week ends. Some later varieties still have petals, but I would say we’re 90% through petal fall in most varieties in this area. We had a good drizzle for a couple of days, then it got cool. In fact, it dropped to 35 in Reedley today (3/5), so there was some concern about frost. We didn’t have enough to worry about this morning, but I was surprised at how cold it was, with light coatings of frost on roofs. One grower said he also measured 35 at his home place.

"We’re certainly at two sprays on a lot of the crop. If we get another rain – and some is in the forecast for next week – we’ll need a third spray. We’re pretty much at the point where twig borer is out and about, so the sprays going out in this period would be good timing for PTB movement with some of the safer insecticides. Certainly, Bt materials would work at this time, and things like Dimilin and Intrepid are very effective, too."

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