HMC News – March 2025
The extended forecast last month showed more days of rain than sunshine. While rain is still a welcome occurrence during this stage of growth for our tree fruit, hail is not. Hail is our biggest concern from now until harvest because it can occur abruptly and cause damage to a lot of fruit in a very short amount of time. We have been searching for solutions to assuage our fears of adverse weather for years. Up until recently, our best plan of action was to use hail cannons. These large, cone shaped machines, fire sound waves into the sky. The idea is that the sound waves will disturb the cloud and stop or slow the formation of hail. Recently we invested in a netting system to prevent hail from reaching the fruit. Because these nets have proven to be our best insurance plan against a storm, we have purchased machinery to help us apply the netting as well. The design of our high-density planting system allows us to drive our platforms through the field and facilitate the application process.
We are measuring approximately 8.5 inches of precipitation for the 2024-2025 water year, which is calculated from July – June. Our average rainfall per water year is 11 inches. Chill hours finished just shy of 900 total hours. We crossed the 800-hour threshold around Valentine’s Day, which is when a majority of our early and mid-season blossoms had already appeared. As you can see in the graph below, this year was one of the lowest we’ve had in terms of total hours in the past six years. Fortunately, we still received an adequate amount of chill hours for our summer stone fruit season. The storm last month helped increase our snowpack by a few percent, but as you can see from the snow survey above, we are still a few percent shy of average for this time of year.
We use pheromones in our vineyards and orchards as a tool to prevent unwanted pests and reduce our spray applications. The pheromones we hang from our trees and vines are specifically targeted to disrupt the mating patterns of a particular species of insect. For example, last month we hung pheromones to disrupt Oriental Fruit Moth. About a month later, we will hang pheromones for Peach Twig Borer.
As the trees and vines begin to wake up from their winter slumber, we gather our field supervisors together to discuss health, safety, and the season to come. Our initial supervisor meeting was the perfect chance to explain the benefits available through the HMC Health Clinic and the California Farmworker Foundation. The HMC clinic described the free health screenings that are available to all HMC employees and their families, and the CFF gave a presentation on their offerings, which include educational services, health and wellness, and civil assistance.
