March 2021 - 3

Pyrethroids'
effectiveness against
corn earworm eyed
Carbon farming
payments possible with
soil-building
12
19
25
Processing squash
makes phytophthora a
big threat
March 2021 | Volume 55 |
Issue 3
Wrangling water
Errotabere Ranches leads on Western challenges
From the left are brothers Remi, Jean and Daniel Errotabere, principal partners of Errotabere Ranches. Photo: Daniel Errotabere
By Stephen Kloosterman
Associate Editor
Managing more than 5,000 acres of
diverse crops in California's Central
Valley entails a thorough accounting
of one's water.
For Daniel Errotabere, a
third-generation grower and partner
in Errotabere Ranches, it's distributing
what he calls his " water portfolio " of
groundwater and irrigation service
against a hierarchy of the ranches'
crops, with permanent plantings like
winegrapes and tree nuts at the top,
vegetables at the bottom and
low-demand row crops somewhere in
the middle.
It's a complex job, given increasing
state restrictions on pumping
groundwater - and on other farming
inputs that affect yields and the farm's
bottom line. But it's a role in which
Daniel has thrived and taken on
leadership roles at the Fresno County
and statewide California Farm Bureau.
Thirty years ago, he was a founding
member of the Family Farm Alliance,
a group that now has irrigators in 17
different western states.
More recently, he was named the
2020 Agriculturalist of the Year by
the Fresno Chamber of Commerce
and honored in a television segment
produced at his farm.
While Errotabere and other
Central Valley growers have excelled
at meeting almost any requests for
large quantities of crops, he said that
ability is being increasingly hampered
by irrigation restrictions such as
California's Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA). The future
is more volatile.
" In the past, you used to plant
fence row to fence row to meet that
See WATER, page 6
Predicting, managing asparagus emergence helps growers
By Dean Peterson
VGN Correspondent
Asparagus pops up early and comes
when it wants. What if late frosts are
a worry? What if labor always arrives
late? What if growers are hoping to
hit an early market? Can growers
influence asparagus emergence? Can
emergence be predicted?
Solid answers are elusive but
new research from Michigan State
University (MSU) is shedding some
light on what might be possible.
Spear emergence can be predicted
by soil temperature. It sounds simple,
but it's not.
Bud break below ground is when
the plants break dormancy. The soil
temperature at a depth of eight to
12 inches determines bud break.
The spear growth rate is determined
by the soil temperature in the top
eight inches of the soil. Accurately
predicting spear emergence may
require monitoring degree days at
both depths.
Defining emergence as when 25%
of the crowns have at least one spear
greater than one inch above ground,
MSU researchers have developed a
simple model where emergence is
predicted at 150 growing degree days
on a base of 40˚. All soil temperatures
are taken at 12 inches.
" It's a simple model based on
one soil depth, " said Dan Brainard,
associate professor in MSU's
Horticulture Department. Brainard
spoke recently on the asparagus
See ASPARAGUS, page 7

March 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of March 2021