Extreme Weather impacts crop production.
By Liam Cavaletto.
All that rain can damage crops in different ways as well. One of the ways excessive rainfall can lead to devastating results on crop production comes not in the way of pest control but in something different. Fungal growth can be a huge factor with excessive rainfall, according to The Guardian Fungal Growth. Maria Estrada, a crop science professor at Fresno State, said this is especially true of this year.
“The air has high moisture, so the relative humidity is high, and it’s very much conducive for the growth of fungi,” Estrada said.
Since California saw one of its wettest years on record for 2023, that moisture also led to a cooler-than-normal summer in a decade, according to a story in The New York Times. The impact was also significant on the delayed growing season.
Ryan Jacobsen, who is the CEO of the Fresno County Farm Bureau and a farmer himself, can attest to that.
“That cool wet spring really pushed and delayed a lot of our crops, anywhere from three probably up to four weeks behind what we’d consider normal,” Jacobsen said. “So we are paying for that right now because the season is so late in comparison to what we’d expect this time of year.”
Emily Wilson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Hanford, says for now, the best thing to do is to be prepared, “which is what we’re doing with the weather service to get everyone prepared for that kind of thing and have better outlets for weather communication.”
Wilson said we can prepare by listening to watches and warnings. She said, however, that she believes the most significant change comes through federal policy.
A flooded Orchard, courtesy: Jordan College