Well, after last year’s almost 200% normal precipitation it is starting to look like this year may be a dud.  I have just under 2 inches in my rain gauges on the westside and not much better in Kerman.  I am glad I dropped most of my dryfarm acres this year because it would take a small miracle to make grain this year (or atleast 8″ of rainfall spread out evenly into april).  One good thing is that the weed pressure is very light since nothing germinated until the first rain in early January.  Not a big deal for the trees, vines and alfalfa but really has saved me a lot of headaches in the organic vegetables.  This time last year we were wishing we could get into the fields with equipment to disc in the weeds and had a muddy mess when we were finally able work the ground.  This year in a couple weeks without rain (and none is forecast) the weeds will dry up on their own.  What a difference a year makes!

Here you can see the dry almond orchard.  I spread fertilizer in a line along the berms in the hopes that the winter rains would dissolve and push it into the root zone.  Unfortunately, we didn’t receive enough rain so the fertilizer still sits on the ground.  Ughh.