There was an article in the North County Times (our local north San Diego paper) which said that the California Avocado Commission was worried about the disappearance of groves in San Diego county. Growers are either removing trees to plant other crops or turning off the water on groves to "shrink" the stumps and force less watering or they're simply letting the land go fallow.
We noticed a grove in our area that looked as if they've stopped watering. I'm not sure you can tell from this photo:
It looks like they're watering the shrubs and ground cover surrounding their area, but the avocado trees are not getting much water at all.
We talked to another grower on Friday who said he was just going to water enough to keep his trees green, but not enough to get any fruit this year.
So the commission is going to pay to have a study made of what's happening to the groves by using aerial imagery. Satellites will be taking specialized digital photographs of the area to get an acreage update.
The article went on to say that San Diego's avocado acreage has dropped 26% since 2005, from 26,004 to 19,133.
We're still trying to decide what to do. We may do the same as our neighbor who is just going to water enough to keep the trees green and then decide later whether to take more drastic action.
In the future this blog may be called "Ladies of the Vineyard".
I hear there's some bad avocado pests in Florida so maybe Fallbrook will retain it's standing--if the water thing gets better.
ReplyDeleteOur new name could be "Almost Avocado Capitol of the World".
ReplyDeleteBarbara: I am very sad to hear this as I always think of Fallbrook as the "Avocado Capitol" and I see it in my mind's eye as such. You didn't pinpoint the reason in the article but the actions of growers you reference indicate the water is super expensive now. We left in 1997 and it was expensive then but the fruit was plentiful. The worst thing happening back then was NAFTA passing. I know it hurt the price of avocados and I thought and still believe it's a mistake. Apparently so do alot of other people including Hillary Clinton and it was Bill who pushed it through. So, question is, is it the price of water or the price of avocados on the open market?
ReplyDelete