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California water.

8K views 39 replies 17 participants last post by  rod 
#1 ·
#2 ·
I've listen to a few podcasts regarding the consumption of the California aquifers and How the ground in some places as sank 30feet over the past 40-50 years from draining the aquifers. Always thought alfalfa was the crop that used the most water. Also heard a pocast on how almond trees are using so much because they have to be watered year round unlike other crops. California is exporting water through selling alfalfa , almonds, produce etc that can't be replaced.
 
#7 ·
She must mix in the “right circles” then! :laugh::D

It still amazes me that the Central Valley, south of Modesto etc. as classified as desert country with very porous soils (sand), has been developed so much & by the types of crops grown there. Nuts, use a huge amount of water. There is a nut planting explosion in OZ as well & it is bound to turn to :46: in the future. Anything that is “too good” at the initial stage of the cycle, is surely to head through the agricultural porcelain “S” bend, faster than a :46: at a Roman banquet !
 
#6 ·
if you have not seen the movie " Macfarland" I highly recommend it. really good show for kids to watch. determination, discrimination has all of it...drove through this area couple years ago. pretty amazing place
 
#8 · (Edited)
Those that understand water use per HA to grow various crops would be flabbergasted if they knew the true cold hard facts of Almond tree consumption...........rice, corn and cotton only use a dribble compared to them.

Iam surrounded by them here and actually right at this minute cleaning out a channel that supplies water to one farm. The number of bores feeding just this one channel is quite ridiculous, 5 infact.

So who’s got the big Squirrel farm?:red-neck-laughing-s
Because I don’t like nuts, I might eat chocolate ones but even then, eat the chocolate and spit the nut out......:sFun_doh2::sFun_doh2:
 

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#19 ·
On netflix I saw a documentary on california's complete abuse of the aquafier. This so called huge farmer has destroyed many small farms around him by drilling round these peoples property and draining what water they had access too as well. Forcing them to have to pay for redrilling far deeper which they can't afford. Makes for cheap land for this guy once the small farm is broke. Nobody cares about the little guys farm being consumed, but once the water is gone for the guy with all the land the gov't will bail his rich ass out. Just the way the world works. The system is so corrupt and negligent with their waste of water how can one feel sorry for them. Californians want the world to change their ways when they should look at themselves the way I see it.
 
#23 ·
Amazing to watch the rice flow in the hopper at that rate even with the low ground speed and that (cough) little header Rod!
Well the numbers work something like this in standing rice. 12t/ha x 7.4mt (head:laugh:) x 5k’s ..... will give you the spot rate. Times all that by about 0.7 will give you the average ...... in standing conditions.
Oh & the small front ...... not a good idea to have much bigger in rice. Especially when it’s flat on the ground, damp straw & wet ground ....... unless you want to spend a lot of time unplugging the machine. Even 770’s get a very big guts ache in this stuff. :11:
 
#27 · (Edited by Moderator)
What's peculiar here to me, is that I can't get the link to "Kingdom From Dust" to open in the original post. When I locate it here as the lead line of a Google search, it won't open either! It must have something to do with where the kingdom is, that Silicone Valley is located in? Maybe it's just the Queen censoring my Canadian Internet again. Who Knows! Who can fix it? I'd like to read the news but I think someone is acting like the fake god again.

https://www.google.ca/search?source............mobile-gws-wiz-hp.....3.VX2rcZERcXs=
 
#35 ·
That picture of flat desert as far as the eye can see with little trees planted is crazy. All that bare ground must evaporate 99% of what they put on. What a waste. a cover crop under all that would save so much moisture. Regardless that place will become a desert once again regardless at what man does. Canada sits on a pile of water and the US will want it more than they do now. Water is more valuable than anything on earth. Not one thing can survive without it.
 
#36 ·
Yes, it's kept bare as a baby's bum to aid management. Almonds dropped from the trees via the shaker, need to dry out on clean ground. Then they are picked up, plus a bit of dirt & trash, some grading in the paddock via screens, then processed back in the hulling factory.
I didn't see in this operation but I would think it would be all drip irrigation, & yes, there would be significant amounts of evaporation.
Nuts are the "flavour of the month" - a bit like crypto currencies - everyone rushes to the entry door, then after some time, everyone rushes to the exit door. Plenty of "mum & dad investors" get stomped on or squished - in either direction.
 
#37 ·
I am in this Land of Fruits and Nut and they don't all grow on trees!!!!!

Stewart and Linda purchased a winery a mile down the road from me. They where adding acreage as they could till a bigger billionaire from Europe decided to save trees and brush and has out bid them. Would get them biding on mine,but but this climate of no snow is just nice to leave.


Wonderful head quarters and trees are about a 100 miles away. The southern San Joaquin valley has been using all the southern Sierra Nevada snow melt that passed by for near a 100 years now.The part where Paramount Farm started got water when the federal government helped the state build the Central Valley project to send northern California water to Los Angeles and south. First water was in the 1960's.


The big crime is the state banked "excess" water in wet years(about 1990 to 96) just east of the newer irrigated area. The early 2000's the state wanted some back.Bureaucrats being bureaucrats realized they didn't know how to get it back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stewart Resnick to the rescue he would pump it from his wells back to the canal. But the state would have to pay going rate of something like $5000/acre foot for water getting sold in a drought even though the state had put it there. Word on the street was the water money was greater than his gross from 100,000 plus acres of nuts.

Also check out Fiji Water and how the native people of Fiji feel. Another enterprise of Stewart Resnick.



Please be a little more understanding of farmer in all areas of the state that had irrigation water before the 1960's and big federal money. We grow crops that make the most net per acre or hectare if you wish.The local water has been all used to grow something for 75 years or more.


I don't grow almonds but 3 to 3.5 acre feet seems to be a number that I find for water use for almonds in California. I will leave the metric conversion to all that want it. You also lost me with mg/ha, you measuring it in weight rather than liquid? So in better soils these trees are only using a little more water per acre than rice,or per hectare if you wish.


Maybe I well out last big money corporate ag/water selling maybe not. But no willing to move where I have snow to shovel. Oh I do not have irrigation water,just enough to water a few cows since grapes came to my neighborhood.
 
#38 ·
I am in this Land of Fruits and Nut and they don't all grow on trees!!!!!

Stewart and Linda purchased a winery a mile down the road from me. They where adding acreage as they could till a bigger billionaire from Europe decided to save trees and brush and has out bid them. Would get them biding on mine,but but this climate of no snow is just nice to leave.

Wonderful head quarters and trees are about a 100 miles away. The southern San Joaquin valley has been using all the southern Sierra Nevada snow melt that passed by for near a 100 years now.The part where Paramount Farm started got water when the federal government helped the state build the Central Valley project to send northern California water to Los Angeles and south. First water was in the 1960's.


The big crime is the state banked "excess" water in wet years(about 1990 to 96) just east of the newer irrigated area. The early 2000's the state wanted some back.Bureaucrats being bureaucrats realized they didn't know how to get it back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stewart Resnick to the rescue he would pump it from his wells back to the canal. But the state would have to pay going rate of something like $5000/acre foot for water getting sold in a drought even though the state had put it there. Word on the street was the water money was greater than his gross from 100,000 plus acres of nuts.

Also check out Fiji Water and how the native people of Fiji feel. Another enterprise of Stewart Resnick.

Please be a little more understanding of farmer in all areas of the state that had irrigation water before the 1960's and big federal money. We grow crops that make the most net per acre or hectare if you wish.The local water has been all used to grow something for 75 years or more.

I don't grow almonds but 3 to 3.5 acre feet seems to be a number that I find for water use for almonds in California. I will leave the metric conversion to all that want it. You also lost me with mg/ha, you measuring it in weight rather than liquid? So in better soils these trees are only using a little more water per acre than rice,or per hectare if you wish.
Maybe I well out last big money corporate ag/water selling maybe not. But no willing to move where I have snow to shovel. Oh I do not have irrigation water,just enough to water a few cows since grapes came to my neighborhood.
Sorry about the abbreviation & the confusion. mgs is short for megalitres. 1mg/ha - It's million litres over 1 hectare.
In mid July '17 I was up through Davis, Yuba City, Biggs etc. & was surprised at the amount of new nut trees planted, replacing the tomatoes, rice, etc. areas that I saw in '99. The soils up that way are much heavier than down south, so they would use less water. Still surprising is many of the nut plantation are on flood irrigation through there. I would have thought they would have moved to drip irrigation by now.
In '99 there was a lot of grapes - from memory around Madera. Gallo's have a huge winery somewhere north of there. The soil was/is very sandy around there. Table grapes are grown around there or west of there, as it "doesn't rain" around picking time.
The staggering fact is, water is in the north & the population is in the south ....... & they want the water. Governments will always try & appease the "noisy ones" & pay little attention to the people who grow food for the population.
In 2007 I was at a World Drought Conference in Spain where I met a person who looked after the water utility companies that supplied water to Los Angeles & the surrounding squillion people. They want the water & it was just pay whatever it takes to get it there to keep the population at peace. Surely, that can't last!
Surely water for primary food production should come well before having green lawns, fountains in cities & washing the pavement with the hose!
 
#39 ·
Lower case m in metric system is milli, 1/1000.
Capital M should be Mega, 1,000,000 times the base unit
The base unit here is L, liters, or you could have gone with cubic meters, straight forward relationship.
g is gram, so mg was milligrams per hectare, which was pretty confusing.


I figured out what you must have meant.


That's the way I was taught, but I'm 'Merican, so I'm probably wrong!
 
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