Tina Shields, the Colorado River Resources Manager for California’s big Imperial Irrigation District, joked Friday about the newfound celebrity of the California almond. Used to be, alfalfa was the alleged water waster that got all the attention. “The best thing for alfalfa growers is almonds,” Shields quipped at one point during a Las Vegas Colorado …
Continue reading ‘Almond growers – the alfalfa farmer’s new best friend’ »
Nathanael Johnson, in an excellent recent Grist piece, argues that the impact on California’s agricultural economy from the drought is likely to be less than some of the dire rhetoric might suggest because of the way farmers adapt: Philip Bowles, whose family farms near Los Banos, Calif., said they are changing and adapting every day. …
It was only when I was captioning and filing my pictures from my recent tours of the old bits of Arizona’s Lower Colorado River water infrastructure that I noticed what the graffiti here said: “I’m stuck in my ways.” It’s a surreal spot – springing from the side of a harsh desert canyon, a remarkable …
I know, I know, beware the romanticism of desert agriculture, but these trees are such a nostalgic throwback to my childhood. I grew up on the fringe of the Los Angeles suburbs. Trips to the desert were part of my childhood. And date palms along the highway were an iconic image of those jaunts. The …
Almonds get all the attention, but hay, that most pedestrian of crops, still covers more acres of California farmland. But less than it used to. In the drought of 2015, California farmers are planning to plant and maintain past plantings of 1.23 million acres of hay, according to new USDA data published last week. That’s …
Some interesting stats from Charles Fishman (whose book The Big Thirst is a timely read): Looking at California water stats for Bloomberg TV appearance. A stunner: Calif farms use less water today (23.1 bgd) than in 1970 (33 bgd) — Charles Fishman (@cfishman) April 13, 2015 2/ In 45 years, California farmers have cut water …
The Wellton-Mohawk Valley is one of those places where you can feel the desert pressing in around you, a ribbon of irrigated green no more than 3 miles wide along the Gila River in southwestern Arizona. The last of the winter vegetables are done, and farmers are getting the ground ready for their spring-summer cover …
Continue reading ‘Water in the desert, Wellton-Mohawk edition’ »
This is a field fallowed under a 2013 agreement between Yuma Mesa Irrigation and Drainage District and the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District. The deal is small, but it raises all kinds of fascinating issues of both water management and culture down here in Arizona’s southwestern corner, where water is both economically critical and culturally …
Continue reading ‘Fallowed ground: 21st century water institutions on Yuma Mesa’ »
One of the things we do with Colorado River water is grow durum wheat in the Gila River Valley. Durum is used to make pasta. Here in the valley around Yuma, where the Gila River meets the Colorado in Arizona’s southwestern corner, durum is planted as a cover crop in spring on land that derives …
The Colorado River isn’t very big here, but there’s still enough water in it to drop a pump and irrigate a crop. This is on a weird little geographic island, a chunk of land that is on the west (California) side of the river, but legally in Arizona – left stranded when the Colorado River …
Continue reading ‘It’s not all Hoover Dam and giant canals’ »