If you’ve been following the weather out here in California you probably know that we’ve been having a cold, wet winter so far. This is incredibly good news for us farmers and everybody else as well. Because cold, wet weather means better crops, simple as that. Better, larger, less expensive produce in the Spring and Summer. And it’s no different with Pistachio nuts, even though we don’t harvest until September. Why does the weather have to be cold? It’s all about the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The snow pack in these mountains is the “storage tank” for all the water we will need to water the crops in the Spring and Summer months. If the storms that roll through are warm, even if we get a lot of rain, most of that will just run out to the ocean and be of marginal value. But if they are cold ones, like we have had so far this winter, the snow pack builds up in the Sierras and supplies us water all through the dry Summer months. The water table rises, the rivers are full and everybody is happy. Since we have had two or three years of relatively dry winters, or warm winter storms even when it did rain, the water table is down and crops have been going thirsty.
It’s going to take more than we have had so far to really get the lakes and reservoirs up to where they should be, but so far the snow pack in the Sierras is running ahead of normal and that’s great news. So keep your fingers crossed and hopefully we will have a record yield of delicious Pistachios for you to enjoy come the fall.