Picking in the Rain

Whenever storm clouds gather and raindrops start falling and traffic snarls on the 405, you can count on someone saying, “Well, the farmers need it.”

Larry Cox, a farmer in Brawley, in the Imperial Valley just north of Mexico, begs to differ.

“We need rain up north; we need snow on the Colorado plateau,” he says. “We sure don’t need anything here.”

What rain means in farm areas like the Imperial Valley is thick muddy fields that are difficult to harvest and impossible to plant. And with the round-the-calendar schedule most California farmers enjoy, Cox’s feelings are widespread.

From the Salinas Valley to the Mexican border, somebody’s picking something today. And they’re probably picking it under inhospitable conditions.

“It’s just muddy, that’s all,” says John Boskovich, an Oxnard farmer. “We’ve got our crews out in rubber suits bringing in the things that can be bunched by hand. Anything that we have to have machines for is just going to have to wait.”

To consumers, this rainy spell probably means nothing more than slightly increased prices for field crops--lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower and green onions--that are being harvested in the Imperial Valley and around Santa Maria and Oxnard. That’s where most of the picking is at this particular time.

But should the rains continue for another week or so, and planting schedules are disrupted, the long-term impact could be more serious.

In the Santa Maria area, for example, where broccoli and cauliflower should be planted soon, a delay could create a gap in the next harvest schedule, meaning a shortage in supplies of those crops and higher prices three months from now.

When buying this week, shop carefully. In this kind of weather, broccoli is prone to “purpling” in the florets, which is not really harmful. But if it has been water-soaked, it will start rotting as soon as it gets in warmer temperatures. Lettuces may show what is called epidermal peel, which means that part of the leaf peels off, just like a sunburn.

“As long as we can keep on our normal planting schedule,” says Boskovich, “you’ve got to say this is doing more good than harm.”