Tree and orchard removal seem to have been on the rise over the last couple years. With the lack of water, farmers are having to remove orchards that they can't irrigate. Farmers are down sizing their planted acreage and prioritizing what water they do have. Many farmers are removing older, less productive orchards sooner than they would normally. In it's place, sometimes the land is being fallowed and times they plant a new orchard which requires less water. All of this means more and more trees are being torn out and orchards are being removed. But what do farmers do with these trees once they are removed from the ground?
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| Piles and piles of dead trees are all over the Central Valley |
Until recently, a common use was co-generation. Farmers would pay for their trees to be removed and hauled to co-generation plants. These facilities would burn removed trees and make energy to be transferred into the grid. In the 1980's biomass plants and the utility companies created 20-30 year contracts for these facilities to be built and to use agriculture by-products to create energy. Well, now these contracts are expiring and the utility companies are not renewing these contracts. It is now cheaper for the utility companies to use natural gas and solar than to use tree biomass.
The problem is now that these biomass facilities were utilizing a
large majority of the trees being removed in California. Of the 30
biomass plants throughout the state most of them will be closing by July
2016, the majority of which closed January 2016. There are currently no public
facilities excepting material in the Central Valley. All the
facilities have reached their maximum capacity of material they need
until their contracts expire.
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| Mounds of wood chips waiting to be hauled away |
The question is now what do farmers do with their trees? Because of
Valley Air Control Board standards and requirements, farmers can only
burn certain material on certain days. Burning a whole orchard would
take much more time than allocated. And what a waste of an energy
resource. The biomass facilities would burn our trees and create energy
and now farmers are going to have to burn the trees anyways without the
great energy source being utilized.
There have been some studies done by the
University Extension that
say farmers can return those trees back into the soil. But grinding a
whole orchard and ripping it into the soil has not been studied long
enough to know if it would be beneficial for the life of the new
orchard. Plus the economic impact of such a venture would be quite
costly. Some growers are investing into new and innovative ways though. There
was recently an
Iron Wolf Demo where
growers, media and researchers came out to see just how to think
outside the box. The massive Iron Wolf machine will grind 4 acres in a day and
return the tree into the soil in chunks that can be ripped into the new
field. This machine comes with a hefty $1 million price tag, making it
only affordable for a small percentage of growers.
So what are farmers to do now? Well there is an initiative on the Governor's desk to use Cap and Trade funds to keep the co-generation facilities open. He has been sitting on it for quite some time, making some farmers skeptical if he will allocate the funds. We can also hope that the utility companies will renew their contracts and keep these facilities open. Farmers, like always, will have to be innovative and creative in coming up with new ideas and uses for their products.
Until Next Time,
Almond Girl
A few month ago now, I attended the American Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers Conference. Among the attendees were your usual Mid Western corn and soybean farmers, Texan cattle ranchers, cotton growers from the South and Miss America. Yes, you read that right, Miss America came to the Young Farmers and Ranchers (YF&R) conference. Miss America and YF&R don't usually go together. You don't generally think Miss America would have anything to do with farmers. But this year, Miss America, Betty Cantrell is a girl quite familiar with agriculture. She grew up raising livestock through her local 4-H and grew up immersed in Georgia agriculture.
