The truth behind frost protection

Frank Robertson, in his commentary “Hard to swallow” last week
doesn’t seem to me to have his facts straight. First of all, he
continually refers to us as “winegrowers.” But what we grow is wine
grapes. We are farmers of grapes.
Of the 1,500 vineyard owners in Sonoma County, 40 percent of
them have fewer than 20 acres. Including me. And 80 percent of us
have fewer than 100 acres. We are farmers, not industrial giants.
And yes, there are some very large acreages of vineyard holdings
here, but most of them are owned by large, local family
corporations.
We sell our grapes to wineries, many of which are also small
businesses. We’ve all been having hard economic times in recent
years, but grapegrowers in particular have suffered though
significant crop loss in the past two years due to weather. For
example, last year I had a crop loss of 30 percent, and this year
it was 45 percent. So crop loss plus lowered prices for the fruit
due to economic hard times for everyone has made grapegrowing a
business loss for at least the past two years. Fortunately for us,
there is economic light ahead, so “they” say. At least people are
buying and drinking our good Sonoma County wine.
About frost protection in springtime: Here in the Alexander
Valley we are prone to having frost after the vines have begun to
grow in the spring. This kills our fruit crop for that year and the
next as well. If we are not able to pump water to sprinkle the
vines during these frost episodes, it is a historically reliable
prediction that we will have such severe crop losses as to make the
area unsuitable for farming grapes.
Now comes the State of California for the first time with frost
protection laws and regulations for the entire Russian River
watershed. This is definitely not a bad thing. But it is a fact
that it is going to be expensive. Grapegrowers believe that the
scientific data concerning the incidents of fish kill from pumping
directly out of the river is flawed and inadequate. So we are
funding an independent scientific stream-monitoring program to
determine if and where stream flows are impacted by frost events.
In addition we now pay to register our frost protection systems
with the county and we will report system use.
None among us wants to harm baby fish in the river. Mr.
Robertson seems to be implying in his piece that the grapegrowers
want to “screw the fish.” This is just plain rude. Perhaps Mr.
Robertson should disqualify himself from further reporting on
county agricultural issues for his bias against grape farmers.
Anna Darden is a Healdsburg resident.