Grape growers in Sonoma County are still working through some of the issues created by recent wildfires. Compounding the challenges, the current drought conditions have added another layer of difficult circumstances. Executive Director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau Tawny Tesconi said several growers have opted to pull out vineyards in light of the difficult circumstances.
“I know some of our growers have indicated they had 70 percent loss in production and revenues last year. So, people are looking at pulling out some of those less productive blocks of grapes and you really don’t see anything going in necessarily in their place,” Tesconi noted. “I would say there’s at least probably 1,500 to 2,000 acres of grapes that are in the ground that are going to be fallowed this year. Mainly because of water – the loss of water – but also because of some of the pain that people felt whether it was from fire damage or smoke taint challenges last year.”
Listen to the radio report below.
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