Farmers welcome rain after limited rain to start the season

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- As we keep a close eye on the potential impacts of the storm, farmers in the Central Valley are welcoming the rain.

It's a turning point after six weeks of limited storm activity started to raise concerns of drought, said Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO Ryan Jacobsen.

"As far as the upcoming storms, right now, we completely want to see them," said Jacobsen. "The ground is ready for it. We have the capacity in local reservoirs, so it's a good thing we see them rolling in. That becomes a little bit of a different case here in just a few weeks."

That concern grows in the coming weeks when the almond blossoms start to bloom. Right now, they're just buds at little risk of being knocked off the trees and not ready to be pollinated.

"Typically around Valentine's Day is when we start to look for those blooms," said Jacobsen. "So not that we don't need storms then, we can take some storms, it's just in between those storms we need some drying out time to be able to allow those bees to fly and to allow those blossoms to do what they do."

Jacobsen said the impacts became severe last year when there were only two dry days during the whole blooming period.

As for current storms impacting the bees, they haven't even arrived in orchards in the Valley and won't for several more days.

"So our busy bees aren't quite ready to work yet because they're actually making their way, for those that are here locally in California, they start making their way to the fields in the next week or so," said Jacobsen. "There are also a lot of bees that come into California for this big, huge pollination event."

The impacts could continue to trickle down. Rain now will mean more grass in the foothills for livestock to eat later.

"We got a storm in December that really started to get the grass going, but it didn't go very far with some of that colder weather, but right now, with that little bit of sunshine as well as this incredible water we've had the last couple of days it's really going to push that grass quickly now," said Jacobsen.

Jacobsen said three to five more atmospheric rivers over the next two months would really help prevent drought and that we could also benefit from colder storms to create a larger snowpack.

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