I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Timothy Parker of Parker Groundwater Consulting in Sacramento, CA.  Loni Lyttle: So, I wanted to talk to you today about groundwater recharge. California, along with the rest of the western United States has been in a long drought and is facing serious issues with groundwater depletion not to mention subsidence, where the land is actually sinking due to overdrafting the aquifer. But then we get these two wet years in 2023 and 2024 (so far) with above average rainfall. I think this lulls people into a sense of security about California’s water situation and I’m not sure it’s that simple. I’m not a hydrogeologist so I wanted to get in touch with someone who knows more on the subject.  Tim Parker: You are right – the surface water reservoir drought is over but our groundwater reservoirs are still in drought conditions. So there’s a lot of recharge going on and we don’t always know how

Afternoon Brief, October 7th

You’ve Been Served: TTB Sued Over Wine Ingredient Labels: A lawsuit filed by three leading consumer organizations could finally bring the debate about ingredient and nutritional labeling for wine front and center...

The following is an excerpt from our most recent blogpost. Read the whole article here. Between stunted growth to unexpected nutrient deficiencies, this second consecutive year of drought threw us quite a few curve balls. One thing people aren’t expecting to hear though is that some places haven’t needed to irrigate all season. That’s right. Some vineyards we consult for have been just fine using no water for irrigation. How is this the case? We take soil moisture very seriously. Let me break it down for you.  Here's a site we didn't need to irrigate at all  It could be a combination of soil type, or balanced canopy size, but for whatever reason average soil moisture at this site has never dipped below 60% relative water content (we consider anything above 80% to be around field capacity).  Here's a site that looked dry but had deeper moisture This site may have looked dry in the first few feet of soil but look at how much water was waiti