Weather is always a leading topic of discussion in any agricultural district, but this year — more than any time in almost a decade — rain has dominated the discussion in Santa Maria, CA, just as it has dominated the weather forecast.

In fact, it was the number one topic up and down the state throughout January and February and into March. In mid-March, the state of California declared that no part of the state was still experiencing drought conditions. That was the first time since 2011 that it had made such a declaration.

By mid-March rainfall totals were 150 percent above normal in the Santa Maria area and the number of planting days affected by rain this spring was well into double digits. Steve Adlesh, director of sales and marketing for Beachside Produce LLC in Guadalupe, CA, said it hailed in the Santa Maria Valley twice this winter, with even one time any year being a rare occurrence. He also noted that there was one 10-day period in which no planting could be done because of several storms in a row and the wet fields that remained several days later.

In early March, the Santa Maria paper reported that the city soccer fields, which are in a basin, resembled a lake.

Despite the challenges caused by the heavy precipitation, it appeared that most everyone was looking at the rain positively. Crystal Chavez, marketing coordinator for Gold Coast Packing in Santa Maria said the rain were helping to water the plants and fill the reservoirs.

Louis Ivanovich, president of West Lake Fresh in Watsonville, CA, and buying broker of strawberries in Santa Maria, said the rain caused berry production to be only one-sixth by mid-March, but it had produced “happy plants.” He said those healthy plants would be able to produce berries later into the year than usual, possibly allowing growers to make up for the last yields the rain took away in January and February.

Avocado growers along the Central Coast were also singing the praises for the rain. One grower said several inches of rain can add an ounce of fruit to each avocado, increasing the average size a tree produces and add volume to total tonnage. California avocado growers are dealing with a crop that has only been estimated at 175 million pounds, their smallest crop in many, many years. Since the price in the field is based on yield, measured in pounds, every ounce counts.

Adlesh said the rain would almost certainly create a volatile vegetable market in April and May as the supply levels would most likely go through some peaks and valleys. He said the interruptions in plantings would almost certainly cause some gap situations as well as times of above-normal volume. Mother Nature tends to have a way of smoothing out some of these situations but Adlesh, talking in March, said it would be at least several weeks before an accurate forecast could be made about those potential gaps.