By Brian Milne, Vice President, Director of Marketing & Communications, The Holloway Group
Harvest season is coming to a close for many California farming operations, and the holidays will be here before we know it, allowing us to finally kick back and enjoy the fruits of our labor.
In the meantime, there’s still plenty of work to be done in the field.
November is a busy time of year, nursing crops back to health after a stressful harvest season. Not only is harvest stressful on growers and labor crews, it’s also stressful on our crops and soils as irrigation and other cultural practices take a back seat to harvest activities.
After harvest, crops and soils are depleted of water and nutrients, and stress levels are at their highest point in the year – particularly after 2 ½ years of soaring fertilizer and chemical costs, as some budget-strapped operations were forced to cut back applications amid tight crop margins.
That said, as harvest numbers come in, a drop in production on some of the more neglected crops is making operations rethink inputs and get back to the basics for the 2025 season.
“Today, growers have to take a strategic approach to improve crop health by getting back to the basics,” said Daniel Terry, Senior Vice President of Products for Holloway, a soil amendment provider in California’s Central Valley and the Central Coast. “What do we mean by getting back to the basics? Well, we’ve kind of gone away from what our parents and grandparents did, and started to focus on quick fixes from fertilizers, which are expensive to put on. We need to have a blend of the two, fertilizers and soil amendments – because quick fixes can lead to other issues.”
Some of those issues include a lack of soil structure (which hurts water retention) and organic matter, as well as compaction and locked-up nutrients (which is costly to the grower and the nutrient-starved crop). These issues can compound over time, making it tougher for maximum crop production, even in ideal growing conditions.
After harvest is a crucial window to repair and rejuvenate soils by applying amendments like gypsum and compost, setting the stage for next year’s crop and ensuring long-term soil health.
Gypsum, for instance, helps improve soil structure, enhance water infiltration, unlock tied-up nutrients, and alleviate compaction, all while adding calcium and sulfur to the soil profile. Compost, on the other hand, adds organic matter, improving soil fertility and microbial activity, which are essential for healthy root systems and nutrient uptake.
“For us, getting back to the basics means getting back to a healthy soil,” Terry said. “We need to treat our soils like we treat our own health. When you get off track with your health, you go to the doctor, get blood tests done and get scored. You see what’s wrong with your health and you work hard to fix it. It’s the same with your soil.”
Terry recommends having an agronomist come out to assess your ranches, particularly low-performing fields, and take soil, tissue and water samples to “see where your baseline is and let science dictate what it’s going to take to build out the soil profile for this coming season and future seasons.”
If anything, this past season has been a reminder of how vital it is to maintain soil health. The soil, much like the crop it helps product, needs consistent care and skipping fundamental steps like gypsum and compost applications can have a significant impact.
Terry explained that while it’s hard work to turn around soil health, if you get on a schedule and consistently work on improving fundamental soil health, the return will be there come harvest time.
“Treat your soil like you treat your own health,” Terry said. “If you do that, then everything that touches that soil is going to return 10-fold to you.”
Learn more about Holloway’s soil amendments, spreading and agronomy services at HollowayAg.com.
