Some notes on CA-99 which runs the length of California's "central valley."

I rode this in May last year heading north and was quite taken with the view it gives of the mega-farms that grow so much of the state's food exports.  This year it was a little less fascinating.  Probably this was in part due to the summer heat and a bit of annoyance at returning south so soon.

I'd forgotten how much of 99 is now freeway, basically from Sacramento on south.  From Sacramento to Fresno one might as well get on I-5 for all that is visible from the roadway.  South of Fresno it remains freeway but at least the edge of the road is close to the orchards so there's more to look at.

Heading south from Red Bluff you pass mile after mile of orchards that I think are all nut trees, maybe almonds and walnuts.  Toward Sacramento are the huge rice paddies that I remembered from last year.  In May they were just big rectangles of water.  Now they are covered with about foot high green shoots of the rice.  If you don't know they are paddies, they look like impossibly flat farm land.  Occasionally, there's a large corn field though I didn't notice many. 

Most of the orchards were very dense with trees often 15 feet tall and packed right together.  I don't see how they could use mechanical pickers, but the orchards are so large and the trees so high I don't see how they could be manually picked either.

Ahha! Google to the rescue.  This from UCDavis re harvesting walnuts:

The nuts are removed from the tree using a mechanical shaker, a machine that grasps the trunk and shakes the whole tree. The nuts drop to the ground, are then swept into windrows and picked up with harvest machinery.

There was space under the trees where such machinery (and, presumably some humans) could navigate.  It appears almonds are harvested similarly.

Farther south the incidence of vineyards increased.  That mildly surprised me.  I obviously know nothing of grape farming, but I wouldn't have guessed that such hot dry conditions would be favourable.  Don't know if these would be wine grapes or table grapes.  By coincidence there was a brief report on NPR today that the mainstay Cabernet Sauvignon grape in Napa Valley may be on the way out over the next decade due to climate change.  In hot, dry conditions the grapes sweeten and must be harvested before they have time to develop all the other subtle flavours that go into the wine.

Also, south of Sacramento I noticed that the orchards appeared to be more citrus oriented - big clue was a sign offering Navels for sale.

The vast flat spaces of the central valley remind me of some of the great plains, just a bit more verdant due to the irrigation.  Here and there you see irrigation canals and pipes and valves for controlling water flow. Somewhere between Chico and Yuba City I noticed a berm maybe ten to fifteen feet high running arrow straight next to the highway.  I surmised it must have something to do with irrigation.  Turns out it is the western edge of Thermalito Afterbay which is part of the Oroville Dam (of near catastrophe fame a couple years ago) complex which itself is an essential part of the State Water Project.  So, irrigation, yes, but also a lot more.