FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Agriculture officials said the cold and wet weather this late into the season could mean plenty of delays, first for crop growth as well as crop production. 

“Right now, that’s just not happening because it’s very cool, it’s just a very slow process,” said Ryan Jacobsen, Fresno County Farm Bureau President. “We find ourselves with a delay in maturity simply because we don’t have those heat units that we would normally expect this time of year.”

Exactly how bad the effects will be Jacobsen said is difficult to tell at this point. 

“I think we’re going to see some smaller crops on some of our permanent crops simply because it’s been so wet and cool,” he said. “But we won’t know those numbers probably until a couple of months from now as we get closer to harvest.”

The other factors that will be hard to tell are which crops have suffered the most, he said that will all depend on geography. 

“When you look up and down the valley, Tulare, Kings County are being heavily impacted right now because of the flooding events,” he said. “Particularly, going back 30-45 days ago we saw the effects up in Merced county.”

Finding out exactly how much damage was done during the flooding and recent rain will be a waiting game. 

“We got a good idea last week when we had that heat wave to see how much was actually going to come down,” said Jacobsen.  “It gave us a good indication, but there is still an incredible bounty up there that’s going to be coming down over the course of the next two to three months.”