By Bob West
After three consecutive years of declining treated acreage in California, a busy third quarter in the state has pushed 2023 treated acres ahead of the previous year and positioned the industry for its first year of crop protection growth since 2019.
Based on PURE Intel’s first reporting of September 2023 treated acreage, we project that California farmers will ultimately report 83 to 87 million treated acres for the first nine months of the year, compared to 81 million treated acres for the same period in 2022 and 83 million in 2021. This year’s figure still falls short of the 92 million treated acres reported in 2020, but seeing signs of year-over-year growth represents a welcome change.
Being ahead of the previous year through three quarters can even be considered a pleasant surprise given the extremely slow start to 2023 as California dealt with record precipitation. Farmers reported approximately 2.5 million fewer treated acres in the first quarter of 2023 vs. 2022 and treated acreage was flat in the second quarter. But that trend has already reversed with 28.5 million treated acres in the third quarter of this year with late-reporting farms’ acreage still to be added.
The top 10 ag counties in the state account for nearly 75% of all treated acres in California, so they generally dictate the overall trends. Based on initial reporting data and historical trends, application activity in these 10 counties will increase more than 3 million treated acres for the first nine months of the year vs. 2022, and volume is up in eight of the top 10 counties (see chart).
| County | Jan. – Sept. 2023 vs. Jan. – Sept. 2022 |
| Fresno | 1,188,191 |
| Kern | 927,047 |
| Tulare | 710,173 |
| Imperial | 481,608 |
| San Joaquin | 408,384 |
| Kings | 200,918 |
| Merced | 89,298 |
| Monterey | 20,504 |
| Stanislaus | (180,312) |
| Madera | (219,336) |
Fungicides account for the largest portion of the year-over-year growth – treated acreage for disease control has jumped approximately 14% vs. 2022. Syngenta’s Afla-Guard® GR, BASF’s Cevya®, Adama’s Bravo Weather Stik®, and Syngenta’s Miravis® Duo each account for at least 100,000 treated acres more in 2023 than in 2022.
| Product Type | Jan. – Sept. 2023 Treated Acres | Change vs. Jan. – Sept. 2022 |
| Adjuvant | 23,776,289 | 7% |
| Fungicide | 18,470,226 | 14% |
| Insecticide | 16,208,115 | -1% |
| Herbicide | 15,306,714 | 8% |
| Insecticide-Miticide | 5,746,460 | -10% |
| Miticide | 937,143 | -11% |
| PGR | 887,333 | 2% |
| Mating Disruption | 655,196 | 27% |
| IGR | 579,095 | -20% |
| Defoliant | 209,025 | -30% |
Year-over-year variations are much greater when reviewing treated acres by crop group with grains/cereals (up 69%), fruiting vegetables (up 21%) and stone fruit (14%) all delivering strong growth while acreages is essentially flat for the critical tree nut and grape crop groups.
| Crop Group | Jan. – Sept. 2023 Treated Acres | Change vs. Jan. – Sept. 2022 |
| Tree Nuts | 30,102,714 | 0% |
| Grapes | 13,769,102 | -1% |
| Forage/Fodder | 7,484,257 | 14% |
| Grains/Cereals | 5,108,377 | 69% |
| Fruiting Vegetables | 4,428,930 | 21% |
| Leafy Vegetables | 4,179,434 | 0% |
| Citrus | 3,866,335 | 11% |
| Cotton | 2,892,962 | -4% |
| Stone Fruit | 2,657,856 | 14% |
| Small Fruit/Berries | 2,443,050 | -5% |
| Cole Vegetables | 1,355,370 | -22% |
| Root & Tuber Veg. | 1,306,902 | -1% |
We’re projecting fourth-quarter applications of 9 to 11 million treated acres, which would deliver a final number of 93 to 97 million treated acres for 2023 and represent the highest number since 2020.
Bob West is the Direct of Meister Media’s data business. For more information about this data or for more details about Meister’s PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel+ PCA (patent pending) products, contact him at 440-602-9129 or [email protected].
PURE Intel is a trademark of Meister Media Worldwide.
About PURE Intel™
Meister Media’s PURE Intel platform offers subscribers comprehensive insights into California’s specialty agriculture market by aggregating monthly crop protection product application data from approximately 20,000 California farms and providing that data through a user-friendly, web-based platform that enables subscribers to customize their data queries.