Category: Uncategorized

by Bob West

The early-season look at the California markets offers a mixed bag of results, based on data published within Meister Media’s PURE Intel™ platform through the first four months of the year. Overall, California farmers have reported 4 percent more applications and 4 percent more treated acres of restricted use products compared to the first four months of 2024. (It’s worth noting that 2024 figures through April were 15 percent ahead of 2023.) However, nearly all of the 2025 growth thus far has occurred within the tree nuts category while treated acres in most of the other key product categories is flat to slightly down to 2024.

Crop Group	Treated Acres through April	Treated Acres 2025 vs. 2024
Tree nuts	10.2 million	19%
Grapes	2.9	-2%
Forage / Fodder	2.6	-10%
Citrus	1.3	14%
Stone fruit	1.1	9%
Leafy vegetables	1.1	-4%
Small fruit / Berries	.826	-1%
Grains / Cereals	.813	0%
Root & tuber vegetables	.573	-20%
Fruiting vegetables	.564	-9%

 

Overall, these top 10 crop groups accounted for 21.2 million treated acres through the first reporting of growers’ pesticide use reports (PURs) compared to 20.7 million treated acres in January – April of last year. Not surprisingly, almonds represent nearly all of the growth within the tree nuts category with roughly 1 million more treated acres to start 2025. This growth in almond applications has occurred primarily in fungicides and adjuvants although treated acres of herbicides have also climbed year over year.

 

 

Bob West is the Director 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 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.

 

 

By Bob West

2024 was a good year for a wide range of specialty crop protection suppliers serving the California market, based on data in Meister Media’s PURE Intel platform. Ultimately, California farmers will report 96 to 98 million treated acres to in the calendar year 2024, which represents a 3% increase from 2023 and the most product applied since 2020. But last year was certainly better for some companies than others.

CPS, Syngenta, BASF, UPL and Wilbur-Ellis were the top five companies when ranked by treated acres of their brands applied in California in 2024 with UPL making gains to last year to surpass Wilbur-Ellis.

RoundUp PowerMAX 3 from Bayer finished the year as the No. 1 product in California with 1.7 million treated acres via more than 39,000 different applications in 2024, which represents 100% growth in treated acreage vs. 2023.

UPL’s Microthiol Disperss fungicide and CPS’ LI 700 adjuvant both also enjoyed tremendous growth in 2024 with 300,000 more treated acres in 2024 than in 2023.

Corteva’s methoxyfenozide insecticide Intrepid 2F was the most widely applied insecticide last year while Bayer’s Movento brand was the most widely applied insecticide-miticide in 2023.

The table below ranks the top 15 brands in terms of 2024 treated acres in California, based on PURE Intel data.

Bob West is the Director 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 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.

 

 

By Bob West

Replenished irrigation resources and favorable weather helped California’s farming industry start strong in 2024 with growers reporting a 25% increase in treated acres of crop protection products to specialty crops through the first quarter. But the strong early-season vibes have faded throughout the year as the market continues grappling with the double whammy of high input costs and lagging commodity pricing, particularly in the critical almond market.

Treated acreage data from pesticide use reports (PURs) collected by Meister Media’s PUREIntel™ platform show that the year-over-year increase in application activity has dropped to just 2% over last year for applications made January – September 2024.

After the strongest first quarter since 2020, application activity slowed in the second quarter to only slightly exceed application volume from Q2 2023, and 2024 volume is falling well short of the surprisingly strong application volume reported in the third quarter of 2023 when growers completed much of the ‘catch up’ work created by a delayed start to the season last year.

All told, the state’s farms have reported 80.6 million treated acres of crop protection products in the first nine months of the year vs. 79.2 million treated acres at the same junction of 2023. The 80.6 million figure still represents the highest total since 82.4 million in September 2021 and any growth is welcome in California right now, but pales in comparison to the early-season figures.

The increase in crop protection activity in 2024 can be largely attributed to tree nuts, which shows 5% growth thus far this year, along with cotton, which has seen increased planted acreage this year thanks to the improved water availability. However, treated acreage is flat to down slightly for most of the key crop groups in the state as growers work to maximize profitability.

 

Bob West is the Director 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 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.

 

By Bob West

In July, PURE Intel™ published its first look at California farmers’ restricted-use product (RUP) applications through the end of June, which provides a great opportunity to evaluate the 2024 season vs. previous years. And, as we’ve seen with monthly PURE Intel updates published throughout this year, California’s farmers are taking advantage of great weather and much-improved access to water for a very busy 2024 season.

Increased crop protection activity can be seen in all of the high-level metrics (see table below) – the number of growers reporting RUP applications, the number of sites that have been treated, the number of applications made, and, most importantly, the number of treated acres, which speaks to the overall volume of product applied.

	2021	2022	2023	2024
Growers	16,391	15,482	14,951	15,247
Sites	58,882	57,354	57,357	57,846
Applications	1,530,406	1,456,514	1,366,150	1,509,645
Treated acres	46,738,688	44,183,460	42,633,245	48,651,604

 

Much of the year-over-year growth in treated acres occurred in the first quarter when 2024 application data greatly exceeded the application figures from the rainy first quarter of 2023. In fact, 2024 treated acres were up 25 percent through Q1 2024, but that growth is down to 14% through Q2 because the California farms had such an active Q2 2023 with all of their catch-up applications. But the most recent 2024 figures have the market in position to top 100 million treated acres in 2024, which would be a first since 2020.

Not surprisingly, the growth in treated acres is fairly widespread across the state with growers reporting more treated acres in eight of the state’s top 10 ag counties.

 

County	Jan-Jun 2024 Treated Acres	Change vs. Jan-Jun 2023
Fresno	7,319,879	18%
Kern	6,519,049	17%
Tulare	4,485,346	5%
Kings	3,909,307	55%
Monterey	2,795,489	15%
Madera	2,645,993	22%
Merced	2,234,569	7%
Imperial	2,186,476	-23%
San Joaquin	2,007,982	-8%
Stanislaus	1,945,069	12%

 

The health of the market is further illustrated by the fact that year-over-year growth can be found in every product category save one and that critical categories like adjuvants, fungicides and insecticides have posted double-digit growth rates through the first half.

Product type	Jan-Jun 2024 Treated Acres	Change vs. Jan-Jun 2023
Adjuvant	13,843,776	16%
Fungicide	12,204,370	11%
Herbicide	10,232,170	4%
Insecticide	7,761,047	26%
Insecticide-Miticide	2,528,986	31%
IGR	527,125	41%
PGR	487,363	46%
Mating disruption	399,909	11%
Miticide	280,039	26%
Defoliant	158,482	-2%

 

The last indication of the broad nature of this year’s growth is the crop-specific year-over-year figures.

Crop Group	Jan-Jun 2024 Treated Acres	Change vs. Jan-Jun 2023
Tree Nuts	16,385,537	9%
Grapes	8,616,932	26%
Forage/Fodder	4,470,377	-14%
Cotton	1,958,122	272%
Grains/Cereals	3,240,978	56%
Citrus	2,606,820	0%
Leafy Vegetables	2,032,967	-4%
Fruiting Vegetable	1,738,658	49%
Stone Fruit	1,668,111	-22%
Small Fruit/Berries	1,543,952	17%
Root & Tuber Veg.	1,123,261	33%
Cole Vegetables	649,164	3%

 

 

Bob West is the Director 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 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.

 

 

By Bob West

As heavy rains pummeled California last winter and Spring and greatly limited farmers from getting into their fields and planting crops, everyone took solace in the potential long-term benefits of that precipitation for the state’s depleted water supplies. Those benefits are evident this year as near-perfect conditions are supporting much more farm activity, according to the latest data published by Meister Media’s PURE Intel™ platform.

Application data for restricted-use products for the period of January – May 2024 offers widespread evidence of strong farming conditions in California:

• 16% more treated acres reported this year vs. last year
• 13% more applications reported this year vs. last year
• 3% more growers reporting applications this year vs. last year
• Applications reported to 3% more sites this year vs. last year

More farmers treating more sites obviously speaks to increased availability of water, but the much greater growth in the number of applications and overall treated acres clearly stems from increased activity throughout the state. Even more encouraging is that treated acres for January – May 2024 is the most treated acres reported for this timeframe since 2020.

Digging deeper into the PURE Intel data provides additional indications of the strength in the market, including:

• Treated acreage is up for the first five months of the year in eight of the top 10 counties in California. (Only Imperial and San Joaquin counties have less treated acreage through May than in 2023, and that decrease is only 3%.)
• California farmers report more treated acres in 21 of the 22 different product types tracked in PURE Intel with only vertebrate control showing less activity.
• Similarly, 10 of the top 12 crops grown in California have more treated acres through May with forage/fodder and stone fruit being the two outliers.

 

Bob West is the Director 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 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.

 

By Bob West

California’s farmers continue making crop protection applications at a much greater rate than in previous years, according to data published by Meister Media’s PURE Intel+™ platform. The initial publication of application data for January – April 2024 shows the following strong numbers:

• Treated acreage 18% greater than the same period in 2023
• 14% more applications made than in the same period 2023
• A 4% increase in the number of growers reporting having made an application by the end of April

Tremendous Spring conditions have clearly enabled farmers to take advantage of the replenished water supplies as the data shows more farms treating more sites early in the year. California farmers have reported 22.9 million treated acres of crop protection applications in the first four months of 2024, which is the highest amount at the end of April 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 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.

 

By Bob West

California farmers have been very busy to start 2024, according to the latest data published by Meister Media’s PURE Intel™ platform. The initial report of data for the first two months of the year includes Pesticide Use Reporting (PUR) information made under 7,410 different permits, and they totaled more than 260,000 different applications for nearly 8.2 million treated acres.

These figures represent an increase of 6 percent in the number of applications made and 15 percent in the number of treated acres as much-improved weather compared to early 2023 provides better early-season field access. The 2024 treated acreage figure also exceeds the initial reports for 2021 and 2022, further illustrating the strong start to 2024.

The increase in 2024 has been largely due to increased disease control activity. Treated acreage of fungicides jumped from 1.1 million in the initial reporting for Jan.-Feb. 2023 to 1.7 million in the same timeframe for 2024, which is a 52% jump. The individual brands with the most growth in the first two months are BASF’s Merivon Xemium, Miravis Prime and Vangard WG from Syngenta, Corteva’s Fontelis and BASF’s Pristine.

Adjuvant use also jumped in early 2024 – from 2.2 million treated acres in the first two months of 2023 to nearly 2.6 million treated acres thus far in 2024 (a 19% year-over-year increase). The adjuvant brands showing the most growth were Vintre from Oro Agri, Liberate from CPS, Voyager from Innvictis, Dyne-Amic from Helena, and CPS’ Choice Trio.

 

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 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.

 

January is consistently among the least-active months for California farmers, but all good news matters so the fact that the initial report for January’s treated acreage exceeded the initial report for three of the past four Januarys is certainly encouraging. This chart presents the number of applications and treated acres reported in California farmers’ first filing of January Pesticide Use Reports (PURs) for the last four years:

Month	Applications	Treated Acres
January 2024	100,331	2,784,938
January 2023	83,727	2,276,691
January 2022	122,982	3,526,687
January 2021	106,976	2,775,312

 

The number of growers reporting a January 2024 application increased roughly 10% compared to January 2023 while the number of applications increased nearly 20%. Not surprisingly, January applications were dominated by weed control activity (42% of all January treated acres) as the farmers work to prepare their fields and orchards for the upcoming season. Oxyfluorfen (10.8%), rimsulfuron (9.9%) and indaziflam (9.4%) were the most widely used herbicide active ingredients in the month.

Bob West is the Director 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 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.

 

By Bob West

After three consecutive years of declining treated acreage in California, the initial report of final 2023 application data shows that the Golden State’s farmers increased their applications last year, according to data published by Meister Media’s PURE Intel™ platform. Based on historical reporting timelines, PURE Intel projects California farmers will ultimately report a total of 94 to 95 million treated acres of restricted-use product applications in 2023, roughly 5% more than in 2022 and 2% more than 2021.

The full-year 2023 data within PURE Intel provides a number of insights into California agriculture last year, including:

• Consolidation continues. The number of farms reporting at least one application of a restricted-use product in 2023 will be approximately 18,600, which represents a 2% drop from 2022 and nearly 14% fewer than in 2018.
• Application activity climbed. The average application grew from 29.5 treated acres in 2022 to slightly more than 31 treated acres in 2023 (undoubtedly due in part to the aforementioned consolidation).
• Growth is widespread yet concentrated. We’re projecting year-over-year growth in treated acreage for six of the top 10 ag counties in the state, but Fresno County’s farmers were the key growth drivers in 2023. PURE Intel projects a 10% jump in treated acreage there, which means approximately 15% of all treated acres were produced in that one county. Imperial County is the only other county in the top 10 for which we project double-digital growth, but Imperial only produces about 3.7 million treated acres (roughly 25% of Fresno County’s annual treated acreage).
• Disease pressure reigned. More moisture = more disease pressure, and that bore out again in 2023 as California farmers reported 14% more treated acres of fungicide applications in 2023 vs. 2022. (Herbicides enjoyed 8% growth while adjuvants were up 7% in 2023.)
• Secondary crops were key. Treated acres for tree nuts will be up slightly vs. 2022 while volume for grapes will be flat vs. 2022. But grains/cereals, fruiting vegetables, stone fruit, and forage/fodder crops are all on pace for gains greater than 10% compared to 2022.
• Glyphosate remains king. Treated acres for glyphosate brands are down over the past few years, but glyphosate active ingredients still combined for approximately 4 million treated acres in 2023 compared to chlorantraniliprole (2.2 million) and abamectin (2 million), which were the second and third most widely applied AIs in 2023.

 

Bob West is the Director 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 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.