TALENT, Ore. — After two years of waiting, Michael Moore is finally able to plant 15 new acres of winegrapes this spring at one of his 13 vineyards in southwest Oregon.

Moore, general manager of Quail Run Vineyards, first ordered the vines in 2021, looking to expand production near the small city of Talent — about 10 miles north of Medford.

However, Moore said he was forced to hold off amid severe drought gripping the Rogue River Valley. Snowpack had declined to the point that local reservoirs were storing just a small percentage of their capacity, leaving farmers with little water for irrigating crops.

“We didn’t have enough water to ensure that the vines would survive,” Moore said.

While 2021 and 2022 were both difficult summers, conditions have improved dramatically in 2023. Like neighboring California, Southern Oregon’s snowpack is surging, with the Rogue Basin reaching 174% of normal as of April 12.

Overall precipitation for the basin is also 99% of normal for the water year dating back to Oct. 1. That has given Moore enough confidence to go ahead with planting. He plans to add another 15-30 acres of winegrapes in 2024.

Until about 2017, Moore said farmers in the region never had to contemplate not having enough water. Sure, there were some years when supplies had to be rationed a bit, he said, but nothing like the recent cutbacks they’ve had to endure.

“There’s no question that managing water is going to become an increasingly important issue here and all over the world,” Moore said.

‘It’s definitely better’

A bigger mountain snowpack bodes well for refilling several key reservoirs in the valley.

The Talent Irrigation District, which serves 16,300 acres, gets its stored water from three primary reservoirs near Ashland — Hyatt, Emigrant and Howard Prairie lakes. A portion of the water also goes to the Medford and Rogue River Valley irrigation districts.

Wanda Derry, TID manager, said the system was storing a combined 29% of capacity as of April 10, compared to 12% on the same day last year.

“It’s still not good enough, but it’s definitely better,” Derry said.

Normally, Derry said the district would like to see the reservoirs about half-full by now. The lakes will continue to refill with snowmelt and runoff, though Derry said it remains to be seen just how much that will help the situation.

The district’s board of directors will likely discuss a water allocation for patrons in May when the picture becomes clearer, Derry said.

The good news is that there is still plenty of snow on the ground, she said — including 40 inches at Howard Prairie, which is at an elevation of 4,526 feet.

“If we can just keep more of these storm systems coming in, then the more precipitation we get, the longer we’ll be able to hold off the start of the (irrigation) season, and the longer we’ll be able to go into the fall,” Derry said.

Cutbacks hit farmers

That has not been the case during the last two years.

A normal irrigation season can typically start about April 15 and last through September. In 2021, the season didn’t begin until June 1. Water was turned on for two weeks, shut off for two weeks, then turned back on for three weeks before the season ended July 19.

In 2022, the season didn’t start until July 5 and lasted five weeks.

“The idea of having just 35 days of water down here, that is something nobody had ever experienced,” said Moore, the vineyard manager.

For district patrons, the impact has been dire. Ranchers that would normally get two or three cuttings of hay instead could get only one.

Orchards and vineyards, meanwhile, scrambled to adapt their management practices to avoid crop failure.

Moore said winegrapes are naturally more drought-resilient compared to the basin’s pear orchards. He focused on limiting the size of his vines’ canopies to reduce water loss through evapotranspiration, keeping more moisture in the soil.

Crews also built several storage ponds, Moore said.

“You couldn’t find two vineyards that did things exactly the same way,” he said.

Effect on pears

The effect on pears was more drastic.

Mike Naumes, president and CEO of Naumes Inc., a pear farming, packing, marketing and shipping operation in Medford, said water shortages translated into much smaller fruit each of the last two years — in some cases, not much larger than a golf ball.

“We need big fruit to market successfully,” Naumes said.

In addition, a “horrific” hail storm on July 2 damaged about 600 acres of Naumes’ orchards.

The combination of difficult weather meant Naumes was able to harvest only about 10% of its normal pear crop in 2022. Whereas the packing house normally handles 300,000 to 400,000 boxes of pears annually, last year it had just 50,000 boxes, of which 30,000 were the company’s fruit.

“If we continue to not have water, I don’t know how we can stay in the pear business,” Naumes said.

Naumes said he is optimistic they will be able to grow a successful crop this year with the improved water outlook. He is not certain yet how some trees will respond following two consecutive years of reduced irrigation.

Matt Borman, vice president of operations for the online premium food retailer Harry & David, said that despite water cutbacks, they did not lose any trees.

Harry & David is the area’s largest pear grower, with just under 2,000 acres of orchards. Borman said the company has invested in drip irrigation and automation to conserve water, which has helped it withstand drought years.

As climate models show more of Oregon’s precipitation will fall as rain instead of snow in the coming decades, he said the basin must collectively consider new ideas to make the best use of water resources in the future.

“That is our responsibility, as users,” Borman said. “As soon as it rains, people forget what it was like (before). That is one of the things we hope to not let happen.”