I live in a long narrow mountain valley, climate and soil conditions make it one of the premiere alfalfa growing regions, but it's all irrigated, pivots and wheel lines. The standard of most farmers here is three cuttings, and enough of a fourth stand to make decent winter pasturage. But last year the California Water Resources Board told them to shut down pumping in mid August because the aquifer was dropping the lowest since monitoring began....basically they would have lost 1/3 of their gross income. But...hay prices shot up, about doubling, so there wasn't a lot of push back, but it's going to happen again this year. I kind of went roundabout with this, but the bottom line is, govt controls the aquifers, done deal.
