Sunflower growers say people seeking photos for social media are damaging their crops

DIXON, Calif. — Sunflowers are a multimillion dollar crop in Solano County, California. And when the sunflowers are blooming, like they're about to, the acres of yellow fields make beautiful photographs.

But there's a downside. So many people are coming out to take pictures of the fields in bloom they're destroying the beautiful flowers.

The sunflower blooming season lasts only a couple of weeks, which is one reason people can't resist wading into the sea of yellow to take pictures.

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Growers like Craig Gnos don't mind people taking sunflower selfies, but say trespassing and interrupting farming operations is a huge problem.

"We'll have 50 or 60 people here at one time and they think it's OK to go walk through the fields, and it's not," Gnos told KTXL.

Tourists driving down narrow roads and blocking farm equipment is bad enough, but flowers are being damaged or taken, and there's the liability risk for growers.

"There's a lot of equipment, there are lots of holes, drains, ditches and there's plenty of places to trip, fall and get hurt and we just don't need that extra exposure of injuries," said Gnos.

Gnos was in the process of posting no trespassing signs when some people walked into his field to take pictures, ignoring him and the signs.

Sheriff's Deputy Culley Pratt happened by and gave them a warning.

"Some of these people are accessing these fields in four-wheel drive trucks, rolling over sunflowers and going out there and destroying stuff in order to get a picture. You just cannot be doing that," Pratt said.

A person in one group said she was from San Francisco and was sightseeing with visitors. They seemed to know they were trespassing but said they were being careful and wouldn't there long.

But Culley has a cautionary tale of one sunflower tourist who "attempted to take a perfect selfie, twisted an ankle and in turn sued and cost this property owner money, and that's just ridiculous."

CNN/KTXL