Chapter 138: Cause and Effect (2)
TL: Hanguk
"You remember that pistachio farm?"
Chloe caught my meaning, and her face scrunched up into a deep frown. At that, Warren, who had been watching from behind, stepped smoothly forward, lifted a branch to examine its underside, and muttered in a low voice.
"This isn't like magnesium deficiency in grape leaves... and it's not a calcium pattern either... what is this?"
I scraped lightly at the tip of a leaf with my fingernail and said,
"It's salt stress. Sodium and carbonate damage, to be precise."
"And what's the story with that farm?"
"The thing is, a few months back, a pistachio farm not far from here got caught pumping way too much water. At the time, the owner of that pistachio farm tried to pin the blame on Chloe, claiming the falling groundwater level was because of this pear farm. He got caught doing it."
"My word... groundwater problems are a real headache. You managed to catch it through some stroke of luck, then?"
"We really did get lucky. Anyway, the problem back then was groundwater backflow, and because of it the surrounding farms said they were going to file suit. But it didn't look like there was much damage this far out, so Chloe was planning to stay out of the lawsuit. But then..."
"The damage is plain to see."
"It looks like she'll have to join the suit after all."
"We can deal with the lawsuit, but first off, there's a way to save these trees, isn't there?"
Chloe was more worried about the pear farm than about collecting some compensation. It was like the heart of a parent whose child comes home beaten up somewhere: the lawsuit could come later, and all they hoped for first was that nothing was seriously hurt.
"Of course there is. It'll take some work, but..."
Either way, knowing there was a solution, however difficult, gave Chloe at least a measure of relief.
I scooped up a little soil and spread it across my palm. On the surface it looked fine, but compared to a few months ago the color had darkened slightly, and it was damp like mud. On top of that, there was a slickness to it...
I rubbed my hands together, but showed her the soil that still clung to my palm as I said,
"See? Clean soil falls right off your hand, but soil with rising salt content gets a little slick and sticks to your skin. When the salt concentration climbs, this is the first sign you get."
"Haah... you told me before, remember? That pear trees are more sensitive than grapes, so we have to get them through the flower bud differentiation period, like the one we're in now. You said if they get stressed at this timing, next year's fruit set is ruined. At this level, that's a big problem, isn't it?"
"Normally, with good management, the fruit set climbs to 70 percent. But if they're stressed like this and it slips past unnoticed, you'd be looking at 0 to 30 percent."
I patted the shoulder of a now teary-eyed Chloe.
"I told you, there's a way. Let's head inside first. I'll explain there."
As I led Chloe into the office, Warren followed behind, muttering.
"Pears are tighter than grapes, then. With grapes, at least there's room to recover up until flowering. But with pears, one slight slip in timing and next year's yield gets cut in half."
"Yes, exactly. That's why we have to start emergency treatment right away."
I sat Chloe and Warren down on the sofa in the office. Then I dragged over the whiteboard standing against the wall and picked up a marker.
"So, the root cause behind all of this is salinity, but before we get to that, the first priority is bringing the irrigation water's pH to 6.0 to 6.5. You know how to adjust the pH, right?"
"Yeah, I know how."
"Good. After that, we install bypass filtering (a midline filter) on the irrigation water so no more muddy water or components like iron and manganese get mixed in. If we confirm that muddy water is getting into the line, we add a disc filter and even a sand filter to the main line to block clay particles and iron sludge for good."
"Got it, that too."
Since I was writing it all on the whiteboard, Chloe didn't need to take notes and just listened intently.
"Good. Once we've done all that, the basics are covered. From here, we open every irrigation line and run water for at least 40 minutes to push the salts out."
"Huh? Over-irrigation has the problem of water sprouts going wild, but we're doing it anyway because right now saving the trees comes before the water sprouts, right?"
"Right, this is the exception. Like you said, saving the pear trees comes first. If we don't wash the salts down into the lower layers, the flower buds themselves will die."
I roughly sketched the pear farm with the marker, then pointed a finger at the area where the problem had appeared.
"Are there any other areas besides here where this is happening too?"
"Not yet."
"Okay, that's a relief, but there'll be areas where the salt has only just started rising. Once the flushing is done, switch to minimal irrigation for three days. Keep the soil moisture at 40 to 45 percent. Since we've washed the salts out, we cut back on watering to keep the branches from sprouting like crazy."
"Haah, got it."
Seeing Chloe nod, I gave a faint smile and continued my explanation.
"Good. We need to correct the nutrient imbalance, so we'll side-dress with iron chelate (Fe-EDDHA) and zinc chelate (Zn-EDTA) to restore the leaf color and get the flower bud tissue back to normal. Once we do that, the leaf chlorosis will recover fast. After that, to dry out as much moisture as we can, we remove the mulching (bark, straw, fallen leaves, non-woven fabric, and so on) that was laid down to retain soil moisture and suppress weeds. You know why, right?"
Chloe answered quickly, like an obedient student.
"To stop new branches from growing."
"Exactly."
"And once everything's recovered, let's inspect the groundwater well again. Even if it costs a bit more, we readjust the well depth and reinstall the screen so this doesn't happen again."
"It's nothing but money going out."
"That's just how farming is."
Feeling sorry for Chloe, I rubbed her shoulder. Just then, Warren, who had been staring blankly at the whiteboard, spoke up.
"Say, have you ever thought about going into academia? Becoming a professor?"
"Me?"
The sudden suggestion took me by surprise.
"That's never going to happen."
"Why not give it some thought? To think a solution this systematic could just pour out of you like that... this isn't the kind of answer you can come up with without a deep understanding of the pear as a crop and real knowledge of soil and groundwater..."
"I've always been very interested in pears. And this is a Niitaka pear, so it's a bit different from American pears. That's why I studied it separately."
"...... Remarkable."
Then Warren turned to a glum Chloe and said,
"Don't worry. If you're planning to go ahead with the suit, I'll recommend a suitable lawyer for you."
"Thank you, but I'll pass. My family has a lawyer we know, too."
True, the Harris family's wealth was as faint as a firefly before the moonlight when set against Warren's, but in the Brentwood cherry business they were still a family of some clout. They'd been farming for decades, so it was only natural they'd know a lawyer who specialized in this field.
"Haha, is that so? Still, the lawyer I know is probably the better one."
"Oh? Better how, exactly?"
Warren let out a soft laugh and said briefly,
"We call him The Rainmaker."
"The man who makes rain?"
"When it comes to water resource issues around here, Napa Valley included, he's the top expert there is."
At the sight of Chloe's wide, bright-eyed look, Warren made a call right then and there.
"Hey there, how've you been? Haha, yes, yes... it's nothing major, I just wanted to ask you to take on a job. Right, I'd like you to head to an address I'll give you and take on one case. Sure, let's catch up soon."
After hanging up, Warren gave Chloe a wink and said,
"Before long, a fellow who looks like a hamburger will come find you. Talk things over with him properly and he'll get you a good result."
"Okay..."
With the situation seemingly settled, I got up from my seat. For Chloe to put her staff to work, it was better if Warren and I weren't around. Once we were gone, she'd give Liam his instructions and start the recovery quickly.
"We'll get going."
"All right. Thanks for everything."
"Don't mention it."
I gave her arm a pat and then headed for the car at the farm's entrance. As we left the farm behind, I asked,
"This Rainmaker fellow, I take it he's good at what he does?"
"Of course. It's less of an issue on the Napa side, but over in Sonoma the disputes over groundwater are enormous. He's a little pricey, but the side he takes on always comes out ahead."
"Oh, so he wins all the lawsuits for them, I guess?"
"Hm? What are you talking about? You don't want it going to a lawsuit."
He looked at me as if to ask what on earth I was on about, then chuckled.
"There it is. You carry yourself like a professor who's learned all there is to learn, but you've still got things to learn. That's not a bad thing."
What exactly was so 'not bad' about it, I had no idea... He laughed to himself and went on.
"I don't know how it is in Korea, but here in the States, once it goes to trial, there's no telling who'll win. It drags on for a long time, too, and it's hard for either side to walk away satisfied. So a capable lawyer doesn't win by taking it all the way to trial. He ends the situation on the most favorable terms for his client before it ever gets there."
"Ah... that makes sense."
"In that respect, there are three lawyers counted among the most famous in Napa Valley, and one of them is the Rainmaker. When a drought hits, or the state government tightens its regulations, he digs through old water rights ledgers and tangled environmental laws to find a legal right to bring water to our fields. And in water disputes like this one, he has an uncanny way of striking at the other side's weak points and steering them toward a settlement."
By this point, I couldn't help but ask.
"So what about the other two? They've got nicknames as well, I'd imagine?"
"Haha, that's right. One is The Dirt Lawyer. It means the lawyer with all the dirt with him, and he's the one who guides complicated vineyard boundary lines in his client's favor. When it comes to the history of the farms throughout Napa and Sonoma, nobody knows it better than he does. And he's an expert in all sorts of soil contamination, too."
"Oho..."
"And the other fellow's nickname is The Gatekeeper. This one's a bit simpler. He has the finest ability there is when it comes to lifting development restrictions."
To be honest, I'd knocked around Napa Valley for a few years, but I'd never once heard any of the things Warren was telling me. It was a little absurd, and at the same time fascinating.
"That's amazing. I've never heard anything like that..."
"It's no surprise you haven't heard of them. These are men who mostly work for wineries that pull in tens of millions of dollars a year, after all."
I was certainly struck by how wide the world was and how much there was left to learn, when Warren asked again,
"By the way, where are we headed right now?"
"Ah, there's a rice farm a little under an hour from here. It's run by a friend of mine. He inherited it from his late father and runs it now."
"How big is it?"
"About 80 acres."
"Eighty acres for rice isn't large, then. He'd have barely scraped by."
"He had a hard time of it. So we decided to do something like a partnership and set up a distillery. It's doing incredibly well now."
"You're saying he sells liquor made from rice?"
"Yes. Two kinds, actually. One's a Korean-style vodka, and the other is fruit soju."
Warren tilted his head.
"I think I get the general idea of a Korean-style vodka, but what's fruit soju?"
"Haha... this is hard for me to explain. You'll have to go and taste it for yourself."
"......"
Curious how he'd react once he tasted the fruit soju, I drove on. After driving just under an hour, we reached the vast farmland of the Sacramento plains, where the rice, ripe for harvest, painted the whole area a magnificent golden yellow.
And in front of an imposing building that stood tall at one corner of the farm, several trucks were parked, hauling goods.
"What's this? An awful lot of product going out, isn't there?"
"Yes."
Brimming with anticipation, Warren followed me into the Golden Grain Soju House. The smell of nuruk drifting from the very entrance only made his smile widen.
"Jacob!"
At my shout, Jacob, who was wearing something like a white protective suit, raised a hand and came striding over quickly.
"You made it? Is this the...?"
"That's right. This is Mr. Warren Winiarski."
Moved, Jacob seized Warren's hand.
"I'm Jacob. I've long admired you."
"Quite something for a young man. Running a distillery like this and showing real, substantial results, no less. You're shipping product out even now, I see?"
"Today just happens to be a pickup day. This way, please."
Jacob led us to an office inside the distillery, sat us down on the sofa, and, without anyone asking, brought out two bottles of liquor.
"Is this what you make...?"
"That's right."
Jacob looked at Warren with eyes full of anticipation. His face was half hope, half worry over what verdict Warren would deliver.
*****
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