Chapter 94: Walnut Farm (2)
TL: Hanguk
Three days later, I arrived once again at the walnut farm on the outskirts of Brentwood. The farm, which had felt so heavy last time, seemed to have regained a bit of life. More than anything, the faces of the people there looked a little more at ease.
Frederick waved first, and beside him, Brandon was waiting with his hat pulled low.
"Brian, you made it right on time."
"Let's take a look around first."
We walked starting from the south-facing slope, which had been the worst. As I'd instructed last time, partial shade cloth had been hung over the tops of the fruit so the sunlight filtered through softly. Beneath the canopy, micro-irrigation nozzles were embedded at regular intervals, their angles tilted slightly upward so the spray brushed the underside of the leaves.
"Readjusted the nozzle angles last night."
Brandon explained first.
"Good. What about the water temperature check?"
"Put a shade cover over the reservoir, and I only fill it in the morning so the water cools before we use it."
"Nice work."
I pulled out an infrared thermometer and measured the temperatures inside the canopy and on the fruit surface. Last time, the fruit surface had been a full 6 to 8 degrees hotter than the inside of the canopy; today the difference was down to 2 or 3 degrees. I hung a sensor on the lower part of the canopy and read the internal humidity at 62%.
"It's still hard to call it comfortable, but it feels a lot better, doesn't it?"
Frederick let out a slow breath and nodded.
"This is what happens when I stop paying attention. I figured the hands would teach Brandon what he needed to know on their own... but it turns out, even though I'd explained to them why I'd prepared things a certain way for different temperatures, they didn't remember any of it. So they had nothing to pass on to Brandon."
Brandon turned his face away, looking embarrassed. The workers had their share of the blame, but he knew the bulk of it was his own.
"... I can see that. From the workers' side, they were just following orders, so they wouldn't have bothered to remember the reasoning."
"It's Brandon's first time going through something like this, so of course it's thrown him."
"Right. He'll figure it out. We learn by making mistakes."
Brandon had probably been feeling pressured, too. After all, his younger sister Chloe had just taken on a 70-acre farm with over a million dollars in loans. He must have wanted to prove something himself, and now this had happened, which only made it worse.
"That's what I'm hoping he does, but, well... in all my years, I've learned a few things, and one of them is that some people take lessons from failure and others walk away with nothing. Want to guess how many people started farming around the same time I did?"
"Hmm... I'm not sure?"
"Counting me, there were four of us who started cherry farms in Brentwood. Like you and Chloe and your friends, I had mine, too. One of them had farmed cherries before, and two started with government loans and support. Out of all four, only two of us are still farming."
"Ah..."
"Me and one other made it. The other two sold their farms and left. We were all right here in Brentwood, hit by the same heatwaves and the same pest outbreaks at the same time, but the difference came afterwards. The other guy and I prepared for the next crisis; the others didn't give it a thought. I'm hoping Brandon doesn't end up like the ones who sold and walked away, but it's not always up to me."
He was saying all this with Brandon right next to him, which had to mean he didn't want his son to miss the lesson buried in this whole mess.
"So that's why you were trying to sell the farm."
"That's right. In a way, yes. I thought Brandon might be better off putting his assets into financial products and earning a salary at some company. Same for Chloe. But Chloe's turned into a farmer you can really count on now. I mean, honestly... did you go see the pear orchard she put together?"
"Of course."
Frederick shrugged with a proud smile.
"I had no idea my daughter could be that diligent and that good at the work. The tomato fields are completely transformed, with pear saplings filling all 70 acres, and seeing it really moved me. Ah, listen to me ramble. I think I get talkative as I get older."
"Haha, not at all."
He waved a hand and started walking toward the east block. We talked about this and that along the way, and it took roughly twenty minutes to get there. Looking at the trees here, perhaps because the area got less wind protection, the leaf edges were still drying out, and lesions had spread like dots across the tips of the fruit. Some of the fruit at the branch ends were already beyond saving.
I grabbed a handful of soil and crumbled it between my fingers. The particles broke apart easily and scattered like powder.
"This block shows signs that the water isn't soaking in. The soil organic matter is too low, so it can't hold up."
Brandon asked cautiously.
"I thought it was okay at this level... can we save it?"
"Save what we can, and give up on what we have to give up, fast."
I grabbed a wrench and a spanner from the toolbox by the tractor and went over to the micro-irrigation line. I lowered the nozzle position by two notches and fine-tuned the angle again, so the spray would skim the underside of the leaves and mist lightly over the fruit. If the droplets were too large, they'd trap radiant heat, so atomization mattered.
"All right, here you run it at 10:15 AM and 3:10 PM, twenty minutes each. Any longer and the roots end up soaking up hot water."
"Got it."
Brandon immediately wrote it down.
"Next, we need to prepare a foliar spray. Foliar spray means applying the nutrients a plant needs directly onto the leaf surface for absorption. If you dilute calcium sulfate (CaSO₄) and magnesium sulfate (MgSO₄) to a low concentration and spray it on the leaves, it slows the transpiration rate of the leaf tissue and helps the plant cool itself. More importantly, calcium strengthens the cell walls of the fruit skin, which builds resistance to heat and disease stress."
He didn't seem to fully grasp the chemistry behind it, but Brandon's hand moved quickly across his notebook again.
"Spray the whole block before sundown today, at the concentration I've written down. Tomorrow morning, do the east block; the day after, the north block."
"I can hook the sprayer up to the tractor, right?"
"Yes. Do it during a low-wind window. Spray angle ten degrees above horizontal."
Pest control was best done at dawn. We pulled out the pheromone traps stacked in the garage and installed them at regular intervals at tree-canopy height. The priority was knocking down the egg-laying population; Brandon already understood that pesticide couldn't reach the larvae once they'd burrowed in.
"Spraying starts at five tomorrow morning. Finish before sunrise. For the chemicals, use only the first-round agents from the list. The second round needs to switch to alternate spraying."
"You know what alternate spraying is?"
When Frederick asked, Brandon hesitated. Frederick looked a little exasperated but explained slowly.
"It's spraying different types of pesticide in rotation. If you keep using the same insecticide, only the individuals with genetic resistance to that chemical survive and breed."
"Ah... I understand."
While Brandon nodded and went off to give instructions to the workers, Frederick spoke.
"Looks like we're going to take a serious loss on the walnut crop this year. That's farming, though. Growing multiple varieties is exactly how you prepare for situations like this."
For corporate farms, growing a single variety on a massive scale was common, but most family-run farms didn't operate that way. It was a matter of risk management, hedging against unexpected disasters like this one.
"Humans have always grown by overcoming crises like this. Try to look at it positively. You've given Brandon the kind of experience he needs to grow."
"That's what I'm telling myself. And, you know, in that vein..."
Frederick looked at me with something like expectation. I could already guess what he was about to ask.
"You want me to help with the walnut farm too?"
"When you helped with the cherries, some of what you told me I'd heard before, but there were methods I'd never come across at all. There must be things like that for walnut farming, too, no?"
I nodded.
"There are some."
"Yeah?"
His eyes brightened.
"As you'd expect, it would take a significant investment, and a lot of things would have to change. And here's the key point: with cherries, I can make wine to maximize the return, but with walnuts, that kind of leverage is much harder to find."
"Hmm... that's true. That'd be the weakness of the walnut as a crop."
"Right. Even if we tried something like walnut oil..."
"Walnut oil?"
"Yes. The owner would have to handle the branding personally, and that's a heavy lift. So I could help, but because of the inherent limits of walnut farming, my help might not produce the kind of dramatic turnaround it could elsewhere."
"Hmm... all right, I understand."
If it were almonds, things might be different, but walnuts still had a long road ahead. Even if I helped improve their margins, taking 30% of those gains as my share would barely move the needle, so I drew the line.
Frederick seemed to understand what I'd left unsaid and nodded with a set expression.
"I'll need to think this through carefully."
"Yes."
He had gone from simply wanting to hand the farm down to his son to weighing its entire future, and that was going to take a lot of thought.
The Annual Grower Meeting hosted by the Sonoma County Winegrowers was much the same again this year. The conference hall was unusually crowded, with vineyard owners from Russian River Valley, Sonoma Coast, Green Valley, and elsewhere lined up in rows.
On the screen, the phrase [Sustainability in Practice, The Future of Sonoma Pinot Noir] was displayed, and the agenda included items like vineyard sustainability, varietal diversity, recontracting, and water-shortage measures.
Elias Grendel was standing at the back of the hall, at a table laid out with coffee and pastries. He had come to feel that meetings like this should be led by younger growers, not an old man like himself.
Just then, a low, weighty voice came from behind.
"Mr. Grendel!"
He turned slowly and found Mark Harrington in a grey suit and burgundy tie, his polished smile in place. As always, the impression he gave was one of dignity and ease.
"Mark, you made it too."
"Can't miss an event like this. Especially since the film Sideways, interest in Pinot Noir has exploded, hasn't it? And profits along with it. No one would dare skip this year. Oh, and... I heard that the contract on your largest block is ending this year, sir."
Mark had already contacted Elias's farm about it several times, but he spoke as if it had only just come to mind. Elias allowed himself a wry smile.
"That's true."
"If the contract hasn't been finalized yet, would you consider selling that block's fruit to us? I'll see to it personally that we present it at the highest quality, so as not to put any blemish on your farm's reputation, sir."
"Hmm..."
"It's pained me that you stopped selling grapes to our winery at some point. Surely you're not still holding on to that old business? Oh, and have you heard the news about Daniel?"
"I'm sure the boy is doing fine."
At the dry reply, Mark nodded.
"I see. In any case, if the contract hasn't been signed..."
Before he could finish, Elias answered calmly.
"I'm sorry to say, but I've already finalized that block's contract."
"Ah... is that so?"
To the disappointed Mark, Elias replied with a faint smile at the corner of his mouth.
"I've decided to hand it over to a rather promising winery."
For an instant, Mark's expression faltered.
"And where, exactly...?"
"Have you heard of Redwood Winery?"
At the name Redwood, the displeasure on Mark's face was impossible to hide.
"I do. Redwood..."
*****
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