IFTA California here we come...

 

Yup, July 16-18, 2024 IFTA Summer Tour California's Central Valley. Sacramento to Fresno. I got to admit, I went mostly for a change of scenery, as I felt I really needed it. Specially to escape the humidity here in Massachusetts. Fortunately, the week I -- and about 60 +/- other Tour participants, including a pair from as far away as Kenya (Africa) where they grow Mangoes -- was substantially cooler (less hot?) than it had been out there. We "enjoyed" full sun and temperatures mostly in the mid-upper 90's. It did get hotter (100?) though as we went south from Sacramento to Fresno.

OK, lacking notes, here is what I remember and a few take-home messages. All the pictures are mine, but I am going to draw too from IFTA's handout and our good industry publications -- Good Fruit, American Fruit Grower, and Fruit Growers News -- in attendance.

DAY 1 - SACRAMENTO RIVER DELTA

A morning stop at UC-Davis for an autonomous robot demonstration. Frankly, I was not terribly impressed, but it was interesting to find out these 'bots' are being used by California strawberry growers during harvest to save trips previously made by the pickers to unload their harvest. So they could concentrate on just picking. Sounds like a win for labor efficiency?

Autonomous 'bot' at UC-Davis. Meh...

Afterwards, Rivermaid Trading Company on the Sacramento River Delta. California's number one pear producer. Pears looked pretty good but what do I know about pears? Pleasant guest surprise was UC's retired advisor Dr. Rachel Elkins who came down from Lake County. Rachel and I are friends from the NC-140 Regional Rootstock Research Project. It was good to see her and I had no idea how great she spoke to growers on almost any pear subject, including here some of her early work on IPM in pears. Nice.

Nice looking pear orchard at Rivermaid, Red Anjou? Nope, but a look-alike?

Great Extension talk on pear IPM, after lunch I grabbed this selfie with friend Rachel!

Lodi Farming, Inc. where I saw some apples, a new early variety being introduced by Zaiger that was going to be harvested within the week. It was OK. But, Jeff Colombini (2013 Good Fruit Grower of the Year), President was kind of high on olives being grown in a somewhat hi-density fashion, to be harvested and quickly pressed into EVOO. Low labor needs (mechanical harvest) and well adapted to dry conditions. Nothing for me to take-home here, although he did note much of the EVOO sold in this country is not 'extra-virgin' being adulterated with inferior olive oil? But I am not a big olive oil aficiando either, we buy Costco (Kirkland Signature) EVOO. Good enough for me.

In an apple orchard at Lodi Farming! Yea!

But President Jeff really likes the future of olives for EVOO which we got an education on!

DAY 2 - LODI

After an overnight in Lodi, and this got a little confusing but two businesses that may have been related or not? I found a rather stark difference between the two though in terms of growing philosophy. Chinchiolo Stemilt California vs. Prima Frutta. I guess they are not the same, maybe they are just close to each other? Both the focus was on cherries. One, Chinchiolo, more a traditional grower of steep-leader cherries, albeit younger plantings and somewhat hi-density. Rootstock details escape me, Krymsk? Not fans of Gisela. Very nice looking blocks of cherries IMHO. A bit of heated discussion on early training, it was kind of amusing. The other (Prima Frutta?) was doing a lot more with planar training and pruning on 'trellis' but I found it under-whelming, seems to me they were trying to copy what we saw cherry growers doing in Washington on previous IFTA tours. Labor and expense better yield better quality and returns? I dunno. Did I mention this Coral Champagne cherry is their hot new early cherry? I think? All cherries were harvested already BTW. I hope I did not get these two operations mixed up?

Nice looking cherrry orchard (sans cherries) at Chinchiolo-Stemilt

Somewhat heated -- but tame by old IDFTA standards! -- discussion on young cherry tree training and pruning

Prima Frutta cherry orchard. Read the text to see what I think? But who am I to tell anyone how to grow cherries in California?

After what was arguably one of the best lunches ever on an IFTA tour, Zaiger Genetics. Yup, that Zaiger, birthplace of bac-spot susceptible peaches and nectarines which I say "just don't do it" here in the humid east. Although I wish we could, they of course are pretty famous for peach/netarine/plum/apricot/interspecific hybrid varieties with exceptional sweetness. We just can't grow them here in MA! Bac spot! OK, we had a walking tour of their breeding/testing orchard and were treated to a tasting. To me, Zaiger looked a bit "tired" but I also think they have been doing this for a long time and know what they are doing. Just not spending a lot of money to do it, which is OK. More hype here about those 'cherry' plums! Gotta admit, pretty good off the tree.

A two Manhattan lunch?

Leith(?) Zaiger, Floyd's daugher introduced us to Ziager Genetics

Field variety selections grown in pots at Zaiger (many) and one of those cherry plums

Some pretty tasty stone fruits (and one apple) at Zaiger

Off to Fresno for Day 3 (tomorrow), but I have to mention the excellent hospitality we were treated with at Sun Valley Packing House upon arrival to the Fresno area, BBQ steaks, beer, wine, etc. all in a nicely decorated on-site venue. A converted packing house? Good times, good people. No pictures though :-(

DAY 3 - FRESNO

UC Kearney Ag Research & Extension Center, famous for their work -- specifically Kevin Day and Ted Dejong of UC -- on higher density peach training systems, such as the perpendicular-V (which has now lost favor) and the Controller series of peach/nectarine rootstocks. I remember when I was at Michigan State University Extension Bill Shane invited Kevin to the Southwest Michigan Research & Extension Center for a perpendicular-V peach pruning demo way back in 1999, Kevin made quite an impression on me. It was good to see him, and he showed us the 'Peach and Nectarine Orchard of the Future' on various rootsrtocks, particularly the Controller series out of UC Davis. Kevin has a no BS way of explaining things, my take-away was quad-V on one of the Controller rootstocks -- 6?, 7?, 9?, some confusion there -- provides advantages (shorter and somewhat more compact) peach trees for California (and beyond?) growers compared to the Nemagard standard peach rootstock they use out there.

Retired UC Extension advisor Kevin Day in the 'peach and nectarine orchard of the future'

HMC Farms -- a bit of a blur, it was getting hot. Long time standing and listening in a nicely trellised (and tall!) plum orchard, and then seeing some netting over nectarines, largely there to keep the skin of nectarines from blemishing with water. I much prefer to grow peaches here as they don't have that problem that nectarines have! Good luck growing a clean nectarine around here! Note I am providing website links here to all our orchard hosts if you want more information, you are not going to get if from me!

The 2-D 'trellised' plum orchard at HMC Farms, set up for platform pruning and harvest. Thank you random IFTA participant for 'letting' me take your picture!

I had to sneak out of the plums to see what I thought was a nice peach orchard at HMC Farms

Netting over this nectarine block to keep the fruit finish clean? Was kind of a test?

Kingsburg Orchards -- This guy was pretty entertaining in their nectarine orchard (second pic) which was pretty impressive a week away from harvest. I need to note here the family nature of many of these farms/orchard, not so much corporate but pretty big, multi-generation families. A bit different(?) than Washington apple orchards which are increasingly corporate (non-family) owned?

"This guy"at Kingsburg Orchards in a nice nectarine block (with no blemishes)

Warmerdam Orchards -- OK, now it was getting hot, particularly when standing in an older cherry orchard that was a bit wet (and humid) from irrigation and no breeze. There was some interesting things going on here -- like netting pulled over the cherry trees in the fall to help with chill hours and acclimation so as to get good bloom in the spring -- but I was increasingly disengaged. For obvious reasons?, chill hours, big old cherry trees, not a particular interest of mine.

How did I miss getting a pic of the "netting" they were using over these cherry trees at Warmerdam Orchards, but you can see some of the wires. I thought it got kind of rambling here but I was kind of hot and tired of looking at cherries (with no cherries on them) :-)

Family Tree Farms Research Center -- "The Most Flavorful Fruit in the World." OK, maybe. An interesting visit for sure to end the tour. Had to take in a bit of religion from David Jackson (not pictured below) who was quite entertaining and I could use a little religion from time to time. "Nothing grows well if your shadow is not on the soil" he said, how true. Um, if I had not known previously, I would have said this was Zaiger Genetics. Another tasting here of "the most flavorful fruit in the world," I would not argue, although some of the peaches and nectarines were cloyingly sweet. This showroom is where they bring potential customers in from across the world to sample "the most flavorful fruit in the world." A small group of potential buyers was there from Korea (South presumably) sampling "the most flavorful fruit in the world." Getting the message? They are good at it...

A well orchestrated tasting of the "most flavorful fruit in the world?"

I want to close by saying it was hard getting home for a lot of people on Thursday night/Friday because of the airline data system meltdown. I was on Southwest so was largely unaffected (just a little delayed) but I met up with my friends from Summit Tree Sales in the Fresno airport who had been trying to get a flight out for over 12 hours. I felt pretty bad for them, but it was some good company.

Thanks Dawn and Matt for keeping me company during my rather (comparatively) short stay at the Fresno airport while they were enduring a lengthy ordeal (during the Delta Airlines meltdown) trying to get home!

One more thing, I thought the folks at Ag Association Management -- Shane, Sheri, and Bethany -- our IFTA management company did a great job of accomadating various people's needs and running things smoothly (including hotel check-ins) over the three Tour days. Bethany ran the IFTA Facebook show, great job there. And of course thanks to Greg Lang (IFTA Education Director) for lining up and introducing us to our hosts at the eleven orchards we visited. 

©Jon Clements 2024