I think we're good.
OK.
Hi, friends. This is John.
Welcome to the Regenerative
Agriculture podcast,
where we have all kinds of
conversations related to
regenerating soil health,
regenerating
the quality of food and
ultimately regenerating public
health, which,
as it turns out, is kind of
having its moment in the sun
with
what is happening politically
here in North America.
But it is really coming to
more greater global
consciousness.
More people are aware of the
impact that
the quality of the food they
have that they are consuming is
having on their own health
and the impact that it is having
on ecosystems.
So
lots of fun conversations to be
had in this direction.
And in this discussion, I'm
joined by Sam Goodwin in this
episode.
And I've been looking forward to
having the conversation with Sam
because we live in a moment
where
we are we are at the moment we
are the lowest
farm income relative to a
relative price index, we're at
the lowest farm income that
we've been at in 100 years.
Many farms are negative income,
23 and 24 were very challenging,
25 is even more challenging.
And in that very challenging
macroeconomic context,
how do we think about moving
forward with regenerative
agriculture in that particular
environment? So,
Sam, I want to say thank you for
being here. Thank you for being
willing to share your story.
I've really been looking forward
to this discussion.
Tell us a bit about your
operating context, the
environment that you're
operating in, the scope of your
operation.
Yeah.
Thanks, John, for inviting me.
I've been looking forward to the
conversation as well.
We're a small tree fruit farming
operation in north central
Washington.
We farm apples, pears and
cherries predominantly.
We do a little bit of stone
fruit too, but nothing really to
speak of.
Our
focus has been to
really get good at growing
organic fruit.
And that's really been the
journey we've been on.
We were first certified organic
in the early 2000s.
I'm a second generation farmer,
so started with my father, grew
up on the farm
in the 60s is when we originally
started farming.
And so I've been doing it a long
time.
I've been involved in the
industry,
not only with my own personal
farm, but I've worked in a
packing shed and learned about
packing as well as in a sales
desk, learning about selling our
product.
So I've kind of had the chance
to work from tip to tail in the
industry.
Our farm is about 300 acres.
It's small by tree fruit
standards,
and it's in a world that's
growing almost exponentially.
It seems like the big farms are
getting much larger and the
small farms are going away.
So we find ourselves in a world
where the
family farm and family farmer is
under this constant economic
pressure to try to stay one step
ahead.
So in that search for
efficiency,
we started, we're in our second
year of, I guess, really trying
to understand and learn and
engage with regenerative farming
and
take our organic farm to the
next level is kind of the way I
like to think about it in terms
of
switching to incorporate
regenerative practices as well.
I think that
it's fascinating.
We've learned a tremendous
amount in a really short amount
of time with the help of
consultants from AEA.
And so it's really
really exciting to see SAP
analysis and see some of the
tools and see how
we're starting to apply them and
ultimately how it's
transitioning into results on
the farm.
So we're just coming out of a
cherry season where we're year
two of cherries.
And
I saw results that quite
frankly, were a little bit
surprising to me from my
20 plus years experience.
OK, now now you've caught me.
I was about to ask you to go
back and I want to I want to
learn more about your history
and how your farm has evolved
over the last 20 or 30 years.
But
now now that we're now we're
going to save that question.
Tell us about the cherries.
So this season's this season's
cherries,
you know, we we
just committed and kind of with
blind faith jumped into to
working with Jim and getting our
SAP analysis and following the
program.
And
not really knowing what to
expect, but we, we just wanted
to,
I really believe in measuring
and data. And so seeing the
results at the, at the SAP level
in the blocks,
um,
what, what we've experienced is
the
first year we saw results, but
it was a really short crop.
So everyone expects to have big
high quality when you don't have
any volume.
This year was, that was not the
case this year.
We had
a full crop.
So we've averaged across our 60
acres of cherries.
We've averaged.
A little over 10 tons to the
acre of production volume
and we've been
it's big.
It's good. It's a great
target for us
and we're we're averaging
75 % of the fruit is nine and a
half row and larger, which is
most
cherries you see in a grocery
store are gonna be 10, 10 and a
half row.
So it's
a full size larger with that
crop load.
The most impressive thing about
it is we've seen our bricks of
sugar in the cherries
stay in that 19, 20, 21 brick
range, which is fabulous for a
red cherry.
And our pressures have been in
the 300s for the most part.
I was just going to ask about
firmness. Yeah.
So the firmness has been has
been outstanding.
So as
a result of that, we've been
able to
let our fruit hang a day or two
longer
because it's so firm.
So then you get bigger, sweeter,
and
ultimately you get that higher
yield.
For for those of our listeners
who aren't familiar with the
Firm Tech and the Firmness
Index,
can you give us a bit of
of context for what 300 means on
a relative scale?
Yeah.
So so
most organizations are saying
you got to be, you know,
280 or above if you want to
export your cherries offshore
somewhere, which is where the
typically the premier markets
are.
But
but we
we saw
I'll talk specifically about our
shell and cherries, which is oh,
it's an early cherry we harvest
in June, mid -June.
And
It's a cherry that we always
struggle for size, sugar, and
firmness.
And this year when we finished
harvest, our final picking,
we were still at like 311 on
the scale. and
our sugars were 21%.
So it was an unbelievable eating
experience.
And
ultimately it does nothing but
thrill the consumer when they
can get something that's big and
crunchy and tastes that good.
And so as a result,
we saw really high packouts in
the upper eighties.
So I
think that
that's really was a was a really
nice or a pleasant surprise.
And I really attribute the only
thing that's different this year
than
in the past is is trying to to
really honor the regenerative
SAP analysis and trying
to keep things in balance.
So I want to understand the the
context of the the 10 tons per
acre a little bit, because that
number of what a what an optimal
target
might be can can vary widely
based on tree spacing and tree
size and so forth.
So
What would have been a
historical expectation for these
blocks?
Well,
normally with
our
historical average with Chelan
Cherries, as an example,
is probably six or seven
tons to the acre on a good year.
Not uncommon to see five.
Wow.
So a significant improvement
because of the volume and the
size and
then having the quality
meant that in a year when the
market was, our cherry market
this season, was under pressure.
A
lot of people had to stop
picking.
Markets were saturated.
They couldn't move the fruit.
But by having
exceptional quality and size,
we were fortunate enough to be
able to continue to harvest and
deliver the fruit.
crop
to the consumer, which is really
what it's all about.
Yeah, that reminds me of what
you're saying.
In essence,
the comment that I've heard from
several cherry growers, and I
think
Mike Omeg stated it quite
succinctly
in one conversation where he
said that
The the premium for
regeneratively grown fruit that
is higher quality in the case of
cherries doesn't necessarily
mean that you have a price
premium. Sometimes it means you
have a customer.
Exactly.
And that was exactly the case
and experience this year.
Yeah.
Yeah. So
you've you've been organic for
quite some time.
If you made the organic
transition in the early 2000s,
that's now almost a 25 year
period. What has how
has your agronomic management
and
How has your operation grown and
evolved over that last 25 -year
period?
Yeah, so
because
of our size and our location in
north central Washington,
we never expected our farm to
become vertically integrated.
There's not a lot of people.
We're a long ways from people.
Our valley is narrow and we
don't have the big open spaces
that a lot of the large
vertically integrated farms
enjoy in the southern part of
the state.
So we wanted to get really good
at something that we thought
they would want.
And so our, our ticket was
organic.
So we started learning and
converting to organic early on,
uh, relatively speaking to the,
to the industry
and, you know, took our learning
lumps early because there's,
there really weren't any books
or any recipes or any help
to, to,
to learn the organic techniques.
or the tricks of the trade.
So we've learned the hard way by
trial and error and, you
know, just continuing to be
innovative and looking for new
ways and better ways to do
things.
So we've seen our scale, you
know, the first year on
the farm that my father started,
you know, we started with,
I think it was like a 20 acre
block that was organic.
Now we're farming,
of the 300 acres, about
225 are organic and
my brother who I partner with
has another 300 plus acres
that's organic.
So we're pushing about, together
we push about 600 acres of
organic tree fruit,
mostly apples and pears.
We have a
small amount of organic cherries
left.
At one time, my whole 60 acres
were organic.
We've had to pull that backward
down to where we only have about
six or seven acres of organic
cherries left
because of the problem with
powdery mildew, which is a
really tough disease that we
face.
My hope is that as we get these
blocks
fully
integrated into a regenerative
practice and we have better,
stronger, healthier plants,
maybe we'll be able to convert
our cherries back to organic in
the future once we prove that
we can manage powdery mildew.
But that was really the disease
that pushed us out of
out of the organic cherry
business, sir, for the most
part.
Yeah, that is interesting.
That'll be an interesting
conversation. I know
there are several cherry growers
that are running trials right
now with pinion,
and I'd like to have a
conversation with you on that,
right,
that as well, because
what we've seen so far is that
early days we're still getting
experience with it but I think
that one is going to move the
needle for organic management of
mildew and various diseases so
yeah that's that's mildew is a
tough one and it's it's
especially hard for us because
we're so far north we're late
and what we found is that before
the
5th of July
we
can manage organically and, and
usually get an organic cherry
crop delivered without too much
problem.
When you get after the 5th of
July, it gets really difficult.
And we pick cherries, I think we
finished this year on August
17th.
Wow. So, so when you go that
late, it's a long time you're
exposed to weather and
opportunities for, for mildew.
Yeah.
Yeah. So in,
as you've transitioned from that
original 20 acre block, what
were.
What have been the cultural
management practices and what
have been the things that you've
learned from experience that I'm
asking for the benefit of other
people so they can learn from
your experience instead of from
their own?
Sure.
So what
we found is the
prescription for converting to
organic is, you know, you got to
farm it organically three years
before you convert on
paper to become an organic farm.
I mean, that's just the
legalistic rules of organic
farming. from the Department of
Agriculture.
What we found is that especially
with
large canopy orchards,
you really have to start about
two years before that working,
softening your conventional
program and kind of stepping
back
with a good IPM approach to
build predators and to get your
orchard ready to start the
organic transition.
What we found is that when we
just tried to go cold turkey
from one to the other,
there was usually a train wreck
in year two
of the conversion where
something
would spike out.
You know, thinking about pears
as an example,
the first year it's like there's
enough residual carryover from
the fertilizer and all the
practices you've been doing
conventionally.
that you don't really notice it.
But in year two, tree decline
starts and then the onslaught of
silla and mites and different
pests come in and it becomes
very difficult to manage.
So you end up losing a year or
two of production because the
pests get their share, right?
One way or another.
But by softening the program for
a couple of years before you
start the transition,
you kind of help give the good
bugs a chance to catch up before
you put them on the spot.
So.
I guess that's probably my
biggest
thing from a pest standpoint.
Were there any things that you
were doing specifically to try,
other than
softening the chemistries and
the frequency of applications,
were there any things that you
were doing to specifically try
to build the populations of
beneficial insects?
Well, we do beneficial insect
release as well as sterile
insect release to help control
problem pests,
which is, I think, a pretty
standard
practice now that a lot of
conventional farms are even
doing some of these practices.
I think that, I think that,
you know, the organic way is,
um,
finding its way into the
mainstream in the, in the Apple
industry, especially.
So there's companies out there
for hire that, that provide
these services on large scale
to, to many, to many big farms.
And do you think the pressure,
where's the pressure coming
from? to adopt these
practices in more mainstream
apple production?
Is it just as a result of market
pressures and demand?
I think it's, I think it's
85 % market pressure and demand.
Uh, there's a small group of us
who are still kind of altruistic
and we think, you know, if it's
good for the planet, it'll be
good for our farm.
And so,
uh, but, but because of the
price differentials that we've
seen over the last 15 years,
A lot of people have dipped
their toe into organic.
What I tell people is I don't
think organic farming of tree
fruit is harder.
It's just different.
You're managing it at a
different point.
And the biggest difference is,
is there's no safety parachute.
If you mess up,
you're going to damage crop and
you're going to lose
productivity.
Where conventionally, if you
make a mistake, you can usually
find a silver bullet.
And it may not solve the
problem, but it's going to keep
you from losing the battle with
whatever the problem was in that
in that instance.
One of the
observations that
I've one of the things I've
observed has been that as as we
get more plants growing
underneath the trees,
particularly in apples, when you
have
you no longer have an herbicide
strip and you have the the root
system surrounded by other
plants and grasses and so forth,
that there there
can actually be
beneficial fruit quality effects
on a number of different apple
varieties. Have you observed
this to be the case?
What does your under tree row
management look like?
Yeah, I
there's there's two parts to
that question, in my opinion.
So if we're talking about a tree
that's under four years old,
that's where you're still
growing the orchard.
It's very different than if it's
a mature orchard and you're
producing fruit.
So in the first
three or four years of the
tree's life in the orchard,
you have to pay very close
attention to that
tree row because
you don't want to out -compete
the tree with weeds and other
things. So we spend a lot of
time and money managing
weed control,
especially in young and
developing orchards.
It's really, really important
because
Most of the modern trees, if
you're growing high density type
trees, which are all shallow
rooted trees,
that
top 16 inches of the soil is
where everything's happening.
And it's really, really
important to manage the weeds
without pruning the roots
because
you don't want to stunt the tree
growth.
So that's
the first two or three years.
Once you have an established
orchard and an established tree,
you're absolutely correct.
We're big practitioners of mow
and blow.
Our soils are highly variable
where we grow.
It's a glaciated soil
that is within
the orchard. We'll have sand,
rock, gravel,
and maybe a clay silt all in the
same two
or three acre section.
So
we really work hard.
We use a lot of chicken
compost and chicken feather
meal.
That's kind of a backbone of our
fertility
program.
But we also use a lot of fish.
We use some hog
and we've,
you know, we seed a lot of
clover in the orchard and then
mow and blow that for
trying to get
more organic matter and nitrogen
because our soils are so poor.
I'm surprised by that.
Many cases when I have
conversations with orchardists
around recommending or
suggesting the idea of clover in
an orchard, that
produces quite a reaction in
regards to mole pressure.
Yeah, our
soils are so
old and weak. And we've been,
I mean, some of my orchards have
been in orchard for over a
hundred years.
So,
I mean, we have to,
We spend more money and time
trying to manage and build soil
than
anything else we do on our farm.
I mean, it's the number one
thing to have in a healthy farm
is having good dirt.
So when you are,
let's talk a little bit about
the clover and also any
other,
are you, with your, with your
mow and blow, are you actively
planting cover crops to
be able to move those cover
crops into the tree row?
What does, what does your, when
you say that you're spending
more time and energy actively
building soil, what does that
look like?
Yeah. So, so,
I mean, we bring in a lot of
additives from
like
perfect blend chicken,
uh,
processed chicken.
So it's, it's basically
composted chicken waste or
litter.
Um, so that's a big source of
our NPK.
We,
we have used a lot of
there's in our area, there's a
peat moss or
there was a peat moss place.
So a lot of times with new
orchards, we would bring peat
moss in to add water holding
capacity and
more organic matter into our
soils.
We've also,
in all of our orchards, when we
plant new orchards and work them
up,
I have a plan.
of, it's a low profile growing
grass,
white clover and vetch that
we like to use.
And then we mow and blow that
into the,
into the tree rows.
So we
just can't get enough.
I mean, there's, it's,
Transportation is so expensive,
we can't transport enough
material or afford to transport
enough material.
We just have to try to grow more
of it ourselves and provide it
just because of the cost of
transportation.
So to give everybody an idea,
we're located about
25 or 30 minutes from the
Canadian border,
almost in the center of the
state on the east side of the
Cascades.
So we're in the bottom of the
Okanagan Valley that extends up
into British Columbia.
And the
town I live in has maybe
the outlying area, the
population is 2 ,500 people,
maybe,
if we count everybody on a good
day and a dog or cat or two.
So
it's a remote area.
So given that distance that you
have, both from the perspective
of bringing in raw materials,
but also then how does that
influence your
your market,
marketing and market demand.
Yeah, so so because
of our location,
I'll use cherries as an example.
Cherries are a
really sexy product.
People really love them,
but they're really fast.
You pick them one day, they're
packed the next day, and then
they're
on a truck or an airplane going
somewhere the third day.
And, you know, the lifespan of a
cherry is
seven to 10 days.
typically.
So it's just a very rapid
product.
Our cherries are predominantly
are predominantly packed in
Wenatchee.
So that's a
two and a half hour truck ride
from our farm just to get to the
packer.
So we've built hydro cooling
facilities on our farm so we can
chill the
cherries to get the heat out of
them
before they go in the truck to
go to Wenatchee.
So all
of our all of our products
our apples and pears go to
Brewster, which is an hour south
of us.
So our shortest ride is about an
hour to
get it just to the packing
facility, where
then it gets stored or processed
and
ultimately sent to a consumer,
which is,
I don't know, Wenatchee is
probably 45
minutes north of I -90,
I would guess.
And
Brewster's almost two hours
north of I -90.
For our trucks, for the trucks
hauling it to the consumer to
get back onto an interstate,
it's a long ways.
It's a big, big consideration.
Yeah.
And then in many cases you're
migrating or you're moving fruit
from there to the East Coast.
Exactly. So
fruit can go
all the way to the East Coast.
It can go to Mexico
in the South, up to Canada in
the North
in a
fair manner.
But some of it goes on an
airplane or a boat heading
overseas.
So primarily to Asia,
Asia is a big, is a big target,
a big target market.
Yeah. For the, for cherries,
especially Korea, Asia.
And then I think there's some,
there's some. some in
South
America, so down to Australia or
New Zealand.
But Asia is the main the main
market for or for that for the
export.
So in in this and in this
environment,
what are the you've
been organic for some time and
this entire marketplace.
is,
as you said at the beginning of
this conversation,
the marketplace is relatively
saturated for cherries and for
apples.
You made the transition to
organic fruit some time ago to
try to give you an
additional market advantage.
What are the incentives that
have motivated you to consider
a regenerative approach?
Yeah, so
we've
always
been innovative or wanted trying
to be innovative.
I one
of my fundamental beliefs is
that
as a small family farm,
if we're competing solely on
economies of scale, we're going
to lose that race.
We're going to get ground up and
we're going to I mean, we're
going to lose.
So as we evaluated and talked
about it with my family and and
we've we've worked through this,
came to the conclusion that we
really only have one true
competitive advantage.
And that is,
since we're smaller, we can
change easier and faster.
So if we're willing to innovate
and willing to change,
we can outcompete the big guys
to the breadcrumbs of what's
new and next and better.
if we're willing to keep our
minds open and keep flexible and
striving for that.
And that's the game we're
playing now is we're trying to
anticipate where the next
advantage is and then get there
first so that we can enjoy that
premium for that time,
always looking for the next one,
because we've got to kind of
jump to the next.
I mean, that's the merry -go
-round or the wheel that we're
on now is this.
constantly innovating.
And you've seen it in
tree fruit in the state of
Washington.
We've been labor disadvantaged
for 25 years. It's not new.
It's just
more urgent now because it's hit
the tipping point to where the
wages are getting so high that
it's hard to keep
finding the next thing that's
going to make you offset that
cost of labor,
whether it's better tractors or
more efficient sprayers or
harvest platforms or whatever it
is.
We're constantly chasing
mechanization,
looking for the next
labor savings in this really
labor intensive industry of tree
fruit.
So you described your motivation
in terms of capturing market
premiums and constantly being
innovative, being at the being
at the at the cutting edge, if
you will.
And I
find it interesting that you
framed it this way, because
in many cases,
Well, I'm seeing that there is
a wide disparity or I suppose a
great deal of diversity in
how
farm products are being priced
if they're being grown
regeneratively.
Occasionally there is a premium,
frequently there is not.
What are you observing
Where are the advantages for
you?
Are there price advantages or
what are the incentives?
There's a couple of incentives,
I think.
So we haven't proven it yet.
I don't have the data to say
with certainty that this is
going to happen.
But
my expectation is that as we get
the soil in balance and we get
better at regenerative,
we're
going to have less inputs that
we're going to have to put in
because
We're going to have healthier
soil that's generating its own
nitrogen, for example.
And so I'm going to have to
buy less nitrogen to put into
the soil eventually.
We're not there yet, but we did
we did save about 10 percent on
our nitrogen inputs last after
one year of experience.
We'll follow our SAP analysis
and we'll decide this, you know,
this spring or the spring of
what we do. But
we're continuing down that
continuing down that path.
So there's one.
I think there's some savings to
by not applying stuff you don't
need
once you build confidence in the
system.
The other the other areas is I
know organically there was a
premium because of the
belief in organic production
early on.
And that
as demand or as supply of
organic has outpaced demand,
that premium shrinking.
And over the last 25 years,
we've seen this.
It's like a roller coaster.
We've seen the wave where
prices look
Organic prices look great.
A bunch of new farmers jump in.
Supply goes up.
Prices shrink down to near
conventional pricing.
A bunch of people lose interest
because the premium's not there.
They jump out.
The price grow back because now
supply and demand are back
aligned.
We've seen, this is our third
cycle of that.
So we
expect that that's just kind of
the nature of the game we're
playing.
So if that's a third cycle in 25
years, you have roughly an eight
year cycle.
Exactly.
So,
um, and people who aren't really
committed to,
or don't believe in organic.
who are just chasing dollars
tend to jump in and out.
And the people who think that
organic truly is,
you know,
more flavorful food that's
better for you, that has
has more value than just being
organic, the name,
they stick in it and they keep
they keep trying to figure out
ways to innovate and get better
and and find the next, you know,
the next good thing.
So so on
our farm,
we feel like
Regenerative is the next logical
step beyond organic because of
the focus on the soil because we
found ourself doing this stuff
Anyway,
so if there's a way to to
potentially monetize that in the
future And I think through roc
and some of these
it's so new. We don't know
exactly how it's going to all
play out But I think there's an
opportunity to
monetize this and
and in in the tree fruit
industry, you know, there's one
large
Organic outfit Whole Foods.
I don't think it's a
they've been committed to
organic for a long long time and
have been champions of it
and and they're the only
People
right now that are really I
think supporting regenerative
Monetarily and
and hopefully they continue to
do that at that level starts a
trend and other
people who want to
jump in and get regeneratively
certified stuff
will put their ante up to be
able to get into it to get the
surety of supply that everybody
wants or needs.
Where do you see the significant
opportunity for growers in the
future?
Well, I can share a little bit
about how we're looking at
things.
And I'm going to talk
specifically to tree fruit.
In the tree fruit industry, we
have moved to a model to where
most of our new investment, we
have a very standardized
platform.
All of our trees are 10, our
rows are 10 feet, our trees are
two feet apart.
We're doing everything the same
way because it allows us to have
standard operating or standard
work rules to
get really good at managing the
envelopes in the environment
that we've set up.
It also because of how far north
we are in our
lower degree degree hours, we're
kind of paying more up front
because we're planting more
trees per acre,
but we don't have to grow as big
a tree to get the same volume of
fruit per acre.
So we've done the math and
convinced ourself that that's
what's best for our latitude and
longitude and location.
I
think the biggest advantage for
growers in the future is to
Find the partner that you're
going to work with, unless
you're big enough to be
vertically integrated, find the
partners you're going to work
with and get really good at
delivering what
the consumer wants and needs and
that they recognize as value,
whether that's organic or
regenerative.
or,
you know, the best Gala grow or
conventional Gala grower on the
planet that delivers only the
perfect sizes for,
for the, for what their sales
company needs.
You have to be really valuable
to, to those
larger organizations so that
they'll want to continue to
handle your products and include
you in the,
in the game.
We're also trying
to ensure that by
we've.
moved to mostly proprietary
genetics.
So by getting to genetics that
have
some favorable benefit.
So for example,
we started growing Honeycrisp in
the 90s before Honeycrisp was
really the apple.
And the primarily reason that my
father started that
was because our sites are
farther north, they're colder,
our soils are poor.
We couldn't grow good galas.
We grew a really good small
gala.
Well, nobody wants a small gala.
Everybody wants a medium to big
apple.
Honeycrisp tend to be too big.
Put them in our soil type.
We grow a really nice medium
sized honeycrisp, which is
really difficult to do in good
soils in the South.
So by
finding the right genetics and
the right match, it's allowed to
give us a competitive advantage
with honeycrisp.
So we grow a lot of honeycrisp
offspring proprietary genetics.
We have Cosmic Crisp planted.
We grow a phenomenal Cosmic
Crisp of unbelievable color.
We grow a Sugar Bee Apple, which
is the mother is a Honeycrisp
Apple.
It's a
later developing, but super
sweet,
super exciting apple, probably
Well, I know it's
last year, it's the fastest
growing by volume and price of
all the apples in the apple
category.
We
grow Lucy Rose and Lucy Glow,
which is a red flesh.
The internal
flesh is red,
but its mother is a Honeycrisp.
So we've had these proprietary
varieties that we're partnering
with
to grow varieties that we think
or
we hope will
allow us to build our brand and
have something other than just
another apple on the shelf.
Sam, I'd like I'd love to get
into this conversation with you
because I'm so
apples are so genetically
diverse and there are such
incredible flavor profiles
available, including many that
are not even grown commercially
yet at this point.
That
that's that's a very fun
earthworm hole to go down.
But I have a feeling that's an
earthworm hole for another time.
OK.
We started this conversation by
talking about cherries and some
of the
quality improvements and the
yield improvements that you'd
seen with cherries.
And this,
I'm not surprised by your
experience because we found that
very early on,
15 some years ago, when we first
started working with a lot of
tree fruit, I had the
expectation that tree
fruit would be
inherently slower to respond
than annual crops because
There is this physiological
component of dealing with the
entire trunk and branches and
the mineral,
the nutritional integrity of
this entire tree structure.
And
we've found that to not be the
case, particularly for the stone
fruit and particularly for
cherries.
Apples tend to be a little bit,
they have cumulative responses
that build year over year.
And I'm intrigued by this aspect
of cherries because not
only are they amongst the most
responsive tree crops, but
they're also the shortest to
harvest. I mean, many cases,
we've started working with a
crop at bloom or shortly after
bloom and bud break in the
spring,
and you've got two months to
harvest.
in that time window,
the trees are able to respond to
nutrition in a significant way.
So all
of that as context to say, I'm
not really surprised by your
cherry responses,
but
what have you been observing
with the apples and pears?
How has that been developing?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So when I think about and
compare and contrast the three
varieties,
you're absolutely right.
Cherries
The reason cherries, I really
enjoy working with cherries is
because they respond immediately
to
whatever you're doing,
whether it's a pruning cut or no
matter what you're doing to
manipulate the tree, you see the
results right away and it grows
very rapidly. So we may get two
or three feet of growth in a
cherry tree in a single season.
So you make the cut and you see
the horticultural impact from
the timing and all of the
manipulations you're making.
whether you're trying to break
buds or whatever it is you're
trying to manipulate.
So cherries are fun because you
get that feedback that year.
Apples are kind of in the
middle.
Apples, I would say it's a two
to three year window.
So it's probably a third as fast
as cherries when I think of the
horticultural responses to the
manipulations.
But because of that,
we've it allows us to develop
some rules in apples to say,
hey, we know,
look, when we make this cut,
we'll see a bud break behind the
cut at this timeframe as an
example.
So we can develop
prescriptions to get the tree to
do things we want to do.
Now with feeding the tree, we're
seeing the same thing.
So getting the right
You know, starting feeding at
the right soil temperatures, for
example, to maximize root growth
and root penetration.
We use a lot of fish product and
getting that fish product fed at
the right time so that it's
breaking down and available in
the right windows.
That's a lot of what we're
playing with and we're trying to
figure out now as we work
through the programs.
And it takes a
couple of years to see that
residual effect.
We're in year two of the
journey.
I think I see results in the sap
analysis in year two
where in my apple blocks I'm
starting to see trees balance
out. I'm starting to see some
patterns where, you know,
the boron, magnesium and zinc
are
three things that we're always
low in.
But I see that we're not as low
as we were last year.
We're low still, but we're not
as low as we were.
So there's hope that we're going
to build those and remineralize
the trees to the point to where
the spring application or the
fall application, whatever we're
doing is sufficient to span us
through the window.
But
we're watching that.
Pairs are like bonds.
They don't do anything fast.
It's an angel pair, it's eight
or nine years before you see
your first pair.
So it's just everything slows
down.
And we're still on
the journey and we're chasing
pears, but our expectations are
different because of the way
pears,
and pears are a lot more
complex.
They just behave differently.
The fruit's much more
challenging to get it harvested
right.
It really is,
it's a totally,
horticulturally, it's another
step up from apples.
It's a it's a real it's a real
challenge, but it's a fabulous
piece of fruit when it's done
well.
And
that's the other thing that we
focused on as a small family
farm is our
fundamental belief was is if we
could get really good at really
hard things,
it's harder for big companies to
knock it off and do it on 1000
acre scales.
We'll do it on
10 acre scales or five acre
scales and get really good at
doing something that's very
challenging.
and ultimately deliver high
quality fruit.
It
didn't talk a lot about how I
got to the farm, but I grew up
on a farm.
I trained as an engineer at
university and I worked in
aerospace for 15 years before
coming back.
I wanted to I
wanted to prove to myself that I
could go make it on my own
before just following in my
dad's footsteps,
even though that's what I always
wanted to do. I wanted to be a
farmer.
I knew that when I went to
college,
but
Some of us, it takes a little
time to learn that we got to
just go back to the dirt and get
into it.
So when we
came back
to the farm with
my wife in hand,
we really wanted to do what was
good for the farm and for the
plants. and people,
but we wanted to grow what we
felt like we wanted to eat.
We didn't want to just deliver
another
red apple that's red, and that's
why we're selling it.
But we wanted to deliver
something that truly excites
people when they eat it.
Sam, thank you for saying that,
because I think this is such an
important motivation.
There's something that I've
observed in
many cases
The growers who go down a
pathway of beginning to grow
differently,
quite frequently they are,
they're initially attracted by a
market incentive of some type
or they're motivated by economic
duress.
But often as they,
and occasionally,
occasionally they're also
motivated by health concerns or
health challenges.
They really want to do the right
thing from a health perspective
for the health of their own
health.
But for those who don't come
from that perspective, many
times there is this gradual
transition.
And those who thrive, they don't
just survive, but they actually
thrive. Those who thrive are the
ones
who get to that place where
they're not just motivated by
the economics. The economics are
important. They're essential, of
course.
But what
they are really motivated by is
this desire to do the right
thing,
to support people, to support
the planet, to support their own
operation.
and for optimal health for
everything that they are
stewarding and caring for.
And it's when they get to that,
they may not necessarily start
there, but once they get there
internally in their hearts and
minds,
there is
this takeoff ramp that happens
in the way that they interact
with their farm.
It changes the nature of the
interaction and it changes the
quality of the outcomes.
I agree with that
wholeheartedly.
My motivating factor for coming
back to the farm was one, I'm
clearly passionate about farming
and growing food and feeding
people is I can't think of
anything that's more exciting to
do than to be able to to offer
really good tasting food to
people.
But
more importantly to me, it was
I spent enough time in the city
to know that there's a lot of
people in the city that are
dreaming about when they can
retire or move back to the
country or find a way to escape
the city.
And so I
wanted my children,
because I had a young family,
I wanted them to experience
living and growing up in a rural
community on a farm the way I
had.
And so
we needed to get back when we
got back
so that my my oldest was in
eighth grade.
So she was, you know, 13, 14
years old.
And I wanted her to be able to
experience high school in a
smaller school, in a rural
community, and learn about the
farm.
And we've raised two other
children on the farm.
And what motivates me today is
about,
it's really about
figuring out how to bridge the
next generation.
So I'm happy to report that my
oldest daughter lives on the
farm with her,
with my son -in -law,
and they're raising
my grandchildren on the farm.
We're working through the
transition so that they're
slowly
becoming more engaged and they
both work on the farm.
So we're trying to build the
next generation and continue the
cycle so
that this revolution,
let's call it,
can continue to
do what's right and deliver
really good quality food that
people can enjoy for years to
come.
That's outstanding, Sam, because
I think that this issue of
succession is
the issue that far too many
farms are failing to think
through and failing to prepare
for
and so
easily cause a legacy of
outstanding work to just fall
off the end of a cliff,
come to the end of the road.
Yeah, it's
sad, but true. It's sad, but
true.
Yeah.
Sam, we've had a very wide
ranging conversation.
What important aspects of your
operation or of your work have
we not yet talked about?
Well,
so the so the the
next part of the of the of the
journey for us, I think, is
we're continuing to invest in
our brand and trying to
differentiate our farms so that
we can so
that we can continue to build or
build equity in that in that
brand and not just be another
apple on the shelf.
And and in doing that,
We also,
we also want to, uh,
kind of navigate this transition
of
what's next in regenerative in
the regenerative play and, you
know, how certification going to
play and how are,
how are all the policies and
politics and all the stuff that,
that ultimately set up success,
uh, try to navigate that
without, um, stubbing our toe
or, or wasting a bunch of time
and money
chasing,
uh,
you know, uh, a piece of paper.
that says that we're certified
to only find out that that paper
doesn't really
apply or fit, or it's just a
step in the journey, I guess.
The example I'll use is Global
Gap.
So we went through the, we went
through the race and got
global gap certified because
that's, was the food safety
model that was being followed.
And then as that took off,
it got more expensive and, and
became a burden instead of a
benefit.
And
I ended up, you know,
morphing to, uh,
to SQF,
which is, you know,
a more farmer friendly approach
to to ensuring that we're
uniformly applying food safety
standards in our daily
operation.
So we want to avoid those
missteps as much as we can.
But we want to also
it almost feels like being a Boy
Scout. We need to as a family
farm, we need to get badges on
our belt so
that people know that we care
and we're trying the right
thing. So whether it's,
you know, be smart or be safe or
you know, having, uh,
you know, work with the Xerces
society to have
beneficial pollinator habitat
and,
and being able to get some of
the,
some of the recognition for some
of the activities we're doing
that are the right things to do
so that it helps people in
market understand that
we really do care.
Cause at the end of the day,
that's what I want to come out
as it,
you know, we really care about
giving you something that we
serve and eat in our, in our
home.
It's not just another apple in a
box being
shipped around in a semi truck
and having people being able to
connect and feel that that
belonging.
Maybe it's my southern roots.
I mean, my parents were both
from Texas and you couldn't come
see my mom without getting a
glass of iced tea and a cookie
or something.
that she had just taken out of
the oven.
And and I think that's still
part of my part of my upbringing
and heritage is that we we want
people to leave feeling like
they're better off than they
were when they showed up.
Thank you, Sam.
That's a wonderful note to end
on, because
ultimately,
The value of our work is in
regenerating relationships with
landscapes, with people, with
each other, with our supply
chains.
And you are well down the
pathway towards regenerating
relationships on multiple
dimensions.
So
thank you for your work.
Thank you for being here.
And thank you for being willing
to share your experiences.
Thanks, John.
Have a great day.