Gold Oak Ranch's Newest Blogger

It is with some regret but also great happiness that I am officially handing over Gold Oak Ranch’s blog to my father, David Scheuring. It’s been a lot of fun writing about food, farming, and health news, but my work as a physician,  our family life, and of course our continued olive tree plantings demand so much time that I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like.  My Dad has graciously agreed to step in and fill the breach!

He’ll write about farming news and about his long and varied experience as a farmer in Illinois and California. I can’t wait!

In the meantime, I’ll try to “guest blog” here and there, especially about all-important olive oil.  Thanks, everyone, for reading!

Healthy Walnut Bark

Everyone loves a good mystery, except if you’re a farmer and the mystery is why your newly planted walnut trees are turning a strange color… The following account describes my father’s attempt to unravel a farming mystery:

Today Luis brought to my attention a disturbing development.  The bark of some of the new walnut trees that we recently planted is beginning to yellow.  Not a good sign.  

Yellowing Walnut Bark

The 1225 trees displaying this condition were planted several weeks ago under less than ideal soil moisture conditions, i.e. too wet.  A similar number of trees from the same nursery planted in January have sprouted and are growing satisfactorily.  Could the yellowing result from the soil conditions at the time of planting?(Why didn’t we plant all the trees in January when soil conditions were favorable?  Why did we resume planting in March before the soil had dried out sufficiently?  More about that in a later post.) 

When planting too wet, it is difficult to firm the soil around the roots without compacting the soil.  Eager to avoid compaction it is easy to leave air pockets around the roots, limiting good soil-root contact.  

But in the past we have planted satisfactorily under similar conditions.  Also, since the trees were planted we have had two substantial rains which have nicely settled the soil around the roots. 

Could the trees be displaying freeze damage suffered at the nursery before being dug? Remember those record temperatures we experienced in December?  

That seems like a reasonable possibility, but why didn’t the January-planted trees display similar symptoms?  Also suspect is the fact that the yellowing is occurring on the east side of the tree, suggesting that the damage occurred in our field since the tree orientation would not correspond to that in the nursery. 

But why the east side?   Stressed or damaged bark is very sensitive to sunburn even at low temperatures.  But sunburn usually occurs on the south and west side.  

Have sent pictures and wood samples to the nursery in overnight delivery.  Let’s see what they say.

How do you pick which variety to graft? Institutions like UC Davis have been doing field experiments “crossing” different walnut varieties to come up with new better-producing varieties, like the Fordes which we are now planting. The following is my Dad’s account of his work in the evolving world of commercial walnut production. Thanks, Dad, for guest blogging!

For the past 10 years or so we have hosted field trials for new walnut varieties bred by UC Davis.   Even though most of these new crosses will eventually be abandoned for one reason or another, I find it to be an interesting enterprise, satisfying my need for new challenges.

Two years ago we set out our most ambitious field trial to date, 12 experimental varieties on 4 acres.  Some were older crosses that have proved promising enough as individual trees to merit planting in a larger block (30 to 60 trees) and some new crosses not yet field tested (3 to 4 trees).

As is common with the slow process of evaluating tree varieties, now after two years we have already decided to abandon a couple of varieties and replace them with seven new promising crosses .

The trees are still small enough to be readily grafted over to a new variety.  To do this the trunk is severed at 4 or 5 feet and scions of the new variety are inserted under the bark in a process quite logically called bark grafting.  The process itself is referred to in the trade as topworking trees.

Topworking Experimental Walnut Varieties

This is obviously a traumatic event for the young tree so the lower limbs (nurse limbs) are left, not to be removed for a couple of years until the growth above the graft is sufficient to nourish the tree and its roots.

Our foreman Jose Luis has developed a great deal of skill in grafting walnuts.  Nonetheless topworking is a slow process and Jose Luis spent most of the morning on this project.

Planting Walnuts Between the Rains

We’ll be grafting two varieties: Chandlers, one of the most common English Walnut varieties you purchase at grocery stores, and a newer variety from the University of California called Forde.  Chandlers are a beautiful nut, pale and delicate in appearance. The problem with Chandlers is that they take forever to come into production. If you’re lucky, you can harvest after four years. The trees don’t reach full yield for 8-9 years. That’s a long time to sit on non-income producing property (you still have to irrigate, prune, and weed!). Fordes come to maturity quicker, but they’re new and relatively untested. We’ll let you know how it goes.

The Spring rains have also slowed down harvest of one of our other crops: organic asparagus. I love Spring asparagus and always marvel how fast the spears grow. When it’s cold and rainy, though, asparagus grows slowly. We harvest once every three days. Once the rains fade and the weather warms up, the asparagus takes off, growing seven inches a day. We have to harvest daily just to keep up. As in the past, most of our organic asparagus goes to Full Belly Farm, which distributes it in their community supported agriculture boxes. If you’re a lucky subscriber, you’ll taste this year’s fantastic crop. I roasted a huge bunch last night with some of our Gold Oak Ranch olive oil, and let me tell you, we devoured the whole delicious plate!

Organic Asparagus Peeking From Damp Soil

Several months ago, I received a request to explain the whole organic labeling process. How do you know the food you buy is truly organic? And what does ‘organic’ on the label really mean? 

Most people, when asked, can list a few characteristics of organic food: no synthetic pesticides, antibiotics, or growth hormones. Only natural fertilizers (no petrochemical-based fertilizers). Avoidance of genetically-modified organisms. 

Yes, all true, but organic agriculture production is more than that. Organic agriculture is as much a philosophy as a production technique. Organic growers view their role as being part of a greater ecosystem rather than just producers of a specific crop. As a consequence, there is an emphasis on promoting ecological balance by using renewable resources rather than artificial, one-time use inputs like petrochemical-based fertilizers. Organic farmers use techniques such as crop rotation or naturally-occuring fertilizers to keep soil fertile. They promote natural pest management strategies like the placement of owl houses in fields to control gopher populations or the release of beneficial insects to counteract harmful insects. Basically, true organic farmers view crop production as one part of a natural, environmental whole rather than with the narrow focus of isolated crop production.

That being said, the ‘organic’ label has enormous marketing cachet because people are willing to pay more for synthetic pesticide-free, environmentally-friendly food. To counteract fraud in the market place, the US Department of Agriculture now requires food that is labelled organic to meet certain criteria. Those products labelled ‘100% Organic’ must be made entirely with certified organic ingredients and methods. ‘Organic’ on the label means that the product contains at least 95% organic ingredients. Both of these types of products can carry the USDA Organic Seal.

This Seal Guarantees Minimum 95% Organic Ingredients

There is one other category of organic labeling. Those products containing at least 70% organic ingredients can carry the claim, ‘Made With Organic Ingredients.’ Certification is by government-approved certifiers such as the CCOF or other state, non-profit, or private agencies.

The best way to ensure you get what you pay for, whether in the supermarket or the farmers market, is to look for the words certified organic or the USDA Organic seal. That way you’ll know the products for which you’re paying extra have gone through the rigorous requirements of organic certification, which you know now, is as much about production philosophy as being pesticide-free.

To break up the monotony of what can be an endless drive we look for new places to stop along the way, and I wanted to share one with you: Pedrick Produce. It’s not a fancy place, but if you’re like me and like farm fresh produce, this is the place for you.

Pedrick Produce's Original Metal Quonset Hut (courtesy of daviswiki.org)

Located in a metal barn set alongside I-80 in Dixon, what immediately strikes you is that Pedrick’s parking lot is full. And so is the store inside. Four cashiers ring up produce purchases for patient customers. The store’s interior is crammed with bags of fruits and vegetables, as well as flavored and plain nuts of all varieties (a nut fan’s heaven!).  The prices aren’t bad either. Asparagus for a dollar a pound. Apples for 49 cents a pound. Off-season tomatoes for $1.19 a pound. A whole lot cheaper than Safeway and without the spit-shine production that makes Safeway’s produce seem a little too slick.

As I walked around this flourishing produce stand, I was struck by the similarities to another produce stand institution along I-80–Ikeda’s in Auburn. If you’ve ever stopped at Ikeda’s for a burger, you know the produce stand there has expanded beyond fruits, vegetables, and nuts to included baked goods, wine, and seafood. Give Pedrick’s a few years, and I’m sure they’ll head the same way, opening a restaurant and bakery. Which is fine by me. I’m always on the look out for a new place to eat…

Note to Locavores: Not all of Pedrick’s produce is local. Some comes from other parts of California, Washington state, and even Mexico. If local production is important to you, stick to farmers markets. However, Pedrick’s is still worth a visit, if only to check out the vast selection of nut snacks!

I went down with my mother and father to check out “Big Ag” and found myself a little overwhelmed. The scale of the expo, the scale of the tractors, the scale of the farms in the San Joaquin Valley just dwarfs Northern California. As my father said, “Compared to these guys, we’re just gardeners.” But nonetheless, all that scale is pretty impressive.

I signed up for a Citrus Tour, in which a citrus grower took a bus-full of us on a tour of a packing plant, juice facility, and orchard. And I have to say, it was pretty enlightening.  I’ve said before that we live in a food “black box” society. Most Americans have no idea how their food is produced; they just buy it at the store and eat it. So checking out the packing and juice plants to find out how that navel orange in the orchard is converted into the the slick shiny thing you buy or into the premium juice that takes up a huge refrigerated space at Safeway opened up the black box for me a little.

Yes, your navel oranges are washed, dipped in fungicide, and waxed before they head to the grocery store. They may be gassed with ethylene gas, although only if there is green still left in the peel. They are routinely subjected to pesticide while still in the orchard to protect against pests that attack the peel (but not the fruit underneath). All this is done to make the fruit look good, because as one farmer said, “People like pretty fruit.”

While in the orchard, I sampled one of the oranges off the tree, and it was delicious. But it was a dull sort of orange with a tiny bit of green in the peel.  No gas and no wax yet. Definitely not as pretty as those on display in the grocery store.  The farmer assured me it was safe to eat, because the last application of pesticide was a month earlier. I listened to him chat about ”nitrogen” he added to the irrigation water to fertilize the trees.

It wasn’t an organic tour; that’s for sure. But the manipulations were pretty small if you compare it with juice production. It takes millions and millions of dollars to buy all the technology to make orange juice. I’ll save that for a later post, though…

What do you think?

On an unrelated note, here’s a follow-up photo of the Great Freeze of 2009. As you may recall, we abandoned the Rumsey mandarin crop after the oranges froze on the trees. This photo taken two days ago shows how the frozen mandarins rotted on the branch. A real shame.

So it was with great pleasure that I stumbled upon a recent article by Los Angeles Times food columnist, Russ Parsons. Finally a nuanced look at the food and farming debate! What immediately won me over was his first point: farming is a business. It’s not altruistic. Most farmers don’t make a whole lot of money anyway. To begrudge them technological advances that might increase their income is to expect a degree of self-sacrifice that is not only unrealistic  but also unfair.

This struck home on a personal level this winter when a freeze wiped out part of our mandarin crop. As I’ve said before, there are so many things beyond control in farming: freezes, drought, market conditions. One can understand why a farmer wants to even the odds by using whatever he or she can to boost production, to try to insulate income, as much as possible, from income-killers over which there is no control. In medicine, we call such technological advances progress. In agriculture,  they’re called short-sighted or morally wrong.

Now I’m not saying I advocate the status quo, but ag reform is a tough, complex issue. And if some ground rules for dialogue, like those suggested by Parsons, are established, maybe we’ll move beyond acrimony into something more like progress.

Fortunately, the damage is less severe at the Dunbar orchard. It looks like we’ve lost maybe 25% of the mandarins to the freeze. This may seem awful, but that means at least three-quarters of the fruit are still marketable. The only problem is that there isn’t a big market right now. It’s been a bumper crop for organic satsuma mandarins this year, and even a freeze hasn’t been able to correct an oversupply of marketable mandarins.

Which points out the always changing fortunes of the farmer. If it isn’t Mother Nature–wind, freezing temperatures or drought–it’s market conditions. I’ve always thought a farmer needed a stomach of steel to weather such uncertainties; there is so much beyond his or her control. By contrast, my job as a physician, with all the certainties afforded by modern medical technology, seems like a relative walk in the park.