Blueberry Grape Fall Color

Too many years ago I was in the Napa wine country during Thanksgiving weekend.  The fall colors were stunning.  I only had my point and shoot camera then and have always wanted to go back during peak color with my good cameras and lenses.  But alas, I have been thwarted with other duties and will hope again for "next year".

Today I made a quick trip to the budwood orchard to get some Hachiya Persimmons so my wife can bake persimmon cookies this weekend.  The next row over we have a single row (row 26) with a lot of single vines of most of our grapes.  There were a number with some really nice red leaves still hanging on the vines. So I stopped and took a couple of shots.

This visit reminded me that many grapevines have a spectacular fall color season.  And if you look close in the spring at the new growth you will also see pink and red new foliage.  A lot of the purple and red grapes (both seedless, table and wine grapes) show their colors in the leaves of autumn.

One of our most recent introductions which we are really impressed with is the Blueberry Grape.  So I was thrilled to capture some of its fall color in the photo above.  Put another star on this wonderful selection!

Here are two more from this afternoon's visit:

Summer Royal Grape Fall Color

Black Emerald Grape Fall Color

An arbor draped in red.  A fence covered in magenta.  Not a bad way to end the harvest season.

Ron Ludekens 12-5-2014

Drilling first of the new wells

It rained yesterday!  That is a big event considering the last three years of drought.  In fact we have had half as much rain in the last two weeks as we had all of last year.  But 1 1/2 inches of rainfall is not much.  Three years of drought with last year breaking all the records at only a little over 3 inches for the whole year.

In spite of advance planning and extra preparation in anticipation of water woes this growing season, we still experienced drought effects on this year's crop.  The crop looks good but, for the most part, caliper sizes are smaller by one to two grades.  Except for the desert loving trees and shrubs which actually got larger than normal.

We learned some lessons this year.  Drip systems are marvelous, but not the total answer to extreme dry conditions.  Until this last year, there has always been residual moisture below the surface of the soil from winter rains.  This has givin us adequate moisture in the soil profile to plant with in the spring and supplement the drip systems through the year.  Although our trees thrive on the drip systems we use, it is now obvious that they also must have used more water and nutrients from further away in the soil profile which were not there this year.  Lesson learned: pre-irrigate in the early spring if we do not get winter rains again.

Drip systems are also not as forgiving when water is not applied exactly when needed.  When we used to flood irrigate, we would irrigate every 10-14 days with lots of water residing in the soil profile below the surface.  With drip, there is only the small amount in the immediate root zone.  We water on drip every couple of days.  With none extra in the soil profile, the tree will stress and shut down if water is not available in a timely fashion.  There were several hiccups this summer in spite of our pre-planning for the drought.

Last spring, in anticipation of water woes (wells running dry), we connected multiple wells across common blocks of fields with surface piping.  Some newer wells are deeper than the older wells.  As feared, the water table dropped another 15-25 feet and, in the course of the summer, 8 older wells temporarily ran out of water until we could get the bowls lowered.  While in this process, we still fed the drip from other wells while we lowered the bowls.  Unfortunately a few were lowered to near the bottom of the hole.

June 12, 2014 -  First well to burp air was our office domestic water supply.  Adding lengths of pipe to lower it. Replaced moter to accomodate greater depth. Since it is right outside my office window, I took plenty of photos of this well over the summer.

June 13, 2014.  Inspecting the well casing.  Water came up dirty from the lowered pump.  High tech to the rescue.  Lowered this camera down the well to see what was happening.  Unfortunately (not for him), we ended up using this service several more times over the summer with other wells.

Inside the van is a computer console that shows what the camera sees, records it all to DVD and prints snapshots of any concerns seen.

When a pump draws water from the bottom of the well, it also pumps sand.  Although we have filters (had to clean some of them every 20 minutes), sand still gets into the drip.  As you know, drip systems don't like sand.  We had to abandon the drip on 2 fields and quickly convert it back to furrow irrigation.  With drip running on a healthy well, we can water 100+ acres all at one time from one well.  Furrow irrigation can water about 15 acres at a time which takes many more days (and nights) to traverse a field.  On these two fields, because of the added time to get the first furrow irrigation across to all the trees, we lost some of the water loving trees.  Some of the other trees in the field had a midsummer shutdown (and slow restart) making for smaller sizes.  For example, Babylonica Willow clearly is not drought tolerant and the reduced quantities available reflect that fact.  On the other hand, the Chilopsis (Desert Willow) and Cercis occidentalis (Western Redbud) loved it.

June 13, 2014 Blowing sandy water from domestic well.  Tried this to see if we could clean out the base of the well.

High pressure air is pumped into the well to blow out the sand (water is already clearer here).

August 28, 2014 - Well is deep enought, just too much sand and dirty water going into filters from rusted holes in steel casing.   Decided to re-sleeve the office domestic well to solve that.  Over the course of the summer, this submersible pump was pulled 4 times (last time was to replace defective new motor under warranty).

Lowering the pump bowls on Cooke 3B Ag well.

This summer and fall we have been drilling new wells (the waiting list is long and the cost is steep - supply and demand at work).  On each major block of land we have drilled one well extra big and extra deep.  And the water systems on these fields are all tied together.  With these new wells and the work done on the existing wells, we are insuring the future of our water supply for years to come even if the drought continues.  I hope politics doesn't change the game.  By the time all the bills come in, we will have spent well over a half million dollars to keep the water flowing this summer and for the future.  Welcome to farming!

Photo at very top of blog is from October 20, 2014 where we drilled a much deeper and larger well to handle water needs (if necessary) for all 6 fields in Cooke 3 (A,B,C,D,E,F).  This perferated 23" PVC casing was put down all the new holes.  Although more expensive than steel, it will not rust which prevents future problems.

Evening of November 6, 2014 - Drilling large well for Cooke 5 block (Fields A,B,C,D) with ties to Cooke 2 (A,,B,C,D), Duarte and Mello fields.  These drillers have been working around the clock due to wide spread water problems in this vast agricultural area.  Trust me, they are all able to buy new vehicles.  By morning they reached 400 feet with 23' bit.

I am proud of the extra efforts our production and maintenance staff put in this summer to reduce the effects of weather conditions beyond our control.  It was an expensive and not so fun summer for all of us but we got the job done and learned a few new lessons along the way.  Over the winter we plan to work on lowering and inspecting a few more wells before they need to go back into service.  We are committed to serving you with quality trees now and into the future.

In the meantime, keep praying for rain!

Ron Ludekens 12-3-2014

Chocolate Persimmon (Diospyros kaki)

Question: I had a question about the chocolate persimmon. Is this the same tree as a black sapote? The latin name for the chocolate persimmon on the tag I bought from green thumb from lecooke.com is Diospyros kaki. However, the latin name for the black sapote seems to be Diospyros digyna. When I look on the Internet some sites say that the chocolate persimmon and the black sapote are the same. So, when I bought your chocolate persimmon from the green thumb was I buying a black sapote? Can you please clear this up for me? Thank you.  Alan, Long Beach, CA

Ripe Black Sapote (Wikipedia - Creative Commons image by Alesh Houdek)

Answer:  No. Black Sapote is not the same as our Chocolate Persimmon.  According to Wikipedia:  "Black Sapote (Diospyros nigra or Diospyros digyna)... Sapote are tomato-like and measure 5–10 cm (2.0–3.9 in) in diameter, with an inedible skin that turns from olive to a deep yellow-green when ripe and a pulp which is white and inedible when unripe but assumes a flavor, color and texture often likened to "Chocolate pudding" when ripe.

Notice the description difference.  Black Sapote, when ripe, has a olive to deep yellow-green skin.  The Asian Chocolate Persimmon has a boldly orange skin.  The Black Sapote has a tomato shape.  The Asian Chocolate Persimmon is elongated, much like a smaller sized Hachiya Persimmon.  I cannot speak about the taste since I have not eaten a Black Sapote.

There is some commonality.  The Asian Chocolate Persimmon must be eaten ripe or at least when the flesh turns chocolaty color.  When ripe, the internal seed splits and releases compounds that changes not only the color of the flesh, but also changes it from astringent to non-astringent.  If you find one that is seedless, then it will be astringent until ripe - "pudding soft".

Ron Ludekens 9-4-2014

More information on our Chocolate Persimmon: Information Page

More Chocolate Persimmon photos: Photos

Large Size of Pineapple Pear (my hand is not small)