From the Fields: Joe Avila

By Joe Avila, Stanislaus County chestnut farmer

Harvest was from September through the second week of October. The trees are defoliating, and I’m pruning and chopping the leaves because I want those leaves to decay quicker and turn into organic matter. We don’t till at all. I use a mower with a tractor, and it shreds the leaves to pieces. With the rain and the nightcrawlers that we have on the farm, they turn those leaves into dirt and food. 

We’re sold out of chestnuts. We typically start selling the third week in September until we’re sold out, which is usually by the end of October. 

The crop was a little bit light. We had a hot summer. The beginning of October was so hot in Modesto that it dried a lot of the chestnuts on the tree. When we picked them up mechanically, we were cracking a lot of them because they were so dry.

As far as nut sizes, the percentages were about the same as last year. We have four sizes. They were 83% to 85% jumbo giant, which was good. But overall, the volume was a little bit light.

People come to the farm from all over California. Once the crop is ready, we sell the crop pretty quickly. Every year we ship more and more all over the United States. We ship 10- and 17-pound boxes throughout the United States to New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Alaska and Florida. 

Most of our market is retail and a little bit commercial. People just love chestnuts. They either boil them or roast them. We have 5 acres, and we don’t like someone coming in and wanting to buy a pallet of chestnuts because we have some loyal customers we want to sell to. We have a variety of people that come to our farm and others that order through the mail. We have a lot of repeat customers, and we always get new customers through word of mouth.