Organic growers switch to berries to offset rent costs

The high rents and productive ground outside Watsonville make for a high- stakes game, as raspberries fetch more than $50,000 an acre on average, and blackberries more than $40,000. But there are no guarantees.

Just one 30-acre field of this fruit costs more than $1 million for planting, pruning, training and covering blackberries before the first berry is picked and sent for the do-or-die evaluation for marketability.

"The quality score at Driscoll's is reflected in how much we get paid," said Morgan Tittle, production manager at Garrett Farms. "If a pallet is rejected, we don't get paid. We do everything we can in the field to minimize how often that happens."

Garrett Farms produces blackberries and raspberries, both organic and conventional, on 180 acres outside Watsonville.

The high cost of ground near Watsonville led to the transformation of thousands of acres of apples, many of them juiced at the local plant, to berry crops.

"Land leases for $2,000 to $3,000 a year, and sells for $50,000 to $60,000 an acre," Tittle said. "This area and this ranch historically was all apples; now, it's all caneberries and strawberries. We can produce great berries eight or nine months of the year because of the weather."

Those land costs can be a major burden when the crop suffers because the weather did not cooperate.

"We've been struggling in this area the last few years," Tittle said. "Some of it is weather related, and some is labor shortages."

It takes an extraordinary amount of work and money to nurture blackberry or raspberry plants to the point they are ready to bear fruit.

After crews plant the canes, they put posts and stakes in the ground in the spring, and then later they add the wires the growing plants will climb.

"Then we put all the metal hoops in and cover them with plastic once they flower," Tittle said. "The earliest varieties flower in March, and we usually start picking in mid-May. They are only at peak for six weeks or so, but I've got about six varieties, so we can pick until late October or early November. Then we prune the hard canes that have already fruited."

Sulfur is applied in the offseason to prevent disease pathogens from multiplying too much, and vigilance is maintained to prevent insect pests from overwhelming the organic berries.

"Spotted-wing drosophila has hit us pretty hard in some years," Tittle said. "Sanitation is important; you must pick the bad berries as well as the marketable ones. With light brown apple moth, the pheromones work."

Although pheromones are among the few pest control options available for organic farmers, there is a movement afoot to deprive them of the use of pheromones.

"There is a group of environmentalists who want to take pheromones off the organic materials list," said organic farm advisor Amigo Cantisano. "It makes no sense. Yes, they are made in a laboratory, but they are harmless. This is a big deal."

Cantisano said he believes much more research should be done on pest control options for organic farmers, and for conventional farmers looking for softer solutions.

"We have almost no one working on rearing and releasing biological controls to control pests," he said.

The lack of options can leave farmers, especially organic farmers, in a bind when the pests come.

"We have to do something, because if your crop is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, you can't do nothing while pests destroy it," Tittle said.

When the weather, diseases and pests are under control, Garrett Farms still faces the difficult challenge of finding as many as 400 workers for their labor-intensive crop.

"We rely heavily on the seasonal labor that comes in," Tittle said. "Within the last few years, it's been difficult to keep the crews full. All of the harvesters get paid on a piece rate. We have to guarantee the minimum wage, but during the season they make quite a bit more. We've had to pay more, and find ways to be productive with fewer workers."

One way to be more productive is mechanical pruning of some varieties of blackberries, which need to be cut back annually during their six to eight years of production.

"The early varieties you can mow rather than hand-prune," Tittle said. "The weed eaters with a metal blade are half as costly as hand pruning. We've been trying to mechanize wherever we can."

This technique only works on the earlier blackberry varieties, like the Eureka developed by Driscoll's, because later varieties do not have enough time to recover from mechanical pruning.

The difficulty finding employees in Central Coast berry fields is due, in part, to the decision of the largest firms in the Watsonville-Salinas and Santa Maria-Oxnard areas to also set up large operations in Mexico.

"Word at the coffee shop is there are a lot more opportunities in central Mexico," Tittle said. "There are big companies with coolers down there. I used to start the year in April or May and keep 90 percent of the crew for the season. Now, the crew might turn over two or three times during the season."

(Bob Johnson is a reporter in Davis. He may be contacted at bjohn11135@aol.com.)