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Hilo’s raspberry revolution
Virgilio (Hilo) Yepez runs the 500-acre Dutra Farms in Watsonville,
Calif., where he and a crew of up to 430 grow and process
conventional and organic raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries,
mostly for export to Japan and Hong Kong. Both as a Hispanic
who has risen the ranks from illegal immigrant field worker
to U.S. citizen and farm manager, and as a recognized leader
in organic and IPM berry production, softspoken Hilo stands
out as something of an anomaly.
Through more than 20 years of observation, trial, and error,
Hilo has managed to wean his entire operation—even the
conventional side—off most chemicals. When you rely
on these chemicals, Hilo says, your dependence on them increases
exponentially with the size of your operation.
“I’ve been learning ways to grow my berries more
natural,” Hilo tells the crowd gathered for its third
stop on the Eco-Farm bus tour 2004. “They are good berries,
healthy and strong and with good taste.”
Working for a large producer (Dutra Farms grows for Well-Pick),
it hasn’t always been easy to convince the higher-ups
that chemical dependency is not always the smartest road,
Hilo says. His own consistent results finally did just that,
though, and for nearly a decade now he’s been on his
own to make his own decisions.
“A lot of people involved in this business think that
chemicals guarantee your berry,” says Hilo. “That’s
not true and I proved it several times.”
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"A lot
of people involved in this business think that chemicals
guarantee your berry,” says Hilo. “That’s
not true and I proved it several times." |
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For about five years now, Hilo has been increasing his organic
production, which today accounts for about 30 percent of Dutra
Farms’ overall operation. And as he’s learned
from this successful organic model, he’s been able to
cut back on the use of chemicals in his conventional fields
by a whopping 80 percent. Cover crops hold a major key to
his successes in both facets of the business.
Hilo and his crew grow two raspberry crops in an 18-month
cycle, then, for the next 18 months, the field is turned over
to a soil-building leguminous cover crop mixture. A cover
crop row is also grown between each row of raspberries under
production.
“I remember when I used to use fertilizer because the
plants didn’t give good fruit sometimes,” Hilo
recalls. But these results were mixed, he says, and sometimes
the fruit was junk. “I don’t have that problem
now. Mother Nature is not so bad. Now I know.”
And Hilo knows plenty. He knows that his mixture of oats,
vetch, peas, and sorghum-Sudan grass works to deliver organic
matter, recycle nitrogen, and smother weeds. He knows that
the cover crop rows staggered between his raspberries encourage
water delivered from a single drip line to track to the expansive
root system of each fruit-bearing plant. He knows the cover
crops help shade the ground and conserve this water. And he’s
also observed that these cover crops create a microclimate
that causes his raspberries to set fruit early, a tool he
now uses to stagger his harvest.
The cover crops planted between raspberry rows will be turned
under—with a special disking tool invented by the farm
crew specifically for this purpose (see Tool
Time)—once they’ve grown to
5 to 7 feet and “before they start shading the berries,”
Hilo explains. The disked cover crops then become walkways
between the berry bushes.
You can either work with nature’s cycles or against
them, Hilo says, explaining the senseless cycle that farming
with chemicals puts into place. “If you use one then
you’ve got to use another one for something else that’s
a consequence of the first one you used.”
Another of Hilo’s innovations is growing blackberries
in hillside hoop houses in order to get early fruit that brings
a premium price. He’s also experimenting with native
hedgerows in order, in part, to encourage more beneficial
insects.
And just what do Hilo’s neighbors think about these
left-turns from conventional agriculture? The smarter ones
are beginning to imitate him.
Blue Heron Bounty
“We’re very, very intensive, and the soils are
very forgiving to the type of work we put them through,”
says Tim Voss, a partner in Blue Heron Farm, where 20 leased
acres in Corralitos, Calif. are home to a biodynamic operation
cranking out 30 types of vegetables—including nine varieties
of lettuce—nearly year-round.
Voss, a doctoral candidate with a background as an antinuclear
activist who has endured his share of protest marches and
civil disobedience, said he turned to organic farming because
“instead of working against something, I wanted to be
part of a positive alternative.”
“I came into this filled with a lot of high-minded
ideals…and have become more and more cynical every year
since then,” he offers with a wry smile.
“We’ve specialized in the greens market, with
a couple of exceptions,” Voss explains as the sun sets
on this last stop on the Eco-Farm tour. “We’re
growing more in the winter lately, to keep ourselves in the
marketplace and also to keep people employed.
“I think of it as a big market garden or a small truck
farm. And it’s so highly diverse, with small patches
of many things.” A few beds of each crop are planted
out weekly, Voss says, so customers know that their fresh
favorites—whether they are basil, broccoli, lettuce,
or carrots—will always be available.
Inherent in that patchwork scheme, Voss says, is a blended
agroecological and economic plan. “It’s about
ecological considerations balanced with economic realities,”
he says.
The soil never remains fallow, supporting either a market
or cover crop year-round. And a constant rotation is taking
place so that beds are never planted with the same crop consecutively.
“It turns out to be a very effective strategy in pest
and disease control and also building soil fertility,”
Voss says.
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"All farming
is actually skilled work,” Voss insists. “There’s
this sort of preconceived label among the American middle
class that it’s unskilled labor, and it’s
not true. “Actually,
it’s an endurance sport.” |
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“The quality of our product begins with our soil management
practices, our rotations, and our cover cropping.”
Blue Heron Farm’s recipe for success also includes
a compost made from turkey and cow manure and grasses from
nearby farms inoculated with biodynamic preparations, or as
Voss explains, “micro-organisms which help digest the
material and bring it to ripeness for spreading,” applied
at a rate of about 7 tons an acre.
Cover crops are disked into the soil after being chopped
down with a flail mower and before the compost is spread.
“Then we follow with a spading machine, which mimics
double-digging,” Voss says. “This leaves us with
a very nice matrix for either seedbeds or transplants.”
Starting most plants in the greenhouse and then transplanting
them when the ground is ready gives the young seedlings a
jump on weeds and also helps maximize production space, Voss
explains. Some vegetable varieties—such as carrots,
beets, cilantro, and basil—are direct seeded with Planet
Jr. Seeders. Aside from harvesting, Voss says, the most labor-intensive
aspect of running the farm is weeding.
Cut flowers are also a big seller for Blue Heron Farm (and,
of course, they bring in the pollinators). A drip system works
best here, Voss says, because delivering water to the base
of the flowers rather that the leaves helps cut back on water-borne
diseases.
About 50 percent of what is produced at Blue Heron Farm is
direct marketed to customers through farmers markets (6 to
8 a week) and the rest is shipped north, mostly to the San
Francisco produce district. “Because we’ve been
around for a long time and have established a reputation for
very high quality, we’re usually able to sell what we
grow if it’s in surplus at the farmer’s markets,”
Voss says. “We don’t let anything leave the farm
unless it’s A-1 quality.”
The first cut happens in the field, where a professional
picking crew from Jalisco, Mexico knows from 10 years of experience
just what the Blue Heron standards are. “The standards
come sort of second nature to all of us that work here together,”
Voss says, adding that keys to maintaining a good farm crew
are providing a livable wage, building relationships, and
rotating tasks to dissuade monotony.
“All farming is actually skilled work,” Voss
insists. “There’s this sort of preconceived label
among the American middle class that it’s unskilled
labor, and it’s not true.
“Actually, it’s an endurance sport.”
While farmers market customers tend to be a little more tolerant
of some variability in appearance, Voss says, by and large
most customers want produce that’s attractive and displays
some uniformity. “Earlier [organic farmers] didn’t
pay attention to that and so got the reputation for being
funky.”
“We’re really detail-oriented, and we take a
holistic approach. We look at the farm as an organism that
you’re trying to keep healthy. It gets boring and repetitive
year after year, but there are still new ways we can refine
what we do and make it better.
“The first principal of organic farming is that you
take care of the soil and not mine the soil,” Voss says,
alluding so some of the details behind the farm’s perfectly
balanced biodynamic compost, such as hitting upon the right
carbon to nitrogen ratio to maintain just enough heat and
even the right smell. “[Alan] Chadwick said the nose
was the gardener’s most important tool,” Voss
offers.
While some folks still consider many biodynamic practices
“namby-pamby and airy-fairy,” Voss says, “it’s
also kind of a philosophical approach in terms of the farm
as a living being and you’re part of that, always on
the side of non-harming and avoiding abuse and really trying
to build up the land and not taking more than you give back.”
Standing in the middle of this patchwork quilt that is Blue
Heron Farm as afternoon gives way to evening on this balmy
January day, it’s easy to know exactly what Voss is
talking about.
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