Bob Tillman is a former electronics professional who launched Alta Colina Vineyard & Winery in 2003 on the steep, mountainous terrain of Paso Robles, California. Managing thirty-two acres of grapes, he has spent two decades transitioning from conventional methods to a biological approach centered on the natural resilience of his native ecosystem.
He eliminated tillage in 2006 and moved away from synthetic inputs to rely on native ground cover and biological cycling .
How nutrition testing revealed that the soil contains enough potassium for over six hundred years and enough iron for millions of years of production
Podcast Transcript
0:01 – 0:01
Hi
0:05 – 0:06
friends, this is John.
0:06 – 0:07
Welcome back to the Region of
0:07 – 0:08
Agriculture podcast.
0:08 – 0:10
Today I'm here with an
0:10 – 0:11
interesting character.
0:11 – 0:12
We're all going to find out how
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interesting. Bob Tillman from
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Paso Robles, California.
0:15 – 0:16
Bob,
0:16 – 0:17
thanks for being here.
0:18 – 0:19
I'm uncertain where this
0:19 – 0:21
conversation is going to go,
0:21 – 0:22
given the comment that you just
0:22 – 0:23
made about wanting to figure out
0:23 – 0:24
who John Kemp is.
0:24 – 0:25
We'll see how this whole
0:25 – 0:26
conversation evolves.
0:27 – 0:30
But tell us a little bit about
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your operation and the context
0:32 – 0:33
that you are
0:34 – 0:35
growing wine in.
0:35 – 0:36
OK,
0:36 – 0:38
well, good morning, John.
0:38 – 0:39
Nice talking with you.
0:40 – 0:41
So I'm
0:41 – 0:43
a wine grower. It's my second
0:43 – 0:44
career, actually.
0:44 – 0:45
I did a
0:45 – 0:47
34 year career in the
0:47 – 0:49
electronics business and
0:49 – 0:53
launched a wine operation in
0:53 – 0:56
2003 here in Paso
0:56 – 0:57
Robles.
0:58 – 0:59
And so
0:59 – 1:00
my vineyard sits in the
1:00 – 1:01
mountains a
1:02 – 1:03
little bit west of the town of
1:03 – 1:04
Paso Robles. I
1:06 – 1:07
have 32 acres of grapes growing
1:07 – 1:09
on top of a pretty steep
1:09 – 1:10
mountainside.
1:12 – 1:13
and maybe a little bit of
1:13 – 1:15
context for Paso Robles.
1:15 – 1:17
It's a fairly extreme
1:17 – 1:19
Mediterranean climate, so it
1:19 – 1:20
rained a little bit over the
1:20 – 1:21
weekend, which was shocking.
1:21 – 1:22
I thought we were done a month
1:22 – 1:24
ago actually, but I have a
1:24 – 1:26
feeling we're now done and it
1:26 – 1:27
probably won't rain again until
1:27 – 1:28
Thanksgiving or so.
1:28 – 1:29
So we're in for a
1:30 – 1:32
very long dry spell and some
1:32 – 1:33
years we go without even seeing
1:33 – 1:34
a cloud for months on end.
1:36 – 1:38
Other aspects of the of the
1:38 – 1:39
vineyard that might be of
1:39 – 1:41
interest as we chat here is the
1:41 – 1:43
kind of the soil situation, the
1:45 – 1:47
Coast Range sits west of Paso.
1:47 – 1:49
So as you leave town, it rears
1:49 – 1:50
up,
1:50 – 1:52
I don't know, maybe 500,
1:52 – 1:54
800 feet or something like that.
1:54 – 1:56
And it's basically just faulted
1:56 – 1:58
sedimentary rock, some
1:58 – 1:59
limestone, some shale.
2:00 – 2:02
with a fairly shallow,
2:02 – 2:04
in my case, true loam, sometimes
2:04 – 2:05
clay,
2:07 – 2:07
topsoil.
2:10 – 2:12
And the other aspect of it is
2:12 – 2:13
extremely irregular.
2:14 – 2:14
You can
2:14 – 2:17
walk 10 feet and find yourself
2:17 – 2:18
in
2:18 – 2:20
a fairly different situation in
2:20 – 2:21
terms of the, mostly the
2:21 – 2:23
topsoil. It can be anywhere
2:23 – 2:24
from,
2:24 – 2:25
I don't know, you can bury a
2:25 – 2:27
probe in it easily, or you can
2:27 – 2:28
barely get six inches before you
2:28 – 2:29
hit a rock.
2:29 – 2:31
So that's kind of the general
2:31 – 2:33
picture of what's going on.
2:35 – 2:36
What different varieties of wine
2:36 – 2:37
grapes are you growing?
2:37 – 2:40
So I have focused on grapes that
2:40 – 2:42
are known as Rhone varieties.
2:42 – 2:43
They're named after the
2:44 – 2:45
Rhone River of France.
2:47 – 2:48
That's where Julius Caesar
2:48 – 2:51
marched in, you know, 2000 years
2:51 – 2:51
ago,
2:51 – 2:53
planted olives and grapes and
2:53 – 2:54
built a few aqueducts.
2:54 – 2:55
And
2:55 – 2:56
here we are today, those same
2:56 – 2:58
grapes are being grown.
3:00 – 3:01
Any particular varietal names
3:01 – 3:02
that people might recognize?
3:03 – 3:04
So the main ones that I have
3:04 – 3:06
planted are Syrah, Grenache and
3:06 – 3:07
Morved.
3:09 – 3:10
Morved is often unknown, but
3:10 – 3:12
that's a really, it's quite a
3:12 – 3:13
nice grape.
3:13 – 3:15
And we have several whites.
3:15 – 3:16
We grow Marsan, Roussan,
3:17 – 3:18
we grow Viognier,
3:19 – 3:21
Grenache Blanc, and Pequot
3:21 – 3:22
Blanc. So
3:23 – 3:24
we actually have nine different
3:24 – 3:25
varieties on our 32 acres.
3:26 – 3:27
Are you doing your own
3:27 – 3:28
winemaking as well?
3:29 – 3:29
I was.
3:30 – 3:32
For the first 13 years, I was
3:32 – 3:33
the winemaker, actually.
3:34 – 3:36
and very much less involved in
3:36 – 3:37
the actual growing side of
3:37 – 3:38
things.
3:39 – 3:40
In 2020,
3:41 – 3:43
I was joined by a young lady
3:43 – 3:44
that took over the winemaking
3:44 – 3:47
for me, and since the last five
3:47 – 3:49
or six years, I really focused
3:49 – 3:50
hard on the growing side.
3:51 – 3:52
Prior to that,
3:53 – 3:53
when we
3:54 – 3:56
planted, in 2003,
3:57 – 3:57
we worked with a vineyard
3:57 – 3:58
management company.
3:58 – 3:59
I was coming out of
3:59 – 4:01
the electronics business and I
4:02 – 4:03
was pretty clear that I didn't
4:03 – 4:04
know how to grow a darn thing
4:04 – 4:05
hardly.
4:05 – 4:07
And so they actually helped a
4:07 – 4:09
lot in terms of finding the site
4:09 – 4:10
and
4:09 – 4:11
getting the vineyard installed
4:11 – 4:12
and getting all the
4:11 – 4:13
infrastructure in place to
4:13 – 4:15
provide water and keep the deer
4:15 – 4:16
out and that kind of thing.
4:18 – 4:19
And then over time, we
4:19 – 4:20
collaborated more and more and
4:20 – 4:21
eventually brought
4:21 – 4:22
it in -house in
4:25 – 4:26
2017
4:27 – 4:29
and then in 2020, I moved in
4:29 – 4:31
pretty much full time working on
4:31 – 4:32
the vineyard side.
4:32 – 4:33
Yeah.
4:35 – 4:37
So how, how has your operation.
4:38 – 4:41
shifted over now almost 23 years
4:41 – 4:42
at this point.
4:42 – 4:44
Your management practices at the
4:44 – 4:45
beginning versus your management
4:45 – 4:46
practices now. How has that
4:46 – 4:47
whole dynamic evolved?
4:48 – 4:50
That's an interesting story,
4:50 – 4:52
John. It's kind of like the
4:52 – 4:54
bumbling of an unconscious
4:54 – 4:56
competent person, I would say.
4:57 – 5:00
How can an unconscious person be
5:00 – 5:01
competent?
5:01 – 5:02
Well, just by sheer luck, I
5:02 – 5:03
suppose.
5:04 – 5:06
Luck and maybe just thinking
5:06 – 5:07
about stuff and trying to
5:08 – 5:10
mimic what makes sense.
5:10 – 5:11
So yeah,
5:11 – 5:12
kind of the
5:12 – 5:15
chronology of the thing is the
5:15 – 5:16
property,
5:17 – 5:19
well, just back up a hair,
5:19 – 5:21
part of running a winery is that
5:21 – 5:23
you get to know people coming in
5:23 – 5:23
to purchase wine.
5:24 – 5:24
And
5:24 – 5:26
about a year ago, the sons of
5:26 – 5:28
the original owners of that
5:28 – 5:29
property came in, sons and
5:29 – 5:30
daughters. So I got to know them
5:30 – 5:31
and learn a
5:31 – 5:32
fair amount about what happened.
5:33 – 5:34
It's a pretty steep
5:34 – 5:34
mountainside.
5:35 – 5:36
It was cleared in the 20s,
5:36 – 5:37
1920s.
5:38 – 5:40
about 60 acres or so were
5:40 – 5:41
cleared,
5:41 – 5:42
so I still have about 80 acres
5:42 – 5:43
of
5:43 – 5:44
woods all around me.
5:46 – 5:48
And they used it for, they did
5:48 – 5:50
dry farm barley,
5:50 – 5:52
and they grazed some cattle on
5:52 – 5:54
it, and they had a walnut,
5:54 – 5:56
the dry farm walnut orchard.
5:56 – 5:58
But in around 1960 or so,
5:59 – 6:00
for whatever reason, the family
6:00 – 6:02
left the place, and it just
6:02 – 6:03
basically sat fallow for about
6:04 – 6:07
40 years before we appeared
6:07 – 6:09
on the scene. So we were
6:09 – 6:10
starting off with almost virgin
6:10 – 6:12
ground, if you think about it.
6:13 – 6:15
And so, what we did was, when we
6:15 – 6:16
first planted,
6:16 – 6:18
we were pursuing a conventional
6:18 – 6:19
sustainable type of agriculture.
6:21 – 6:23
And it's sort of the chronology.
6:23 – 6:24
Year one, 2005,
6:24 – 6:25
we planted. It took us
6:26 – 6:28
almost two years before we had
6:28 – 6:29
all the prep done.
6:31 – 6:32
In 2005,
6:32 – 6:34
in the fall, after the vines
6:34 – 6:36
were dormant, we went in and we
6:36 – 6:37
disked.
6:37 – 6:38
Well, maybe I should back up.
6:38 – 6:39
Before we planted, we actually
6:39 – 6:40
ripped
6:40 – 6:41
just the vine rows,
6:42 – 6:44
which turned out to be more of a
6:45 – 6:46
Let's see how many rocks we can
6:46 – 6:48
surface program than anything
6:48 – 6:48
else.
6:51 – 6:52
So that we did do that.
6:53 – 6:54
And then in 2005,
6:54 – 6:57
we cultivated every
6:57 – 6:58
other row and planted
6:59 – 7:02
a nice UC Davis cover crop
7:02 – 7:02
mixture.
7:03 – 7:04
And in 2006,
7:05 – 7:07
about July or so, I was talking
7:07 – 7:09
with the vineyard manager
7:09 – 7:11
gentleman, and we determined
7:11 – 7:12
that we couldn't tell which row
7:12 – 7:15
we had disced and planted the
7:15 – 7:15
previous year.
7:16 – 7:18
the native grasses that were so
7:18 – 7:19
self -selected to that site had
7:19 – 7:20
just taken over.
7:21 – 7:23
So, we stopped that.
7:23 – 7:24
So, that was our first kind of
7:24 – 7:26
unconscious competent move, is
7:26 – 7:27
we didn't till ever again.
7:29 – 7:30
That was one step.
7:32 – 7:34
Second step, the first couple of
7:34 – 7:35
years, we used an herbicide down
7:35 – 7:36
the vine row,
7:37 – 7:38
which probably makes sense.
7:38 – 7:40
And if you think about it, those
7:40 – 7:41
young vines are trying to
7:41 – 7:42
compete with a very voracious
7:43 – 7:44
native cover that's there.
7:45 – 7:47
But we stopped that after,
7:48 – 7:48
I don't know, two or three
7:48 – 7:50
years. I don't remember exactly.
7:50 – 7:51
Mostly just because,
7:52 – 7:53
well, I have herbicide around,
7:53 – 7:54
didn't we? It seemed like it
7:54 – 7:55
really wasn't necessary.
7:56 – 7:58
So, I think very early on,
7:59 – 8:00
just from common sense, we ended
8:00 – 8:02
up with a couple of really good
8:02 – 8:03
moves.
8:04 – 8:05
And
8:05 – 8:06
then it kind of drifted on from
8:06 – 8:07
there, actually.
8:15 – 8:16
2013,
8:16 – 8:17
we shifted.
8:17 – 8:19
When we first planted it, I had
8:19 – 8:21
two blocks that we farmed
8:21 – 8:21
organically.
8:22 – 8:23
I was kind of a newbie to the
8:23 – 8:25
scene. We were trying a little
8:25 – 8:26
bit of everything.
8:27 – 8:28
So two out of our 12 blocks were
8:28 – 8:30
organic. And around 2013, we
8:30 – 8:31
noticed that,
8:31 – 8:33
gosh, it seems just as easy to
8:33 – 8:35
farm those as it does these
8:35 – 8:35
other guys over here.
8:37 – 8:39
The main differences were we
8:40 – 8:41
were using some synthetic
8:41 – 8:44
fungicides on the non -organic
8:44 – 8:45
ones. So we just stopped doing
8:45 – 8:46
that.
8:46 – 8:48
And we had been doing some
8:48 – 8:49
synthetic fertilizing,
8:49 – 8:51
fertigation, and we stopped that
8:51 – 8:52
also.
8:53 – 8:54
Turned out,
8:54 – 8:55
given our climate, I don't
8:55 – 8:56
recommend it necessarily for
8:56 – 8:58
everybody, but we have this very
8:58 – 9:00
benign Mediterranean climate
9:00 – 9:01
here, very low pest pressure.
9:02 – 9:04
So suddenly we were organic
9:04 – 9:05
without really thinking about it
9:05 – 9:06
very much.
9:09 – 9:10
And then in
9:12 – 9:13
2017,
9:14 – 9:15
I
9:15 – 9:17
brought the management in house,
9:18 – 9:20
mostly because I felt like,
9:20 – 9:20
okay,
9:21 – 9:22
I could save a little money if I
9:22 – 9:24
do that, and I feel like I've
9:24 – 9:25
got enough knowledge that maybe
9:25 – 9:26
I could pull it off.
9:27 – 9:27
So we did that.
9:28 – 9:30
Well, it sounds like management
9:30 – 9:32
at that point was essentially
9:32 – 9:34
pruning management, because if
9:34 – 9:35
you weren't fertilizing, you
9:35 – 9:35
weren't tilling, you weren't
9:35 – 9:36
doing herbicides, you weren't
9:36 – 9:38
doing fungicides, I mean, what's
9:38 – 9:38
left?
9:38 – 9:40
Well, we were doing this.
9:40 – 9:41
We were just doing organic
9:41 – 9:42
versions of them.
9:43 – 9:44
The
9:43 – 9:46
mildew is for real.
9:46 – 9:48
To this day, we continue to
9:48 – 9:49
fight that. In fact, we're just
9:49 – 9:50
trying pinyon this year.
9:51 – 9:52
Hope we have our fingers crossed
9:52 – 9:53
on that one.
9:54 – 9:55
I'm actually kind of at the
9:55 – 9:56
stage where I don't have my
9:56 – 9:57
fingers crossed about pinyon.
9:58 – 9:59
My confidence level is pretty
9:59 – 9:59
high at this point.
10:00 – 10:01
Hallelujah.
10:00 – 10:01
I'm praying for you, buddy.
10:04 – 10:05
I would love that.
10:06 – 10:08
And we did organic fertigations
10:08 – 10:10
during those years as well,
10:10 – 10:11
which we continue to do to this
10:11 – 10:12
day.
10:13 – 10:14
But when we brought it in house,
10:17 – 10:18
a lot of times, you know,
10:18 – 10:19
people,
10:19 – 10:21
they start the season off with a
10:21 – 10:23
kind of a fertilizer shot.
10:23 – 10:25
And I skipped that part and I
10:25 – 10:26
waited until bloom time.
10:26 – 10:27
And then we did the leaf
10:27 – 10:28
samples. It's sort of the
10:28 – 10:31
traditional way of checking on
10:31 – 10:33
the nutrition and the vines seem
10:33 – 10:34
to be fine.
10:35 – 10:37
I basically pretty much stopped
10:37 – 10:38
fertilizing in general.
10:38 – 10:39
It just didn't seem to be
10:39 – 10:40
necessary at all.
10:43 – 10:44
We,
10:44 – 10:46
the other thing we did was, uh,
10:48 – 10:50
we, we had been mowing, uh, you
10:50 – 10:52
know, but in the mid rows and,
10:52 – 10:53
and like,
10:53 – 10:54
like good
10:54 – 10:56
traditional farmers, we mowed
10:56 – 10:58
low. We wanted to, you didn't
10:58 – 10:59
want those terrible weeds
10:59 – 10:59
growing out there.
11:00 – 11:01
Uh, we decided that wasn't such
11:01 – 11:03
a bad deal. So we basically
11:03 – 11:04
raised our mower as high as we
11:04 – 11:05
could get it. And
11:06 – 11:07
so we were mowing and leaving a
11:07 – 11:08
five or six inch.
11:09 – 11:11
stubble behind, which tended to
11:11 – 11:13
make it through pretty much this
11:13 – 11:13
season.
11:15 – 11:16
And
11:16 – 11:18
we transitioned to a weed knife.
11:18 – 11:20
It's a Clemens is the name of
11:20 – 11:22
the product. It goes, it sort of
11:22 – 11:24
articulates in and out under the
11:24 – 11:25
vines as you drive a tractor
11:25 – 11:26
along.
11:27 – 11:28
And we decided that we would
11:28 – 11:30
start putting compost on.
11:30 – 11:31
So, we did
11:32 – 11:34
three tons an acre for about
11:35 – 11:35
three years.
11:37 – 11:38
And at
11:39 – 11:40
some point I,
11:41 – 11:41
again,
11:42 – 11:43
reading and trying to figure
11:43 – 11:44
stuff out.
11:46 – 11:47
So here, I don't know if this is
11:47 – 11:48
right. I'm, I figure I'm talking
11:48 – 11:49
to the person who really knows,
11:50 – 11:51
but I'll give you my version of
11:51 – 11:52
this thing.
11:52 – 11:54
So I look at compost and I say,
11:54 – 11:57
okay, it's 60 % dormant microbes
11:57 – 11:58
and 40 % humus.
11:59 – 12:01
And I'm, I've got this spreader
12:01 – 12:02
and I'm spreading a very thin
12:02 – 12:03
layer of it and I'm unable to
12:03 – 12:04
really incorporate it.
12:04 – 12:06
And I'm doing it in the fall.
12:06 – 12:08
which may or may not get a rain
12:08 – 12:10
shortly thereafter, often not.
12:11 – 12:12
So I figured that
12:13 – 12:14
probably most of the microbes
12:14 – 12:16
were dead before because the
12:16 – 12:18
ultraviolet pounding down on
12:18 – 12:19
them. So I shifted over to
12:19 – 12:19
compost tea
12:20 – 12:23
and invested in a brewer and
12:23 – 12:25
started approaching an
12:26 – 12:27
irrigation is
12:28 – 12:30
not so much watering vines as
12:30 – 12:31
injecting goodies into the soil.
12:32 – 12:33
So that was kind of my MO.
12:35 – 12:36
So
12:37 – 12:38
that was the next step in the
12:38 – 12:39
evolution of things.
12:39 – 12:41
So we're down now to hardly ever
12:41 – 12:41
fertilizing.
12:44 – 12:45
organic mildew control and a
12:45 – 12:46
bunch of compost tea.
12:48 – 12:49
And the vines seem to be doing
12:49 – 12:50
great. The wines are good.
12:52 – 12:53
And then in 2020,
12:54 – 12:56
a young lady came aboard, took
12:56 – 12:57
over the winemaking,
12:57 – 12:58
and it freed me up.
12:58 – 12:59
And so I
12:59 – 13:00
started really getting
13:01 – 13:02
in there and causing a lot of
13:02 – 13:04
trouble on the vineyard side of
13:04 – 13:05
things.
13:04 – 13:05
One of the first things I did
13:05 – 13:07
was one of these total nutrition
13:07 – 13:08
tests.
13:09 – 13:10
I went to Regen
13:10 – 13:13
Ag Lab and got
13:13 – 13:15
back the information for what if
13:15 – 13:17
I really consumed all of the
13:17 – 13:19
nutrients available in my soil,
13:20 – 13:21
So I got these numbers, they're
13:21 – 13:23
huge, as you know, and I
13:24 – 13:25
found a paper out of Australia
13:25 – 13:26
where guys had figured out
13:27 – 13:29
if you took a ton of grapes out
13:29 – 13:30
of a vineyard, how many did you
13:30 – 13:31
consume of all these nutrients?
13:32 – 13:33
So by simply dividing,
13:34 – 13:36
you can determine how many years
13:36 – 13:37
of stuff you have in the soil.
13:37 – 13:39
And what I found was that the,
13:39 – 13:40
uh,
13:40 – 13:41
so the range was for potassium,
13:41 – 13:44
I had 644 years worth in my
13:44 – 13:45
soil.
13:45 – 13:47
And for iron, I had 7 .2 million
13:47 – 13:49
years worth. So I figured, okay,
13:49 – 13:50
it's
13:50 – 13:52
not necessary to put stuff in.
13:52 – 13:53
I just need to figure out how to
13:53 – 13:54
get it out of there.
13:54 – 13:54
That's, that's the.
13:55 – 13:57
And that was probably accounting
13:57 – 13:59
for what? The top six inches or
13:59 – 14:00
the top four inches of soil
14:00 – 14:01
profile?
14:01 – 14:02
Exactly. Six inches.
14:03 – 14:04
You got it. So, I mean, multiply
14:04 – 14:05
it out.
14:05 – 14:07
And how deep does a grapefruit
14:07 – 14:08
system go?
14:08 – 14:09
Well,
14:10 – 14:13
we just recently did a pit and I
14:13 – 14:14
found
14:14 – 14:15
roots as big as my little
14:15 – 14:17
finger, five feet down.
14:19 – 14:20
It's a little bit misleading in
14:20 – 14:21
the sense that at that point
14:21 – 14:22
they were in really rocky
14:22 – 14:24
material.
14:25 – 14:26
There was about where we were
14:26 – 14:27
digging was one of the more rich
14:27 – 14:28
spots, actually.
14:29 – 14:30
We had about two feet of really
14:30 – 14:32
nice topsoil. And then
14:32 – 14:34
after that, it sort of
14:34 – 14:36
looked almost like
14:37 – 14:38
small rocks about the size of
14:38 – 14:39
your fist that are kind of
14:39 – 14:41
jumbled together and roots able
14:41 – 14:42
to move down through them.
14:45 – 14:47
So, the last few years I've been
14:47 – 14:48
trying to figure out how do we
14:48 – 14:49
get these microbes working for
14:49 – 14:50
us?
14:50 – 14:51
We clearly have
14:52 – 14:53
everything we need.
14:55 – 14:56
And then about 22 is when I
14:56 – 14:58
discovered AEA, going
15:00 – 15:01
online and searching
15:02 – 15:03
and
15:04 – 15:05
I ended up talking to a lady
15:05 – 15:06
named Rachel. I don't know if
15:06 – 15:07
she's still around with you
15:07 – 15:08
guys. Oh, yeah.
15:08 – 15:09
Yeah. Rochelle's an important
15:09 – 15:10
part of our team.
15:10 – 15:10
Okay, Rochelle.
15:10 – 15:11
Okay. So
15:12 – 15:15
that's when you shifted from
15:15 – 15:17
unconscious competence to
15:17 – 15:18
conscious competence?
15:18 – 15:19
A little bit. I became a little
15:19 – 15:20
bit more conscious at that
15:20 – 15:21
point. Yeah.
15:22 – 15:23
Just a little bit.
15:23 – 15:24
Still working on that part.
15:25 – 15:26
So, at any rate, then we jumped
15:26 – 15:27
into this.
15:27 – 15:29
Pedro got involved and
15:30 – 15:32
started using sap analysis and
15:32 – 15:33
started to add the foliars,
15:33 – 15:34
which
15:34 – 15:35
was kind of an eye -opener,
15:35 – 15:37
really, to realize some of the
15:37 – 15:38
micros were still,
15:38 – 15:39
I needed, I need help there.
15:40 – 15:41
And we've
15:41 – 15:43
been, we've been after that.
15:43 – 15:43
And I also have
15:44 – 15:46
at that point decided, okay, I'm
15:46 – 15:47
going to increase the diversity
15:47 – 15:49
of my cover crop, which
15:51 – 15:52
I still haven't achieved that.
15:53 – 15:54
That's about four years later.
15:55 – 15:57
But I invested in a
15:57 – 15:59
no -till seed drill and
16:00 – 16:02
got to know the guys at Green
16:02 – 16:04
Cover and did all this analysis,
16:04 – 16:06
all these families of cover
16:07 – 16:08
that I was going to plant.
16:08 – 16:10
And I've studiously done so for
16:10 – 16:11
about four years.
16:11 – 16:12
And
16:12 – 16:14
so far, I've got very, very
16:14 – 16:16
little take. I guess 5 % or so
16:16 – 16:18
of those seeds actually have
16:18 – 16:18
survived.
16:19 – 16:20
Yeah.
16:20 – 16:21
Is that because of the vigor of
16:21 – 16:22
your native material?
16:23 – 16:23
Yeah.
16:24 – 16:25
I had some guys in just this
16:25 – 16:29
spring from the local branch of
16:29 – 16:31
the California Native Plant
16:31 – 16:33
Society or something to do
16:34 – 16:36
an inventory of what's going on
16:36 – 16:37
out there.
16:37 – 16:39
And it's remarkable the
16:39 – 16:40
diversity. They found 37
16:40 – 16:41
different species.
16:42 – 16:43
I don't know about families.
16:43 – 16:44
I haven't had time to figure
16:44 – 16:44
that out yet.
16:45 – 16:48
But the problem is that about
16:48 – 16:49
eight of those species
16:49 – 16:51
represented about 80 % of the
16:51 – 16:53
growth. And they were all
16:53 – 16:54
described as invasive European
16:54 – 16:55
grasses.
16:58 – 16:59
Invasiveness is in the eye of
16:59 – 17:00
the beholder, just to be clear.
17:01 – 17:02
Exactly right. And I think at
17:02 – 17:04
this point in time, it's a
17:04 – 17:05
done deal.
17:05 – 17:06
They're now native.
17:07 – 17:08
They dominate the area.
17:10 – 17:11
So that's
17:11 – 17:12
kind of where I'm at.
17:12 – 17:12
I've been
17:13 – 17:15
focused. What I've been doing is
17:15 – 17:16
trying to devote about half of
17:16 – 17:18
my year to focusing on the cover
17:18 – 17:18
crop
17:19 – 17:20
in about half the year.
17:20 – 17:21
year focusing on the vines.
17:22 – 17:24
And the dormant period is the
17:24 – 17:24
cover crop time.
17:25 – 17:25
So we've been doing
17:26 – 17:28
a lot of efforts to try and
17:28 – 17:29
increase the diversity by
17:29 – 17:30
planting in there.
17:30 – 17:32
And we've experimented quite a
17:32 – 17:33
bit with how we terminate them.
17:35 – 17:36
So what we're doing,
17:38 – 17:40
we purchased a mower that
17:40 – 17:42
articulates under the vines.
17:42 – 17:44
So we're able to
17:44 – 17:46
kind of sort of mow under the
17:46 – 17:47
vines. It's not super effective,
17:47 – 17:48
to be honest.
17:50 – 17:52
And I've been trying to crimp in
17:52 – 17:53
the middles,
17:54 – 17:55
and I'm
17:55 – 17:57
happy to report on my third try,
17:57 – 17:58
I think I actually got it.
17:59 – 18:02
The problem is that the site is
18:02 – 18:03
just droughty enough that
18:03 – 18:05
depending on the year, the cover
18:05 – 18:06
crop may or may not be very
18:06 – 18:08
high. Like for us, if it gets up
18:08 – 18:09
to our knees, we're pretty
18:09 – 18:10
excited about it.
18:12 – 18:13
And some years it's not that
18:13 – 18:14
high and the crimper doesn't
18:14 – 18:15
have much hope.
18:15 – 18:17
It just doesn't have enough stem
18:17 – 18:18
to work with.
18:18 – 18:19
But I found,
18:20 – 18:21
I kept,
18:21 – 18:22
I went through two different
18:22 – 18:23
crimper designs, and then this
18:23 – 18:24
year, finally, a little bit
18:24 – 18:26
different, like sharper blades,
18:26 – 18:27
so that they're,
18:28 – 18:29
they're not quite razor sharp,
18:29 – 18:30
but they're, they're a good,
18:30 – 18:31
they got a good edge on them,
18:31 – 18:32
and
18:32 – 18:33
seems to have worked, actually.
18:33 – 18:35
There's a few spots where it's,
18:35 – 18:36
the grass is short enough that
18:36 – 18:38
it really couldn't get a,
18:39 – 18:40
you know, get a bite on it, but
18:41 – 18:42
I don't really care, just gonna
18:42 – 18:43
leave it be.
18:44 – 18:45
So that's kind of,
18:45 – 18:46
yeah.
18:47 – 18:48
Yeah, you've been on an
18:48 – 18:49
interesting journey.
18:50 – 18:51
The,
18:52 – 18:53
That's interesting.
18:53 – 18:54
Can you hear a lot of background
18:54 – 18:55
noise on my end?
18:56 – 18:57
Seems every time it's
18:58 – 18:59
a pouring rain thunderstorm
18:59 – 19:01
outside my windows here.
19:01 – 19:02
Is that what's going on?
19:02 – 19:03
I hear occasionally.
19:04 – 19:05
I
19:08 – 19:11
want to dig deeper into the
19:11 – 19:13
compost tea applications.
19:13 – 19:14
If I followed your timeline
19:14 – 19:15
correctly, you had started the
19:15 – 19:17
compost tea applications for
19:18 – 19:20
several years before you started
19:20 – 19:21
working with AEA.
19:21 – 19:22
And I'm intrigued by,
19:23 – 19:25
I've been so impressed with some
19:25 – 19:26
of the things that I've observed
19:26 – 19:27
from biology.
19:27 – 19:29
And it seems to me like you had
19:29 – 19:30
lots of things going in your
19:30 – 19:31
ecosystem, in your environment.
19:31 – 19:33
You had some fairly decent soils
19:33 – 19:34
to work with, you've got rich
19:34 – 19:36
native species, you're doing the
19:36 – 19:37
compost tea.
19:37 – 19:39
So I'm curious to learn more
19:39 – 19:41
about what
19:43 – 19:44
A couple of areas.
19:44 – 19:46
One is how did you observe soil
19:46 – 19:47
health improving with the
19:47 – 19:49
compost tea applications before
19:49 – 19:51
and after? And then kind
19:51 – 19:52
of the follow on from that is
19:52 – 19:55
what nutritional imbalances
19:55 – 19:56
remained after those compost tea
19:56 – 19:57
applications?
19:58 – 19:59
OK,
20:00 – 20:00
well,
20:02 – 20:04
let me just add a little more
20:04 – 20:05
insight into that.
20:05 – 20:07
The learning that I had
20:07 – 20:10
at this event in January in
20:10 – 20:11
Scottsdale,
20:12 – 20:13
I was talking to the Hiawassee
20:13 – 20:14
people
20:15 – 20:16
and they had
20:16 – 20:17
worked with a
20:18 – 20:20
an outfit in Denver to actually
20:20 – 20:22
do the DNA analysis of
20:23 – 20:24
compost teas,
20:25 – 20:26
compost extracts, and then the
20:26 – 20:27
compost itself.
20:27 – 20:29
And it was super eye -opening to
20:29 – 20:30
me. It was probably the
20:30 – 20:32
biggest aha of that whole
20:32 – 20:32
meeting.
20:34 – 20:35
Basically,
20:35 – 20:36
the guy would,
20:37 – 20:39
he could pull the DNA of the
20:39 – 20:40
compost and find a very rich
20:40 – 20:42
environment of both microbe, of
20:42 – 20:44
fungi and bacteria.
20:45 – 20:48
And he'd pull the same analysis
20:48 – 20:50
of an extract and find almost
20:50 – 20:51
the same thing.
20:51 – 20:52
It still was very rich.
20:52 – 20:53
There were many, many, many
20:53 – 20:54
species there.
20:55 – 20:56
And then a compost tea where
20:56 – 20:58
you've allowed it to run for 24
20:58 – 20:59
hours or whatever, it was down
20:59 – 21:00
to like 12 species and they were
21:00 – 21:01
all bacteria.
21:02 – 21:04
It was like a shocker to me.
21:05 – 21:06
So I have,
21:06 – 21:07
starting this year, we're now,
21:08 – 21:09
we're doing extract.
21:09 – 21:10
We're no longer.
21:10 – 21:11
we don't run that brewer
21:11 – 21:12
overnight. We, we start it in
21:12 – 21:13
the morning for half an hour, an
21:13 – 21:15
hour, and then yeah.
21:16 – 21:16
So that's one thing,
21:18 – 21:20
uh, in terms of the actual soil
21:20 – 21:21
improvements and so forth,
21:23 – 21:24
it's interesting what's going
21:24 – 21:26
on. So if you, if you go out in
21:26 – 21:27
the woods and
21:28 – 21:29
pull a soil sample,
21:30 – 21:32
the numbers are, uh,
21:34 – 21:36
the pH out in the woods is 5 .9
21:36 – 21:38
and the organic matter is 8 .8%.
21:39 – 21:40
That's pretty good.
21:40 – 21:41
It's pretty good.
21:41 – 21:42
So, it's an oak woodland.
21:44 – 21:45
No one's touched it forever.
21:45 – 21:46
It's just been sitting there.
21:47 – 21:48
And if you pull the same numbers
21:48 – 21:50
on the vineyard,
21:51 – 21:52
the soil organic matter is
21:52 – 21:53
pretty decent.
21:53 – 21:54
I've done it in
21:54 – 21:56
multiple places and it ranges
21:56 – 21:59
between 5 .8 % and 6 .9%.
22:00 – 22:01
So, pretty reasonable soil
22:01 – 22:02
organic matter.
22:04 – 22:05
The kind
22:05 – 22:06
of the challenge I found though
22:06 – 22:08
is that the pH under my drippers
22:08 – 22:09
is seven and a half.
22:11 – 22:12
That has nothing to do with
22:12 – 22:13
water quality, does it?
22:14 – 22:15
I'm pretty sure that's what it
22:15 – 22:16
is.
22:16 – 22:18
Uh, whereas out in the, uh, in
22:18 – 22:19
the rows, it's more like
22:20 – 22:21
six, four or something like
22:21 – 22:23
that. It's still higher
22:23 – 22:24
than in the woods, but I figured
22:24 – 22:25
there's probably some acid in
22:25 – 22:26
those leaves or something out
22:26 – 22:27
there.
22:28 – 22:29
So
22:29 – 22:32
my current thoughts are
22:33 – 22:34
part of my problem.
22:34 – 22:35
Part of the problems I'm having
22:35 – 22:37
possibly with the micronutrients
22:37 – 22:38
in the SAP
22:39 – 22:41
is due to the fact that this pH
22:41 – 22:43
is pretty darn high under the
22:43 – 22:43
dripper area.
22:44 – 22:46
So I'm trying to tackle that
22:46 – 22:47
this year
22:48 – 22:49
and the.
22:50 – 22:52
The first approach I'm trying is
22:52 – 22:54
this. There's an outfit that
22:54 – 22:56
injects carbon dioxide into an
22:56 – 22:57
irrigation line
22:57 – 23:00
and creates carbonic acid, which
23:00 – 23:01
definitely lowers that pH
23:01 – 23:02
beautifully.
23:03 – 23:06
So I'm trying that and we'll
23:06 – 23:07
see, see where that takes us.
23:08 – 23:08
I still, I don't fully
23:08 – 23:09
understand the chemistry because
23:09 – 23:10
there's,
23:10 – 23:11
you get some carbon there, you
23:11 – 23:12
got some
23:12 – 23:13
protons there,
23:14 – 23:15
but you've also got carbonate.
23:15 – 23:16
So I don't know, I'm not sure.
23:17 – 23:18
You probably know better than I
23:18 – 23:18
do on that.
23:20 – 23:21
Yeah, the carbonic acid,
23:22 – 23:24
quite little I've seen so far,
23:24 – 23:25
has been a very nice performer.
23:26 – 23:28
And the biology seems to have,
23:29 – 23:30
not have the detrimental effect
23:30 – 23:31
on biology that some other acids
23:31 – 23:33
do as well. So that's a plus
23:33 – 23:33
also.
23:35 – 23:37
So I'm hoping that that will
23:37 – 23:37
take me forward.
23:39 – 23:40
And
23:40 – 23:42
so the areas that in terms of
23:42 – 23:43
nutrients that I'm working on
23:43 – 23:44
are I
23:44 – 23:46
need to get more calcium in the
23:46 – 23:47
program.
23:49 – 23:51
And I see that in my sap and
23:51 – 23:53
iron is the other one that we
23:53 – 23:55
tend to struggle with.
23:55 – 23:55
And
23:55 – 23:57
so at this point, whenever I do
23:57 – 23:59
a fertigation, I'm doing some
23:59 – 24:01
calcium along with it
24:01 – 24:04
and in our foliars as well.
24:05 – 24:07
Do you see calcium trending up
24:07 – 24:08
over the season?
24:09 – 24:10
We do. Absolutely.
24:10 – 24:12
We eventually get it there.
24:13 – 24:14
I'd like to have it be there on
24:15 – 24:16
day one.
24:16 – 24:18
Have you
24:19 – 24:20
played around with boron levels
24:20 – 24:21
at all?
24:22 – 24:23
We've monitored boron.
24:24 – 24:26
Again, looking at the sap, I
24:26 – 24:27
have been...
24:28 – 24:29
with the fertigation I'm doing
24:29 – 24:31
now, I'm using CalGard and I'm
24:31 – 24:34
using rebound boron in there.
24:36 – 24:37
But we've had the same...
24:37 – 24:39
the boron is another one that we
24:39 – 24:41
tend to build up over the season
24:41 – 24:42
and we eventually get there.
24:42 – 24:43
And
24:43 – 24:44
again, I'd like to get there
24:44 – 24:45
right away.
24:47 – 24:48
Do you have any perspective
24:48 – 24:50
given the depth of history that
24:50 – 24:52
you have on your soils with
24:52 – 24:55
having had them covered with
24:55 – 24:56
plant material for the long term
24:56 – 24:58
and the compost?
25:00 – 25:01
extracts that you've and the
25:01 – 25:02
teas that you've been applying.
25:02 – 25:04
Do you have any perspectives on
25:04 – 25:05
your soils fungal bacterial
25:05 – 25:07
ratios and what might have been
25:07 – 25:08
happening there?
25:08 – 25:10
Well, again, I don't have a heck
25:10 – 25:11
of a lot of history, but I do
25:11 – 25:13
have a snapshot anyway.
25:15 – 25:17
PLFA analysis is what I've got.
25:18 – 25:19
And so
25:21 – 25:23
the numbers are, let's see here.
25:25 – 25:27
In terms of bacteria, I have,
25:27 – 25:29
and they've measured nanograms
25:29 – 25:30
per gram for what that's worth.
25:31 – 25:33
So, I run about 1 ,700 on total
25:33 – 25:34
bacteria,
25:34 – 25:37
and on fungi, I run about 900.
25:39 – 25:40
So,
25:40 – 25:41
and the
25:41 – 25:44
herbuscular mycorrhizal are
25:44 – 25:46
about 200, and the saprophytic
25:46 – 25:47
are about
25:47 – 25:48
700.
25:50 – 25:51
So, that's sort of the picture.
25:51 – 25:52
I think it's reasonable,
25:52 – 25:53
although again,
25:54 – 25:56
You have some pretty, you have
25:56 – 25:57
some quite decent soil, high
25:57 – 25:58
organic matter, and you have
25:58 – 26:00
some very nice raw material
26:00 – 26:01
resources there to work with
26:01 – 26:02
that many people would probably
26:02 – 26:03
be envious of.
26:04 – 26:05
Yeah, I think it's pretty good
26:05 – 26:06
at this point.
26:08 – 26:10
I think I'm
26:10 – 26:12
shifting my focus back more to
26:12 – 26:13
the vines. I think the soil is
26:13 – 26:15
in pretty decent shape and
26:17 – 26:18
we're going to really get on
26:18 – 26:20
those saps and try and make sure
26:20 – 26:21
we get the vines happy.
26:23 – 26:25
How has your fruit quality and
26:25 – 26:27
wine quality and disease
26:27 – 26:28
resistance evolved over this
26:28 – 26:29
entire journey?
26:29 – 26:30
So far, we've spoken about your
26:30 – 26:31
soil, but what's been happening
26:31 – 26:32
with the plants?
26:32 – 26:34
Yes, it's really interesting.
26:37 – 26:39
The basic answer is nothing,
26:39 – 26:40
John.
26:42 – 26:43
With wine, you can look at
26:43 – 26:44
sensory
26:44 – 26:47
and starting in 2020, we added
26:47 – 26:48
the ability to measure
26:48 – 26:50
phenolics. So we can measure the
26:50 – 26:52
tannin levels and anthocyanins
26:52 – 26:53
in our wines.
26:53 – 26:54
And what we're finding is they
26:54 – 26:56
were good to start with and they
26:56 – 26:57
continue to be good.
26:58 – 26:59
So
27:00 – 27:03
again, there's time ahead.
27:03 – 27:05
We'll see just how it goes.
27:05 – 27:06
We have years left to
27:06 – 27:08
work on this thing, but
27:08 – 27:09
yeah,
27:10 – 27:11
it's kind of surprising really.
27:12 – 27:14
So as you've been on this
27:14 – 27:15
pathway,
27:16 – 27:18
this learning journey and trying
27:18 – 27:18
different things,
27:20 – 27:22
what produced the most
27:22 – 27:23
unexpected results?
27:24 – 27:25
What has surprised you?
27:27 – 27:28
Oh, that's a good question.
27:33 – 27:35
So since you self -describe as
27:35 – 27:36
having been subconscious or
27:36 – 27:37
unconscious for part of the
27:37 – 27:38
time, I figured something had to
27:38 – 27:39
wake you up at several points.
27:40 – 27:41
Yeah. I was going to say almost
27:41 – 27:42
everything is with my first
27:42 – 27:44
response to that question.
27:45 – 27:47
I was trying to prioritize them.
27:48 – 27:49
Okay. Which one was the most
27:49 – 27:49
surprising?
27:50 – 27:51
Uh,
27:51 – 27:54
the thing is sort of the, uh,
27:55 – 27:56
if I, if I just kind of reflect
27:56 – 27:58
on the great scheme of things,
27:58 – 27:59
uh,
28:00 – 28:00
in my lifetime,
28:02 – 28:03
there's been a, there's been
28:03 – 28:04
some really interesting stuff
28:04 – 28:05
happened.
28:06 – 28:08
So for example, DNA got
28:08 – 28:09
discovered. Somebody figured out
28:09 – 28:11
DNA and
28:12 – 28:12
figured out
28:13 – 28:15
how it works, how it makes, how
28:15 – 28:16
cells make proteins from it and
28:16 – 28:18
how to read the code and all of
28:18 – 28:19
that,
28:19 – 28:20
which has created this huge
28:20 – 28:21
biotech revolution that's going
28:21 – 28:22
on.
28:22 – 28:25
The transistor got invented and
28:25 – 28:26
that's created the whole
28:26 – 28:28
computer and AI and all of this
28:28 – 28:29
stuff.
28:31 – 28:33
of which I was a participant in
28:33 – 28:34
the early days and really loved.
28:35 – 28:36
But then more recently,
28:36 – 28:38
and I think hidden to the
28:38 – 28:40
population at this moment, is
28:40 – 28:41
this discovery of how plants
28:41 – 28:42
grow.
28:43 – 28:45
The idea of this kind of soil
28:45 – 28:47
food web, which I assume was new
28:47 – 28:49
in about 1980 or something like
28:49 – 28:50
that.
28:51 – 28:53
And then sort
28:54 – 28:56
of the liquid carbon pathway
28:56 – 28:59
stuff where the
28:59 – 29:00
mycorrhizal
29:01 – 29:03
fungi became more clearly
29:03 – 29:03
understood.
29:04 – 29:05
And then more recently, this
29:05 – 29:05
rhizophagy.
29:06 – 29:07
These are astounding
29:08 – 29:09
discoveries, actually.
29:10 – 29:11
They're astounding discoveries,
29:11 – 29:12
and they completely
29:13 – 29:15
up and on its head, the
29:15 – 29:17
historical practice of agronomy,
29:17 – 29:18
which has not been implemented
29:18 – 29:20
yet on a commercial scale.
29:21 – 29:21
Exactly.
29:22 – 29:24
I find it just fascinating as
29:24 – 29:25
hell to be involved in this
29:25 – 29:27
right now. It's very lucky to be
29:27 – 29:28
alive at this moment in time
29:29 – 29:30
to see how it's going to
29:30 – 29:31
proceed.
29:32 – 29:33
And I think there's more to
29:33 – 29:34
learn. I have a feeling also
29:34 – 29:35
that some of these
29:35 – 29:37
rhizophagia ideas are going to
29:37 – 29:38
find their way back into the
29:38 – 29:40
biotech world, that maybe
29:40 – 29:41
there's some human stuff
29:41 – 29:43
that might be related in some
29:43 – 29:44
way to that whole microbiome
29:44 – 29:45
interaction with
29:46 – 29:49
organism cells and somehow, I
29:49 – 29:50
wouldn't be surprised if we
29:50 – 29:51
don't find something along those
29:51 – 29:52
lines.
29:52 – 29:54
Well, it's interesting actually,
29:54 – 29:56
when I, this is going back 15
29:56 – 29:57
years ago, maybe longer, but
29:57 – 29:59
when I was first studying the
30:00 – 30:02
process of endocytosis, there
30:02 – 30:05
was a historical book, I forget
30:05 – 30:06
exactly when it was published,
30:06 – 30:07
if I had to throw a dart at the
30:07 – 30:08
dart board, I'd say somewhere in
30:08 – 30:10
the 1980s or late 70s,
30:11 – 30:13
It was titled The Organic Method
30:13 – 30:14
Primer.
30:14 – 30:16
It was a husband and wife team
30:16 – 30:17
out of California that wrote it.
30:18 – 30:21
And they first wrote about the
30:21 – 30:23
process of endocytosis of
30:23 – 30:24
plants,
30:24 – 30:27
of plant cells absorbing entire
30:27 – 30:28
bacterial cells.
30:28 – 30:29
And they had some images in that
30:29 – 30:30
book of
30:30 – 30:32
underneath the microscope
30:32 – 30:33
documenting this process.
30:34 – 30:35
Wow.
30:34 – 30:35
And come to find out
30:36 – 30:38
that process is
30:39 – 30:41
well understood and well
30:41 – 30:43
established in human cell
30:43 – 30:44
biology and animal cell biology.
30:45 – 30:47
it never got transferred to
30:47 – 30:47
plants.
30:48 – 30:49
And now we're discovering things
30:49 – 30:51
in plants that, as you said, I
30:51 – 30:53
think are going to come back
30:53 – 30:55
into cellular
30:55 – 30:57
biology more broadly as well.
30:58 – 30:59
Yeah.
31:00 – 31:02
It's a good thing to be alive as
31:02 – 31:03
far as this kind of stuff goes.
31:08 – 31:09
Yeah. So those were some of the
31:09 – 31:10
things that have surprised you.
31:10 – 31:12
What about experiences out in
31:12 – 31:13
the field?
31:14 – 31:15
What have been some observations
31:15 – 31:16
or experiences there that were
31:16 – 31:17
unexpected?
31:20 – 31:20
Well,
31:20 – 31:21
one
31:24 – 31:26
thing that pops to mind is just
31:26 – 31:28
in terms of viticulture,
31:30 – 31:31
one of the
31:31 – 31:34
areas that people go around on
31:34 – 31:35
is the undervine
31:38 – 31:39
tending, I guess, to
31:39 – 31:40
pick a word.
31:44 – 31:46
In my particular situation, that
31:46 – 31:47
native cover comes up like
31:47 – 31:49
crazy, and it's growing right
31:49 – 31:50
under the vines.
31:50 – 31:51
And there's a tendency
31:53 – 31:55
for people to say,
31:55 – 31:57
gosh, the competition there is
31:57 – 31:58
really tough. You've got to get
31:58 – 31:58
it out of there.
32:00 – 32:01
And I'm kind of an observation
32:01 – 32:02
that I don't think I have to,
32:03 – 32:04
that the vines are rooted much,
32:04 – 32:05
much deeper
32:05 – 32:07
than that cover crop.
32:07 – 32:08
Plus you have all of the sort of
32:08 – 32:10
indirect evidence that cover
32:10 – 32:11
crops can help on some of these
32:11 – 32:12
situations.
32:15 – 32:17
So that's one area that I puzzle
32:17 – 32:18
about.
32:18 – 32:20
I think my observation is that
32:20 – 32:22
the real problem with it is just
32:22 – 32:25
annoying the crews that are
32:25 – 32:26
working those vines.
32:26 – 32:28
If it gets too fuzzy in there,
32:29 – 32:30
if you get grasses and stuff
32:30 – 32:31
that are growing all the way up
32:31 – 32:32
into the canopy,
32:33 – 32:35
it impedes their ability to
32:36 – 32:38
fruit thin and shoot thin and
32:38 – 32:39
this sort of thing.
32:39 – 32:41
But in terms of just the actual
32:41 – 32:43
growing of the vine, I don't
32:43 – 32:44
think it's a problem.
32:44 – 32:45
So that's one area.
32:48 – 32:49
When we look at what is
32:49 – 32:50
happening in agriculture
32:50 – 32:51
generally,
32:51 – 32:53
I mean, it's been true for
32:53 – 32:54
several years that the general
32:54 – 32:56
ag macroeconomy has really been
32:56 – 32:57
struggling.
32:58 – 32:59
And something
32:59 – 33:01
similar is happening in wine
33:01 – 33:02
grapes as well, where
33:02 – 33:03
consumption is declining
33:03 – 33:05
dramatically, not just
33:05 – 33:06
domestically, but globally.
33:06 – 33:08
Wine consumption is on a very
33:09 – 33:11
dramatic downward decline, it
33:11 – 33:12
seems.
33:13 – 33:15
How do you see the future
33:15 – 33:17
evolving both in wine industry
33:17 – 33:19
more generally and for your
33:19 – 33:20
operation specifically?
33:20 – 33:22
So that's a really interesting
33:22 – 33:23
question. You're right about
33:23 – 33:24
that.
33:25 – 33:26
The wine industry is really,
33:28 – 33:29
the history is kind of
33:29 – 33:31
interesting. My perspective on
33:31 – 33:31
the history,
33:32 – 33:33
I just had a cat jump down from
33:33 – 33:35
the bookcase to the floor behind
33:35 – 33:36
me there.
33:38 – 33:39
If you go back,
33:40 – 33:41
The prohibition pretty much
33:41 – 33:43
knocked out the, the, uh, the
33:43 – 33:44
wine business, at least in
33:44 – 33:46
America. And there was a very
33:46 – 33:49
slow recovery after that.
33:49 – 33:50
It sort of drifted back,
33:51 – 33:54
uh, starting in around 1970 or
33:54 – 33:55
so Robert Mondavi and the Napa
33:55 – 33:57
Valley really kind of began to
33:58 – 34:00
seem to push and move that
34:00 – 34:00
forward,
34:01 – 34:04
uh, and, uh, made some progress.
34:04 – 34:05
But in the eighties, the mothers
34:05 – 34:06
against drunk driving, remember
34:06 – 34:07
that mad,
34:08 – 34:10
they put the kibosh on a lot of
34:10 – 34:11
that growth. And so the wine
34:11 – 34:12
industry again was pretty
34:12 – 34:14
stagnant and not moving a lot.
34:14 – 34:15
And then you
34:16 – 34:18
can actually set your watch to
34:18 – 34:19
the moment where it turned
34:19 – 34:20
around.
34:20 – 34:21
It was a
34:22 – 34:24
60 minutes episode in about 1991
34:24 – 34:25
or 92.
34:26 – 34:27
It was called the French
34:27 – 34:28
Paradox.
34:28 – 34:30
And they did a half an hour of
34:31 – 34:33
going over to France and showing
34:33 – 34:34
these people eating all these
34:34 – 34:35
fatty foods.
34:35 – 34:36
and
34:36 – 34:38
pasta and wine.
34:40 – 34:41
And then they
34:42 – 34:44
quoted the stats about
34:44 – 34:47
the cardiovascular disease
34:47 – 34:49
rates being way lower, longer
34:49 – 34:50
lives, et cetera, et cetera.
34:50 – 34:51
And then at the end, they sort
34:51 – 34:52
of popped the surprise.
34:53 – 34:53
And guess what?
34:53 – 34:55
There was a glass of red wine
34:55 – 34:56
sitting on every one of those
34:56 – 34:57
tables that you saw earlier.
34:58 – 35:00
And at that moment, the US wine
35:00 – 35:01
industry took off.
35:01 – 35:02
If you could plot it, you would
35:02 – 35:04
see an inflection point.
35:05 – 35:06
And it maintained that growth
35:06 – 35:07
rate growing, I don't know, 7 %
35:07 – 35:11
to 10 % a year until 2019.
35:12 – 35:14
So we basically have a 30 -year
35:14 – 35:16
span of uninterrupted growth.
35:16 – 35:17
And we have an industry
35:18 – 35:20
that almost everybody that works
35:20 – 35:22
in it has never experienced a
35:22 – 35:23
downturn.
35:23 – 35:24
So
35:23 – 35:25
it comes as kind of a rude
35:25 – 35:25
shock.
35:26 – 35:28
In retrospect, it peaked in
35:28 – 35:29
2019.
35:30 – 35:32
But then COVID came along and
35:32 – 35:33
there was a
35:34 – 35:36
natural spike again.
35:36 – 35:37
2020 was a great year because
35:37 – 35:39
most people were sitting at home
35:39 – 35:39
and
35:39 – 35:41
having wine delivered to their,
35:41 – 35:43
to their front doorstep.
35:43 – 35:45
So 20 and 21 seemed pretty good.
35:46 – 35:47
Then in 22, it began to revert
35:47 – 35:49
back to more normal.
35:49 – 35:50
And suddenly we
35:51 – 35:52
discovered that actually the
35:52 – 35:54
industry peaked in 2019 and
35:54 – 35:55
there was never catching up.
35:56 – 35:57
So there has been some hard
35:57 – 35:58
years
35:58 – 35:59
and it is shrinking.
36:00 – 36:01
So that's kind of the history,
36:01 – 36:03
but now looking ahead, where are
36:03 – 36:04
we going to go?
36:05 – 36:06
Who knows?
36:08 – 36:10
That's one thing about time is
36:10 – 36:11
you can look back and you can't
36:11 – 36:12
change anything and you can look
36:12 – 36:13
ahead and you don't have any
36:13 – 36:14
idea what the hell's coming.
36:15 – 36:15
So
36:15 – 36:18
with that in mind, we can
36:18 – 36:19
prognosticate to our heart's
36:19 – 36:20
content.
36:21 – 36:22
Personally, I think
36:23 – 36:26
to me, wine is not just alcohol.
36:26 – 36:27
It's not something you drink in
36:27 – 36:29
order to achieve a
36:29 – 36:31
level of drunkenness or
36:31 – 36:32
whatever. It's a social
36:33 – 36:35
beverage. It's intended to be
36:35 – 36:37
enjoyed with food and people and
36:37 – 36:38
friends.
36:39 – 36:40
It serves a minor
36:40 – 36:43
purpose of lubricating the
36:43 – 36:43
social interaction.
36:45 – 36:46
At the appropriate level, it's
36:46 – 36:48
wonderful. I personally feel
36:48 – 36:49
like there's probably some
36:49 – 36:50
health benefits
36:51 – 36:53
with reasonable consumption.
36:56 – 36:57
I have confidence that we'll
36:57 – 36:59
come back. I don't anticipate
36:59 – 37:00
it's going to be real fast or
37:00 – 37:01
anything like that,
37:01 – 37:03
but the fundamentals of human
37:03 – 37:04
life don't really change.
37:04 – 37:05
Having friends and
37:06 – 37:08
enjoying a meal, these are
37:08 – 37:09
things that
37:09 – 37:10
will not change.
37:10 – 37:11
They've been around since,
37:12 – 37:13
I don't know, Julius Caesar or
37:13 – 37:15
somebody, you know, goes back.
37:16 – 37:18
So my personal approach is to
37:19 – 37:20
stay the course,
37:20 – 37:21
try
37:21 – 37:22
and really focus on
37:25 – 37:26
growing
37:26 – 37:28
the healthiest, most nutrient
37:28 – 37:30
-dense grapes I can possibly do,
37:30 – 37:32
and making the greatest wine I
37:32 – 37:32
can out of them,
37:33 – 37:34
keeping it at a reasonable
37:34 – 37:35
price, and
37:36 – 37:38
build it and they will come.
37:38 – 37:39
So, yeah,
37:39 – 37:40
probably not going to win me any
37:40 – 37:42
marketing prizes, but that's my
37:42 – 37:43
view.
37:43 – 37:45
Well, I think your comments
37:45 – 37:46
speak to differentiation.
37:47 – 37:48
It's a simple question.
37:48 – 37:50
If you have greater production
37:50 – 37:52
and greater supply than you have
37:52 – 37:54
demand, how do you differentiate
37:54 – 37:55
in that environment?
37:57 – 37:59
Exactly, and I can tell you that
37:59 – 38:01
the regen ag is going to be big.
38:01 – 38:02
I'm sure you've already noticed
38:02 – 38:03
that.
38:04 – 38:05
Yeah, I think everything,
38:06 – 38:08
all the indicators point to wine
38:08 – 38:11
grapes being the leader in
38:11 – 38:13
implementing and adopting regen
38:13 – 38:16
ag on scale to the point where
38:16 – 38:19
it could rapidly grow to be a
38:19 – 38:20
significant proportion of the
38:20 – 38:21
overall production.
38:21 – 38:23
Oh yeah, I expect it will, John.
38:24 – 38:26
The wine industry is,
38:26 – 38:27
the way I think about it, is
38:27 – 38:28
kind of at the top of the,
38:29 – 38:30
near the top of the agricultural
38:30 – 38:31
pyramid in terms of
38:32 – 38:33
dollars per acre or something
38:33 – 38:34
like that.
38:34 – 38:36
And it is typically
38:36 – 38:38
vertically integrated in the
38:38 – 38:40
sense that,
38:41 – 38:42
like in my case, most of my
38:42 – 38:44
grapes I sell to myself and I
38:44 – 38:46
make wine out of them and then I
38:46 – 38:46
sell that wine.
38:46 – 38:47
So I have a
38:48 – 38:49
I don't have to go through a
38:49 – 38:52
broker or some cooperative or
38:52 – 38:53
something like that, which,
38:54 – 38:56
and there's also a plethora of
38:56 – 38:58
marketing people associated with
38:58 – 38:59
the wine industry.
38:59 – 39:00
If you go into these big,
39:01 – 39:02
the larger corporations,
39:04 – 39:05
I would guess they have more
39:05 – 39:06
marketing people than anything
39:06 – 39:07
else. Uh,
39:07 – 39:09
and they are looking for an edge
39:09 – 39:12
and regen ag. It just, it's a
39:12 – 39:14
bright shining star and you can
39:14 – 39:15
bet there will be a mad rush to
39:16 – 39:18
implement that and to exploit it
39:18 – 39:18
in the marketplace.
39:19 – 39:19
So
39:19 – 39:20
you guys are going to do well.
39:21 – 39:22
Your timing is excellent.
39:24 – 39:25
Well, we were there before the
39:25 – 39:26
timing was excellent.
39:26 – 39:27
Yeah, exactly.
39:27 – 39:28
That's why.
39:30 – 39:31
Yeah.
39:32 – 39:32
Yeah, it's certainly an
39:32 – 39:33
interesting time.
39:33 – 39:35
And I think your
39:36 – 39:38
comments about vertical
39:38 – 39:39
integration and value adding,
39:39 – 39:41
they're kind of inherent within
39:41 – 39:41
winemaking.
39:42 – 39:43
There's the grape growing and
39:43 – 39:44
then there's the winemaking.
39:45 – 39:46
It's kind of,
39:46 – 39:48
there's that inherent close
39:48 – 39:49
connection because you have this
39:49 – 39:50
very short life.
39:50 – 39:51
You don't have something that's
39:51 – 39:51
storable.
39:52 – 39:54
And when I look at the rest of
39:54 – 39:55
the agricultural landscape, so
39:55 – 39:56
many of the other things that we
39:56 – 39:58
produce, a majority of them are
39:59 – 40:01
commodities or quasi commodities
40:01 – 40:02
that can be stored.
40:02 – 40:04
And we've disassociated the
40:05 – 40:06
production from the value
40:06 – 40:07
adding.
40:07 – 40:08
That's correct.
40:08 – 40:10
And I think that if you're on
40:10 – 40:11
the farmer's end of that, you're
40:11 – 40:12
you've got a big challenge.
40:13 – 40:13
It's,
40:14 – 40:15
you know, the value chain,
40:16 – 40:17
when the
40:17 – 40:19
way it works in a value chain is
40:19 – 40:20
the person closest to you actual
40:20 – 40:21
consumer
40:21 – 40:23
is who makes the most margin.
40:23 – 40:24
And,
40:24 – 40:25
uh, when there's a,
40:25 – 40:27
when there's an inventory issue,
40:27 – 40:29
it ripples back and it whipsaws
40:29 – 40:31
the guys at the very front end
40:31 – 40:32
of it. So the
40:32 – 40:34
farmer is probably in that
40:34 – 40:35
situation.
40:35 – 40:36
Wine is pretty lucky that
40:36 – 40:38
although there are still quite a
40:38 – 40:39
number of,
40:39 – 40:40
of guys that are
40:41 – 40:43
just growers that are seeking to
40:43 – 40:45
sell grapes to another wine
40:45 – 40:46
company.
40:46 – 40:48
and they're, I'm sure, under
40:48 – 40:49
intense pressure right now.
40:51 – 40:52
Yeah,
40:53 – 40:55
I'm
40:55 – 40:57
just realizing, I feel like we
40:57 – 40:58
didn't quite finish up on the
40:58 – 41:01
plant population, or excuse me,
41:01 – 41:03
on the plant conversation of how
41:03 – 41:05
are your plants evolving and how
41:05 – 41:08
are they expressing themselves
41:08 – 41:09
differently than they have in
41:09 – 41:10
the past in any way.
41:10 – 41:12
You started by
41:12 – 41:14
responding to some of the things
41:14 – 41:15
that you've
41:16 – 41:17
been surprised by, such as
41:17 – 41:19
rhizophagia and so forth, but
41:19 – 41:21
I'd love to dig more into
41:22 – 41:23
the infield application of how
41:23 – 41:24
things might have changed.
41:27 – 41:27
So,
41:28 – 41:29
you're thinking sort of in terms
41:29 – 41:31
of how the vines are behaving
41:31 – 41:32
differently now, possibly?
41:33 – 41:34
A combination of how the vines
41:34 – 41:36
are behaving differently and how
41:36 – 41:37
your management of the vines is
41:37 – 41:38
different, if it is at all.
41:40 – 41:41
So,
41:41 – 41:42
I
41:43 – 41:44
don't want to give the
41:43 – 41:45
impression that the vineyard is
41:45 – 41:47
just pristine. I've got plenty
41:47 – 41:49
of challenges. I have, there
41:50 – 41:51
is trunk disease out there that
41:51 – 41:53
comes from, you know, long ago
41:53 – 41:55
fungal infections that have
41:55 – 41:56
gotten
41:56 – 41:57
in through a pruning wound
41:57 – 41:58
somewhere.
41:58 – 42:00
So we're constantly fighting
42:00 – 42:02
that and we continue to
42:03 – 42:04
work
42:05 – 42:07
on trying to do better on our
42:07 – 42:08
mildew.
42:08 – 42:09
But just generally speaking,
42:09 – 42:12
what I have observed is that
42:15 – 42:16
the vines are happy.
42:17 – 42:18
Maybe
42:20 – 42:22
the way I would think about it
42:22 – 42:23
is you can drive around and look
42:23 – 42:25
at vineyards and occasionally
42:25 – 42:26
you'll see a vineyard that's got
42:26 – 42:27
that
42:27 – 42:30
beautiful bare dirt everywhere.
42:30 – 42:31
And if you look at the vines,
42:31 – 42:33
they just look forlorn.
42:34 – 42:36
They just look sad out there.
42:36 – 42:38
They look weathered.
42:38 – 42:39
The shoot lengths are a little
42:39 – 42:40
shorter.
42:41 – 42:42
They just don't look very perky,
42:43 – 42:45
whereas if you look at my
42:45 – 42:46
vineyard, you have the opposite.
42:47 – 42:48
You've got this terribly shaggy
42:49 – 42:51
ground cover situation,
42:51 – 42:53
but the vines, they feel, they
42:53 – 42:54
look happy, you know, they look
42:54 – 42:55
like their
42:57 – 43:00
shoots, the shoots are solid and
43:00 – 43:01
yeah,
43:02 – 43:03
so that I observed.
43:03 – 43:04
But as far as kind of really
43:04 – 43:06
doing something different on the
43:06 – 43:07
viticulture,
43:07 – 43:08
there's not a lot.
43:08 – 43:09
Vines are,
43:10 – 43:11
they're pretty straightforward.
43:11 – 43:12
They love to grow.
43:14 – 43:15
I think if you just,
43:16 – 43:17
give them a little bit of water
43:17 – 43:17
and give them a little bit of
43:17 – 43:18
nutrition, they're going to be
43:18 – 43:20
happy. And you have more problem
43:20 – 43:21
trying to deal with excess
43:21 – 43:22
growth than
43:22 – 43:24
you do with trying
43:24 – 43:25
to nurse them along, trying to
43:25 – 43:26
get them to grow more.
43:27 – 43:27
Yeah.
43:28 – 43:30
How have... It's been several
43:30 – 43:31
years now, I think, that you've
43:31 – 43:32
been using the foliar
43:32 – 43:33
applications. What does your
43:33 – 43:34
foliar application frequency and
43:34 – 43:35
timing look like?
43:35 – 43:36
And how has
43:37 – 43:38
that made any observable
43:38 – 43:39
improvements for you?
43:40 – 43:40
So,
43:41 – 43:42
we basically
43:43 – 43:45
have been adding foliars in with
43:45 – 43:46
our mildew sprays.
43:46 – 43:47
It's been the approach to it.
43:48 – 43:50
And with an organic approach,
43:50 – 43:51
you have to spray more often.
43:51 – 43:52
That's probably one of the
43:52 – 43:53
downsides
43:53 – 43:55
of organic chemistry.
43:57 – 43:58
So, we run about every 10 to 12
43:58 – 44:00
days, we go through and spray.
44:01 – 44:02
And we've been adding
44:03 – 44:05
the micronutrients primarily to
44:05 – 44:07
those sprays based on a SAP
44:07 – 44:08
analysis. And we try
44:09 – 44:09
and
44:10 – 44:13
that sap analysis so that we get
44:13 – 44:15
it after the last spray and
44:15 – 44:16
we'll
44:17 – 44:18
probably,
44:18 – 44:21
the approach is we spray,
44:21 – 44:22
give it four or five days, pull
44:22 – 44:24
a sap analysis, then there's
44:24 – 44:25
another spray without any new
44:25 – 44:26
knowledge and then the next
44:26 – 44:28
spray after that we have new
44:28 – 44:28
knowledge and
44:29 – 44:30
we adjust our foliars
44:30 – 44:31
accordingly.
44:33 – 44:34
And thus far,
44:35 – 44:37
It's still, each year we've had
44:37 – 44:38
to work at it.
44:39 – 44:41
When we start off, what we find
44:41 – 44:42
with our sap is that certain
44:42 – 44:43
micronutrients are
44:43 – 44:44
deficient.
44:46 – 44:48
You know, the macros, calcium is
44:48 – 44:50
often a problem.
44:50 – 44:52
And we work through the year,
44:52 – 44:53
and typically by the time we get
44:53 – 44:54
to veraison,
44:55 – 44:56
we've got everything pretty much
44:56 – 44:57
where we want it.
44:57 – 44:58
So that has been
44:58 – 45:00
the theme thus far,
45:00 – 45:02
and obviously
45:02 – 45:04
the goal is to try and get that
45:04 – 45:04
very first
45:05 – 45:06
sap analysis to be where we want
45:06 – 45:07
it.
45:12 – 45:13
So I have a question for you,
45:13 – 45:14
John.
45:16 – 45:18
There's some very good wines
45:18 – 45:20
that are made from dry farmed
45:20 – 45:23
vineyards and oftentimes very
45:24 – 45:25
old vines.
45:25 – 45:27
And the typical situation there
45:27 – 45:28
is that they're
45:29 – 45:32
widely spaced, maybe 10 feet by
45:32 – 45:34
10 feet or 12 feet by 12 feet.
45:35 – 45:36
They're
45:37 – 45:39
typically grown in
45:39 – 45:41
clay, is what I have observed,
45:41 – 45:42
something that has a little
45:42 – 45:45
higher water retaining in it.
45:48 – 45:49
Again, since I don't farm that
45:49 – 45:50
way, I'm not an expert, but
45:50 – 45:51
here's what I see.
45:53 – 45:55
Typically, the guys have either
45:55 – 45:57
a native cover crop, or in the
45:57 – 45:58
more recent years, I've noticed
45:58 – 45:59
they're starting to plant a
46:00 – 46:01
cover crop.
46:01 – 46:03
They let it grow until
46:03 – 46:05
just before bud time.
46:05 – 46:06
and then they
46:06 – 46:07
till it under.
46:08 – 46:09
And they till it dramatically.
46:10 – 46:12
They till X
46:12 – 46:13
and Y,
46:13 – 46:14
and they till deep.
46:14 – 46:15
And the idea is to create what
46:15 – 46:17
they call a dust mulch
46:17 – 46:19
that's like six or eight inches
46:19 – 46:19
deep.
46:20 – 46:23
And those vines seem to do just
46:23 – 46:24
fine and make really, really
46:24 – 46:25
good vines.
46:26 – 46:26
And yet,
46:26 – 46:28
from my perspective, it seems
46:28 – 46:30
like they've pretty well erased
46:30 – 46:32
any soil biology in that top
46:32 – 46:33
foot or so.
46:33 – 46:35
Curious for your thoughts on how
46:35 – 46:36
that system works.
46:39 – 46:40
That's intriguing.
46:40 – 46:41
I have a few thoughts around
46:41 – 46:42
that. I would tend to agree with
46:42 – 46:44
your assessment that
46:45 – 46:47
they've really destroyed much of
46:47 – 46:48
what is left of any living
46:48 – 46:50
system in that upper profile.
46:51 – 46:52
Obviously, the plant roots are a
46:52 – 46:53
lot deeper than that, and
46:53 – 46:54
they're getting moisture a lot
46:54 – 46:55
deeper than that.
46:57 – 46:58
It would be interesting to know
46:58 – 47:00
how that system might operate
47:00 – 47:01
without that dust mulch.
47:02 – 47:03
But you know,
47:04 – 47:05
Bob Quinn first pointed
47:05 – 47:06
something out to me.
47:06 – 47:07
I had him in here on the podcast
47:07 – 47:08
years ago.
47:09 – 47:12
a longtime leader in the organic
47:12 – 47:13
farming space out of Montana.
47:14 – 47:16
And he's growing crops that
47:16 – 47:18
supposedly he's in a dry land,
47:19 – 47:20
arid environment.
47:21 – 47:22
If my memory serves me
47:22 – 47:23
correctly, I want to say 10 to
47:23 – 47:24
12 inches of rainfall a year,
47:24 – 47:26
maybe a bit more than that, but
47:26 – 47:26
not much more.
47:28 – 47:30
And he's
47:30 – 47:32
growing watermelons in that
47:32 – 47:33
environment and he's growing
47:33 – 47:34
potatoes and he's growing a
47:34 – 47:36
variety of crops that supposedly
47:36 – 47:37
you wouldn't be able to grow in
47:37 – 47:38
that environment because of
47:38 – 47:39
inadequate moisture.
47:40 – 47:42
And his solution was spacing.
47:43 – 47:45
He said he just spaces the
47:45 – 47:46
plants farther apart.
47:47 – 47:49
So he's thinking of it in terms
47:49 – 47:50
of
47:50 – 47:52
plant spacing relative to
47:52 – 47:53
moisture requirements.
47:53 – 47:56
That if a watermelon plant is
47:56 – 47:59
planted two feet apart in a 40
47:59 – 48:00
-inch rainfall environment, He's
48:00 – 48:01
planting them eight inches apart
48:01 – 48:02
in a 10 -inch rainfall
48:02 – 48:03
environment, and
48:04 – 48:05
he's able to produce the same
48:05 – 48:06
yields because he's essentially
48:06 – 48:08
giving those plant root systems
48:08 – 48:10
access to much larger soil
48:10 – 48:12
volume to absorb more water.
48:13 – 48:15
So I found that idea pretty
48:15 – 48:16
intriguing, and that kind of
48:16 – 48:18
aligns with your idea of plant
48:18 – 48:19
spacing.
48:20 – 48:22
Now what is interesting, I
48:22 – 48:23
don't know about in your
48:23 – 48:25
context, but in
48:28 – 48:30
If you go further east,
48:30 – 48:32
where there's this long
48:32 – 48:33
-standing historical practice of
48:33 – 48:35
a summer fallow in dryland
48:35 – 48:36
farming, with wheat farming and
48:36 – 48:37
so forth,
48:39 – 48:40
this idea of having a summer
48:40 – 48:42
fallow, of not having any plants
48:42 – 48:43
growing,
48:44 – 48:46
and of conserving moisture by
48:46 – 48:48
having the soil bare and
48:48 – 48:49
uncovered, you know, when you
48:49 – 48:50
start thinking about soil
48:50 – 48:52
dynamics and evapotranspiration,
48:52 – 48:54
the idea seems kind of not so
48:54 – 48:55
smart after you really dig into
48:55 – 48:56
it.
48:57 – 48:58
But
48:58 – 49:00
I'm trying to remember
49:03 – 49:04
A couple of growers I was
49:04 – 49:05
visiting with at an event this
49:05 – 49:06
last winter told me about this
49:06 – 49:07
research.
49:07 – 49:08
I don't remember if it was the
49:08 – 49:10
University of Nebraska or
49:10 – 49:11
Colorado, but it was out in that
49:11 – 49:12
area somewhere.
49:13 – 49:15
And they studied soil water
49:15 – 49:17
dynamics and they came to the
49:17 – 49:18
conclusion that when you have a
49:18 – 49:19
summer fallow, you have bare
49:19 – 49:20
soil,
49:20 – 49:22
you actually keep
49:22 – 49:25
only 20 % of the water that
49:25 – 49:25
lands.
49:26 – 49:28
So the benefits of that bare
49:28 – 49:29
fallow are actually very
49:29 – 49:30
minimal.
49:31 – 49:32
Now,
49:32 – 49:34
in your case, where you have
49:35 – 49:38
this dust mulch,
49:39 – 49:42
are you actually able to keep
49:42 – 49:43
more of that of what fell during
49:43 – 49:44
the winter months?
49:45 – 49:46
I don't know. I don't know the
49:46 – 49:48
answer to that, but I have a
49:48 – 49:49
feeling,
49:50 – 49:51
as we have a growing
49:51 – 49:52
understanding of
49:53 – 49:54
how plants are collaborating
49:54 – 49:55
with each other, other,
49:55 – 49:57
instead of competing with each
49:57 – 49:58
other for moisture and
49:58 – 50:00
nutrients, when we have really
50:00 – 50:01
good biology and quorum sensing,
50:02 – 50:05
there are many instances
50:05 – 50:07
emerging and observations
50:07 – 50:09
emerging where we realize that
50:09 – 50:10
the idea that plants
50:11 – 50:13
inherently compete with each
50:13 – 50:14
other always is
50:15 – 50:16
not true.
50:16 – 50:18
They can, they do sometimes, but
50:18 – 50:21
it's not an inherent de facto
50:21 – 50:21
status.
50:23 – 50:24
So understanding what those
50:24 – 50:26
variables are, I think, is very
50:26 – 50:28
important for us to figure out.
50:28 – 50:29
Because
50:29 – 50:32
I'm of the opinion
50:32 – 50:33
that it
50:34 – 50:35
is going to be possible for us
50:35 – 50:38
in most environments to identify
50:38 – 50:41
companion plants and
50:41 – 50:43
collaborators that share water
50:43 – 50:44
instead of competing for water.
50:44 – 50:45
And all of a sudden, the idea of
50:45 – 50:47
a summer fallow or
50:47 – 50:50
a dust mulch becomes obsolete.
50:53 – 50:53
I don't know if that was really
50:53 – 50:54
the answer to your question.
50:55 – 50:56
Well, I agree with your thoughts
50:56 – 50:57
on that.
50:57 – 50:59
But the guys that do it don't,
50:59 – 51:00
I can tell you that.
51:02 – 51:04
So I brought you a couple of
51:04 – 51:04
them.
51:05 – 51:07
Yeah, you've got to.
51:07 – 51:08
You know,
51:09 – 51:10
there is this
51:10 – 51:13
challenging aspect of being
51:13 – 51:15
human and human psychology that
51:15 – 51:17
most of us are
51:18 – 51:20
only willing to consider making
51:20 – 51:23
changes when the actual pain
51:23 – 51:26
of not changing becomes greater
51:26 – 51:28
than the perceived pain of
51:28 – 51:29
changing.
51:31 – 51:35
So that's why we have in so many
51:35 – 51:36
domains there are breakthroughs
51:36 – 51:39
where a lot of advances are made
51:39 – 51:40
in science and so forth, but
51:40 – 51:41
they're not implemented for 20
51:41 – 51:44
or 30 or 40 years because people
51:45 – 51:46
prefer not to change.
51:46 – 51:47
Yes.
51:48 – 51:50
Well, when I was actually
51:50 – 51:51
working for a living in the old
51:51 – 51:53
days, I read a book called
51:53 – 51:54
Change in Science.
51:54 – 51:55
This would have been back in the
51:55 – 51:56
80s.
51:56 – 51:58
And the guy that wrote it had
51:58 – 52:00
gone back to Copernicus and
52:00 – 52:02
Galileo and Newton and worked
52:02 – 52:04
his way through to current times
52:04 – 52:06
and came to the conclusion was
52:06 – 52:08
that science does not change
52:08 – 52:10
until the last professor from
52:10 – 52:11
the old regime dies.
52:13 – 52:13
That's exactly right.
52:14 – 52:15
It says Thomas Kuhn, The Nature
52:15 – 52:16
of Scientific Revolutions.
52:17 – 52:19
That's the foundational premise
52:19 – 52:20
of a couple of hundred page,
52:20 – 52:21
very well written book.
52:22 – 52:22
The
52:23 – 52:25
nature of scientific revolutions
52:25 – 52:26
is when the old guard dies off.
52:27 – 52:27
Exactly right.
52:28 – 52:29
Sounds about true, I think.
52:30 – 52:32
How much of that is true in
52:32 – 52:32
farming?
52:34 – 52:36
Well, I would say the same.
52:36 – 52:37
I don't know. You have a hell of
52:37 – 52:38
a lot more experience in farming
52:38 – 52:39
than I do.
52:40 – 52:42
There's some pretty old codgers
52:42 – 52:44
around that have got pretty set
52:44 – 52:45
views of the world.
52:47 – 52:47
You know, there's this
52:47 – 52:48
interesting phenomenon.
52:48 – 52:50
I've spoken about this a couple
52:50 – 52:51
of times, but a lot of people
52:51 – 52:53
don't realize there
52:53 – 52:55
is this what is called the
52:55 – 52:57
theory of diffusion,
52:57 – 52:58
the diffusion of innovations.
52:59 – 53:01
And it's how new ideas and new
53:01 – 53:02
technologies get adopted.
53:03 – 53:04
It was originally the original
53:04 – 53:06
research in the 1970s by Everett
53:06 – 53:06
Rogers.
53:07 – 53:10
And people may not be familiar
53:10 – 53:12
with the theory by those terms,
53:12 – 53:13
but they're very familiar with
53:13 – 53:14
the language.
53:14 – 53:16
The marketers have made the
53:16 – 53:17
language popular, talking about
53:17 – 53:19
the innovators and the early
53:19 – 53:20
adopters and the early majority
53:20 – 53:21
and the late majority and so
53:21 – 53:23
forth. What a lot of people
53:23 – 53:25
don't realize is that that
53:25 – 53:27
original foundational research
53:27 – 53:28
was done on farmers,
53:29 – 53:32
specifically on how farmers in
53:32 – 53:34
Iowa adopted hybrid seed corn
53:34 – 53:35
technology.
53:35 – 53:36
Interesting.
53:37 – 53:39
And of course the research has
53:39 – 53:41
expanded now far beyond that
53:41 – 53:42
original scope, but there's a
53:42 – 53:44
lot of research on how farmers
53:44 – 53:46
adopt new information.
53:47 – 53:48
And
53:47 – 53:51
Simon Sinek says it very
53:51 – 53:52
well when he speaks about the
53:52 – 53:54
last category, the laggards.
53:55 – 53:57
The laggards are those people
53:57 – 53:59
which only, the only reason they
53:59 – 54:00
use touch -tone phones is
54:00 – 54:01
because they don't make dial
54:01 – 54:03
tone or ring -tone, ring -dial
54:03 – 54:04
phones anymore.
54:05 – 54:07
And you look at the demographics
54:07 – 54:09
of what is present in
54:09 – 54:09
agriculture today,
54:11 – 54:13
There's a lot of variation in
54:13 – 54:14
subgroups, but you look at the
54:14 – 54:16
commodity production across the
54:16 – 54:19
Midwest and agriculture largely
54:19 – 54:20
is
54:21 – 54:22
a group of elderly people who've
54:22 – 54:23
built up a lot of equity.
54:24 – 54:26
And the development of air
54:26 – 54:27
conditioned cabs and tractors
54:27 – 54:28
and combines has allowed them to
54:28 – 54:30
keep farming into their 70s and
54:30 – 54:32
80s, when historically they
54:32 – 54:33
would have been ejected from the
54:33 – 54:33
tractor seat. They would have
54:33 – 54:34
not been comfortable in the
54:34 – 54:36
tractor seat 50 years ago.
54:36 – 54:37
And
54:38 – 54:41
so it's it's that entrenchment
54:41 – 54:42
of age
54:43 – 54:44
and
54:44 – 54:46
the proclivity of age to be
54:46 – 54:48
somewhat resistant to change.
54:49 – 54:50
That is, I mean, all of those
54:50 – 54:52
are contributing factors to why
54:52 – 54:54
we have this inherent resistance
54:54 – 54:55
to change in so much of
54:55 – 54:56
agriculture.
54:57 – 54:58
Yep. I can believe it.
54:59 – 55:00
Well, you know, in the
55:01 – 55:03
technology world, you kind of
55:03 – 55:03
have a,
55:04 – 55:05
you have, you have the flip side
55:05 – 55:06
of that. They call it the
55:05 – 55:06
innovators dilemma.
55:08 – 55:09
So these, these technology
55:09 – 55:10
people come along and they
55:10 – 55:11
launch a
55:11 – 55:13
successful company that they
55:13 – 55:14
grow like crazy.
55:14 – 55:17
They hire 50 ,000 people, make a
55:17 – 55:17
lot of money.
55:18 – 55:19
And then 10 years later,
55:20 – 55:23
another company launches with a
55:23 – 55:25
product that actually is better
55:25 – 55:26
than them.
55:26 – 55:27
And makes their zobs lead.
55:27 – 55:29
And they're unable to adapt.
55:29 – 55:30
They've got the huge
55:30 – 55:32
infrastructure in place.
55:32 – 55:34
And even though the boss can see
55:34 – 55:35
the problem, he cannot
55:35 – 55:37
communicate it down the chain
55:37 – 55:38
and get it done.
55:38 – 55:39
Well, agriculture is the same
55:39 – 55:41
way. we also, we also have a lot
55:41 – 55:44
of, of incumbent infrastructure
55:44 – 55:46
that isn't easy to, and it's
55:46 – 55:47
highly leveraged in many cases.
55:47 – 55:49
So you're committed from a debt
55:49 – 55:51
and the capitalization structure
55:51 – 55:52
perspective where it's very
55:52 – 55:53
difficult to pivot.
55:54 – 55:56
You know, going back to that
55:56 – 55:58
Scottsdale meeting, that's the
55:58 – 55:59
first time I've ever gone to,
56:00 – 56:02
to that kind of a, of a session.
56:02 – 56:03
And that was one of the
56:03 – 56:04
learnings that I got out of it
56:04 – 56:06
was just the challenge.
56:06 – 56:08
that the kind of the traditional
56:08 – 56:11
farm people are faced with with
56:11 – 56:12
that whole situation of
56:13 – 56:14
declining
56:14 – 56:16
margins and
56:17 – 56:19
being kind of locked into
56:19 – 56:21
different techniques and
56:21 – 56:23
approaches through insurance and
56:23 – 56:24
through loans and
56:24 – 56:25
whatever.
56:25 – 56:26
It's a
56:26 – 56:27
pretty tough situation.
56:28 – 56:29
Yeah.
56:30 – 56:31
So I asked you this question
56:31 – 56:32
earlier.
56:32 – 56:35
How do you see your operation
56:35 – 56:36
evolving in the future?
56:36 – 56:38
And you spoke very broadly about
56:40 – 56:42
the wanting to grow nutrient
56:42 – 56:44
dense, high quality and so
56:44 – 56:46
forth. But let's focus on the
56:46 – 56:47
growing aspects for a moment.
56:48 – 56:50
How do you anticipate your
56:50 – 56:52
operation shifting or evolving
56:52 – 56:54
in terms of your actual growing
56:54 – 56:55
practices, if in any way?
56:56 – 56:57
Well,
56:56 – 56:58
at this moment, I don't know of
56:58 – 57:00
anything else to implement.
57:00 – 57:01
As soon as I find out anything,
57:01 – 57:02
I will. You can bet on that.
57:04 – 57:06
So kind of for me, the Holy
57:06 – 57:08
Grail is back to wine quality.
57:10 – 57:12
And I'm hoping that as we keep
57:12 – 57:13
pushing these things that we
57:13 – 57:14
will find
57:15 – 57:15
that are,
57:18 – 57:19
when I say nutrient dense, I'm
57:19 – 57:21
thinking more in terms of the
57:21 – 57:22
phenolics, actually, than
57:22 – 57:24
anything else. Those aspects
57:24 – 57:26
that really impact the wine
57:26 – 57:26
quality.
57:27 – 57:28
I'm hoping that we'll be able to
57:28 – 57:29
push those along.
57:30 – 57:31
I'm hoping that we can build
57:31 – 57:32
vines that are really resistant
57:32 – 57:33
to mildew,
57:34 – 57:35
if we can get them stronger.
57:35 – 57:37
enough and nutrient satisfied.
57:39 – 57:40
Just kind of
57:41 – 57:42
in passing, one of the things
57:42 – 57:44
that's happened so far is that
57:44 – 57:45
the
57:46 – 57:48
progress that we've made, the
57:48 – 57:50
leafhoppers and spider mites
57:50 – 57:52
that were occasional problems
57:52 – 57:53
back in the more conventional
57:53 – 57:54
days are gone. We haven't had
57:54 – 57:55
those in years now,
57:56 – 57:58
and that strikes me as a
57:59 – 58:01
good sign, and I'm hoping that
58:01 – 58:02
somewhere along the way we can
58:02 – 58:03
push the mildew into that same
58:03 – 58:04
corner.
58:05 – 58:06
So yeah, it's, it's more, uh,
58:06 – 58:08
for me, John, this is a
58:08 – 58:10
kind of a lifetime project.
58:10 – 58:12
I'm I'm my daughter is in the
58:12 – 58:14
business. She's in the process
58:14 – 58:15
of taking it over.
58:15 – 58:16
Thank goodness for that.
58:16 – 58:18
Uh, and I'm going to,
58:19 – 58:20
uh, you're not going to be one
58:20 – 58:21
of the guys in air conditioned
58:21 – 58:23
tractor cabs, but at age 85,
58:23 – 58:25
well, I won't have an air
58:25 – 58:26
conditioned cab, but I will be
58:26 – 58:28
there at 85. I hope.
58:31 – 58:32
Yeah, exactly.
58:33 – 58:34
It's one of these deals, you
58:34 – 58:35
know, when you're young,
58:35 – 58:36
it's like you learn.
58:37 – 58:38
you learn,
58:38 – 58:39
you
58:40 – 58:42
know, a little bit about a whole
58:42 – 58:44
lot of things and you just keep
58:44 – 58:44
expanding.
58:45 – 58:47
And I'm at a point now where
58:47 – 58:49
there's
58:49 – 58:50
very few things that I'm
58:50 – 58:51
interested in, but I want to
58:51 – 58:53
know a hell of a lot about them.
58:54 – 58:57
That's really focusing in on
58:57 – 58:57
growing these grapes.
59:00 – 59:01
Yeah.
59:01 – 59:02
Well, it sounds like you're
59:02 – 59:03
having a lot of fun.
59:03 – 59:04
That's one of the most important
59:04 – 59:05
things in life.
59:05 – 59:06
Oh, definitely.
59:06 – 59:07
Definitely.
59:07 – 59:08
Yeah.
59:08 – 59:09
Well, thank you, Bob.
59:09 – 59:10
I really enjoyed this
59:10 – 59:11
conversation.
59:12 – 59:13
Where can people learn more
59:13 – 59:14
about your vineyard?
59:14 – 59:16
And are there any final thoughts
59:16 – 59:17
that you would like to share?
59:18 – 59:18
Well,
59:19 – 59:20
it's easy to find us
59:20 – 59:23
www .altacalina
59:23 – 59:24
.com.
59:25 – 59:27
We're located here in Paso
59:27 – 59:27
Robles.
59:28 – 59:29
We would love to sell you wine.
59:31 – 59:32
Log in and place your orders,
59:32 – 59:33
please. That would be just fine
59:33 – 59:34
with me.
59:36 – 59:37
And I don't know, final
59:37 – 59:38
thoughts.
59:38 – 59:39
I appreciate the opportunity,
59:40 – 59:41
John. It was fun talking with
59:41 – 59:42
you. I get to know you a little
59:42 – 59:43
bit face to face.
59:45 – 59:46
Thank you, Bob.
