Fierce Teamwork Makes Warren Pear Crop A Reality This Fall

Frog Hollow Farm is now shipping their famous Warren pears, but it almost didn't happen. The crop was threatened by nature and politics and saved by expert husbandry and an unusual group of women.

Brentwood, California, United States - September 26, 2017 /MarketersMedia/ —

Frog Hollow Farm’s soft, sweet and juicy Warren pears are back! This fall they arrive in Bay Area farmer’s markets and on doorsteps carrying a story of triumph by a strong farming community and perseverance in tenuous political times.

Here's the story.

Too many fruiting buds were a cause for alarm last year at Frog Hollow Farm when Farmer Al made a disturbing discovery in the 12-acre Warren pear orchard. The Warren pear trees did not look happy, he said. Their leaves were yellow and stunted and they were showing signs of stress by sending out a huge amount of fruiting buds. Fruiting buds (flower buds that become fruit) suppress new growth (leaves and branches), which means a tree can’t get the energy it needs from the sun to support the growth of the fruit it has set.

Farmer Al called in the experts. Looking at the trees, they were concerned that the graft between the rootstock (the part of the tree that goes below ground) and the scion (the part of the tree that produces fruit) was incompatible.

“If nutrients and water could not get through the graft, the tree would die,” Farmer Al said. “It looked like that was happening.”

Farmer Al decided to try to save the trees by meticulously pruning half of the bud formations from the branches in early autumn last year, fertilizing the trees through the winter, and thinning them again in early spring.

The first round of pruning took three weeks. “The idea was to reduce the amount of energy going into fruiting and shift the energy into growing new leaves and branches,” Farmer Al says.

But weak leaves and heavy fruiting buds on the Warren pear trees were only part of the problem. Labor shortages compounded the farm challenges. The controversy and uncertainty around immigration severely compounded these farm challenges. With more people leaving for Mexico than arriving from Mexico, farmers in California are experiencing massive labor shortages in the fields. Frog Hollow Farm started to feel the pain in early spring 2017, when it was time to do the second round of tree thinning—a huge job that requires as much help as possible.

Wives, daughters, aunts, and sisters saved the day! Farmer Al was able to piece together a crew of women who were mostly the wives, daughters, aunts, and sisters of the farm's full-time field workers. Under normal circumstances, tree thinning is limited to men because of the heavy ladders they use. Our amazing team of women learned to thin peaches on short, young peach trees (no ladders required) and then moved on to towering orchard ladders to help thin the 2,500 Warren pear trees. Without the women, Frog Hollow Farm might not have had a Warren pear crop this year.

They welcomed the spring rain and followed the tree thinning with an organic fertilization program that kicked the trees into vegetative growth so they could support the fruit on their limbs with plenty of leaves soaking up energy from the sun. They fertilized right up until July.

Their strategy worked. “Cutting the fruiting buds in half brought the trees into balance,” Farmer Al says. “We produced a very nice crop.”

In September, they started to pick the Warren pears, but with a reduced crew, they couldn’t get to all the trees before a freak windstorm hit. Frog Hollow Farm lost about 10,000 pounds of ripe pears in that storm.

Even with the windstorm losses, they have picked a few hundred thousand pounds of Warren pears. “We have an incredible crop of large, succulent pears that are green-skinned with a beautiful red blush,” says Farmer Al. “Enjoy them. The fruit is as sweet as ever, if not sweeter. And, we had such a long crop that you can count on having pears until Christmas.”

You can find Frog Hollow Farm's famous Warren pears at these San Francisco Bay Area farmer’s markets:

Berkeley – Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays
San Francisco Ferry Building – Tuesdays and Saturdays
San Francisco Castro District – Wednesdays
Santa Cruz – Wednesdays
Larkspur – Saturdays
Danville – Saturdays
Kensington – Sundays
Palo Alto – Sundays

For those who can’t get to a Bay Area farmer’s market, or who want to share Frog Hollow Farm's legendary Warren pears with friends and family across the country, order online. Frog Hollow Farm ships fresh fruit from farm to table in 48 hours in the mainland United States.

Chef Becky encourages online visitors to try her recipes for fruit treats. “You will find the best fruit recipes at the recipe page on our website,” she says.

For a beautiful 2-minute video tour of Frog Hollow Farm by co-owners Chef Becky and Farmer Al, click here.

More About Frog Hollow Farm:
Frog Hollow Farm is a 143-acre certified organic stone-fruit farm located in the fertile Sacramento River Delta just east of San Francisco in Brentwood, California. Only steps from their orchards is Frog Hollow's Farm Kitchen, where owner and chef Becky Courchesne and her kitchen crew hand-make sweet and savory pastries in small batches every day. Their conserves, turnovers, galettes, cookies, and more are made with Frog Hollow Farm fruits, organic ingredients, and a deep love of good food. All these make for beautiful and tasty Holiday Gift Giving.

Contact Info:
Name: Pearl Driver | Director of Marketing
Organization: FROG HOLLOW FARM
Address: P.O. Box 2110, Brentwood, California 94513
Phone: 925.634.2845 ext 203

Video URL: https://youtu.be/b3coYR3zNVE%20

Source URL: https://marketersmedia.com/fierce-teamwork-makes-warren-pear-crop-a-reality-this-fall/243318

For more information, please visit https://www.froghollow.com

Source: MarketersMedia

Release ID: 243318