Epitaph for a Peach

by David M. Masumoto

  A year ago last fall I began my compost test, dividing the five acres in half: six rows enriched with compost, six rows with commercial fertilizer. I called a university researcher and he said my test plots were an awkward size, too large for detailed analysis and too small for a real farm test (most commercial orchards span ten-to-twenty-acre solid blocks). But I only had an audience of one, myself, to pass peer review, so I continued.

  Next I found myself at a crucial juncture. I knew beforehand that rows 1 to 6 were slightly weaker than rows 7 to 12, with less foliage. At first I thought my study would be flawed and unreliable, since I had not begun with uniform samples. Then I realized the differences were small and a scientist probably wouldn’t notice the variations. The weak trees worry me only because I’m the farmer.

  But which half should get the compost and which the fertilizer? I flipped a coin and was happy to see that the strong half of the orchard would get the compost. I then questioned my lack of objectivity until I realized the trees probably would not be affected by my bias for compost. I applied three tons of compost per acre and on the other half used a mix of triple-15 commercial fertilizer. I later read that it may take years for compost to build up a soil. A quick one-year application might not have an immediate effect. I would need to replicate the experiment many times for it to have scientific validity. Yet I didn’t know of one farm where anything was replicated exactly year after year. I was resigned to complete my trial, even if just because of a farmer’s curiosity.

  Spring arrived with bloom, fresh shoots, and blossoms—and work that should have been done yesterday. I raced to keep up with weeds and ahead of munching insects and worked myself into a frenzy. I didn’t have time to worry about the things I couldn’t see, and I soon forgot about my experiment.

  Because Spring Lady peaches are harvested early, in late May, I don’t have time for mistakes. With this peach I sprint from bloom to harvest. About a month before harvest I remembered my experiment and had to refer to my notes to recall which trees had gotten the compost. I couldn’t tell the difference between the two halves. They looked the same.

  Interest piqued, I began walking through the orchard surveying the foliage and fruit, looking for differences and patterns. The weak half still looked weaker but the fruit size appeared the same. The stronger half had darker leaves and denser growth; the fruit were perhaps a bit more plentiful mainly because there were more branches per tree.

  I did notice some evidence of peach twig borers. Their homes are easy to see, because the tips of fresh green shoots hang limp and dangle from the worm’s boring. We call them “strikes.” Early fruit are not bothered by them, but the strikes in my Spring Lady peaches were like little red flags, warning me to monitor my other peaches carefully. I asked neighbors, and when they too checked their fields they found the same patterns of strikes. It would be a wormy year and we had all better be cautious. In my journal I noted that so far there was little evidence for or against compost.

  I read a report that said different fertility programs induced different types of growth in trees and their fruit. Some fertilizers may cause rapid growth and push peaches to grow too quickly, making them more susceptible to diseases such as brown rot. I pictured such a piece of fruit like a balloon that’s stretched so the skin is thinned and weakened. Another report hinted that too much rank vegetative grown may actually attract some pests, the abundant nitrogen may add a wonderful taste for the palate of worms. I walked my orchard and found no difference. The reports sounded intriguing, though, and that morning’s walk was fun. I continued monitoring the field with a growing pessimism. In both test blocks, the trees looked barren of foliage and the peaches looked extremely small. My research created more questions and worry. My study was full of human emotion and drama.

  In late May I picked the Spring Ladies when the fruit was blush red and the taste sweet. The peaches from the fertilizer side were slightly larger than those in the rest of the field, but the compost half produced more fruit.

  I have never read the following question in a research report: “Is the cup half full or half empty?” Yet that was my finding for the compost-versus-fertilizer trial. Each block had different results, good and bad. Fortunately, not being a scientist, I will not have to defend my research conclusion, which is this: The success of compost or fertilizer at any given moment depends on your attitude.

  I am happy the compost didn’t fail. Next year I may repeat the experiment, but the virtue of using compost can never be measured. I already know one conclusion of the research, though: the best part of my study will remain the walks through my orchards.

  Burning Leaves

  People associate autumn with the smell of leaves burning and smoke drifting lazily into a layer that hugs the earth. I think of a different type of leaf burn. I visualize seared shoots, burnt wood, and blistered bark.

  I killed part of my peach trees in the spring by applying a foliar nutrient spray, but I had to wait until fall to determine the extent of the damage. My autumn leaves fell early, not from the first frosts but from dead branches.

  It all started in early spring, when the first green leaves push open, their pale yet shiny green color announcing to the world the arrival of new life. For years a salesman had been trying to convince me to use a foliar feed, a spray of nutrients “to feed your hungry trees,” and this year he was back. He claimed the leaves would absorb the mixture like a magical elixir and stir new life into my trees. I only wanted to help the weak ones, those that struggle to shake off winter.

  “It’s perfect for your operation,” he advised, then leaned closer to me as if to share a secret with his chosen farmer. “Get an early jump on the season,” he said, his eyebrows rising with the word jump, followed by a quick nodding of the head.

  He painted a picture of peach trees like bears awakening from hibernation, hungry from their long winter sleep, rousing to life with the rumble of an empty stomach.

  I had experimented with a kelp spray before, but this salesman urged me to try a new blend of micronutrients based on a unique formulation of fish emulsion. I should have listened to my own voice and its lame joke: “This sounds fishy.” But with a salesman’s skill he perfectly timed a loud laugh and I bought a fifty-pound sack because he liked my sense of humor.

  I should have sensed something was wrong when my sprayer filters kept clogging with the mixture. I had to stop four times in order to wash them out, and the fifth time I was so angry I stomped inside to phone the salesman. He promised me a new bag and said I could keep the old one free of charge. Satisfied with my assertiveness, I returned to the fields and soon found myself trying to spray all my peaches with this concoction. Why? Because it was free.

  Within days tiny holes appeared on most of my leaves, thousands of them per tree. They grew larger with each day, a pale band of burnt tissue ringing each hole. The pattern was distinctive: every lower leaf from about waist high had this spotting, but higher in the tree the burn was less evident. It matched the range of my sprayer, which shoots out fifteen gallons of water per tree, coating the lower leaves but only misting the higher ones.

  Two weeks later the singed leaves began to yellow. I phoned the salesman and told him, “You better get your butt out here today.”

  He arrived with his boss and at first hinted that I had a bad case of a fungus disease called shot hole. I pointed out that the fungus must only like lower leaves and how odd it was that it didn’t affect the one row where I ran out of their foliar spray. Then they mentioned how the spray may have helped encourage shot-hole growth. I believed them for a while. Finally they admitted that a few other farmers had reported some problems but said they were changing the formulation process and I wouldn’t be charged for any of the product. They brought out a bag of “new formula” and said I could keep it for next year. They drove off vowing to keep an eye on my peaches for me, and I never saw them again.

  The leaves began dropping. On some branches only the tiny fruit was left, exposed
without the normal surrounding leaf canopy. Dad stopped by and asked what was happening to the trees. I told him about the leaf feed spray. He shrugged and said, “The trees will come back.”

  The metaphor came to mind of a glass that’s either half full or half empty. Spring is a time when the glass has to be half full because I begin the year without knowing the size of my crop, the quality, or the cost of production. Uncertainty comes with the territory. If I don’t have the optimism of a half-full glass in spring, I can’t make it through the rest of the year.

  I thought I could trick my trees with a foliar feed, a feeble attempt to manipulate nature, to nudge her along. She responded in a way I could not predict, let alone control. The peaches apparently didn’t like this fish spray and aborted leaves. However, new shoots were coming in to replace the burned growth, and the small fruit hung on nude limbs apparently undamaged. The glass remained half full.

  It didn’t take long for my imagination to take over. Wouldn’t it be wild, I thought, if the fruit actually benefited from this defoliation and all the growth went into the peaches for the next few weeks? Or perhaps new, vibrant shoots would push from main scaffolds and make for excellent fruitwood in the following year? I felt a rising insecurity, though, as another voice whined, Half empty, half empty. The trees looked ugly, with a mat of fallen yellow leaves circling each one. I concluded that I really didn’t know what I was doing. The admission somehow relieved my burden.

  The foliage continued to drop and I wanted to correct my mistake but couldn’t. I would be forced to wait out the season in order to determine how badly I had burned my peaches and if there was permanent damage. After one month of waiting, I hooked up a tractor with a small disk and turned in the leaves. I couldn’t stand to see them on the ground. Fall colors don’t belong on spring earth.

  With the summer heat, my worst fears were realized: some of the dangling fruit began to yellow. At first, I hardly noticed the change on the tiny, green peaches. They were only about the size of a quarter. A few had adopted a lighter shade of green, bordering on yellow. After three days the trees aborted the weak fruit, the bodies collecting around each tree.

  I rationalized that fallen fruit would only help the remaining peaches grow even bigger. Bigger usually meant better prices. I began to avoid the fields again, busying myself with the grapes, which suddenly demanded my attention. When Dad asked if I had seen the fallen fruit, I could no longer deny the loss. Within hours I disked in the evidence.

  Still, I couldn’t measure the extent of the damage. Despite the recent shoot growth, I hoped to see the trees flush with foliage. The yellowing leaves and fruit drop had stopped. Would there be a second round of defoliation with the next heat wave? My biggest concern lay with spotting of the remaining fruit. If the droplets of the foliar feed spray could burn holes in leaves, would each particle burn a tiny spot on the surface of each peach, a tiny spot that would grow and swell as the peach grew and matured? Spotting may not become evident until a few weeks before harvest.

  I wanted the trees to tell me what was happening. Were they recovering from my spring assault? Why was I unable to decipher the extent of damage? I couldn’t distinguish if the source of my frustration lay with my fear of the uncontrollable or the unknown.

  I felt helpless, a parent with a sick infant. Despite all my efforts, I still witnessed more pain and hurt. Hugs help with my children—would they help my peaches? Over the next few weeks I added new meaning to the term tree hugger, which is usually reserved for a radical environmentalist.

  Dad caught me out in the fields as I wandered from tree to tree, worrying about the upcoming harvest. He told me a story about June drop. In the past, it was common for trees to abort some of their crop with the first heat wave. One year all the growers experienced a June drop, with tons of fruit tumbling to the ground like hail from a thunderstorm. “Farmers grumbled and bitched all through summer and harvest and all the way to the bank,” Dad explained. Nature took care of itself, aborted a potential oversupply of fruit, and produced a nice balance between supply and market demand. It was a good year.

  I appreciated his story but realized that only my orchard had experienced this June drop and the peach market would not miss my fruit. I could identify with his reference about the grumbling and bitching, though. In spring farmers may see glasses half full, but by harvest they begin to look half empty.

  Summer commenced with a ritual of pessimism. The temperature was either too hot or too cool; the crop was too heavy, stressing trees and vines, or so light that it was “hardly worth farming.” Each cloud loomed darkly on the horizon. I constantly monitored my fields for damage until I found something, then proclaimed, “Why do I always find a problem on the very last tree?” At gatherings of farmers, conversations began with fish stories about the one that got away—who had the worst bird damage or water-stressed orchards or invasion of mysterious fungi.

  I expected the worst because I live with uncontrolled risk, a self-defense compromise when working with nature. The cynicism helped remind me I am only human.

  Over the next month, my peaches at times appeared fine, then a week later I would see potential disaster. I experienced wild mood swings, my emotions soaring with the scent of approaching harvest, then crashing with the sight of more withering fruit and dried branches. Even the day before harvest, scars from my spring spray were still evident: leaves with holes, seared shoots hardened into dead wood. Nature takes time to heal.

  BY AUTUMN I can finally see the complete contour of the trees. Leaves begin to fall naturally and limbs become silhouetted against the pale blue sky. My orchard is exposed and naked. It has taken months for the trees to reveal the extent of their injuries. My foliar spray did indeed scorch many lower branches, but new growth has pushed from latent buds, a characteristic I notice in older varieties like Sun Crest. Many newer varieties don’t seem to have this trait, the tree bark is smooth and uniform, and new shoots emerge from uniformly spaced buds. Old varieties like to twist and turn, with bud wood pushing from the gnarled burrs and pruning scars. They have an ability to rejuvenate themselves, regrowth emerging in the crotch of a cut branch or limb.

  Fortunately my trees grew new shoots, the peaches did not have spotting, the harvest went smoothly, and I received good prices. I can relax now, the crisis resolved.

  But being a good farmer, I find something new to worry about, thanks to Marcy’s roses. A few years ago I tried a new method of weed control called “flaming.” A dense patch of Bermuda grew beneath her roses, and rather than using an herbicide or a shovel I tried an alternative method, which uses heat to destroy weeds. I read that the surface tissue layers of most plants are extremely susceptible to heat, so a singe will destroy cells and kill plants.

  I lit an old hand-held butane torch and broiled the Bermuda. The method worked, the grass sizzled and curled, but some of the dried weeds caught on fire. I immediately doused the dancing flames and looked around to see if Marcy had seen the miniature wildfire. The overhead roses appeared fine, but a week later their blackened stalks dropped their leaves. For the next two seasons, few roses grew. I had damaged the subsurface flowering cells and sterilized the plants.

  Since my spring spray fiasco burned so many peach shoots, will they not bloom next year? I can now worry all winter. I share my concern with Marcy, inadvertently reminding her of the roseless roses. After my long discourse about the dangers of heat damage to next season’s fruit buds, she says, curtly, “I suppose you’ll just have to wait.”

  Seeking a sympathetic audience, I take Nikiko for a walk through the orchard. It’s a brisk fall afternoon. I begin to show her the dead wood and try to teach her how to distinguish between a fruit bud and a leaf bud. She listens for a minute and then begins to run and skate across layers of leaves blanketing the orchard floor. Jake runs alongside her and I have to get out of their way.

  Then it occurs to me that I may not know the extent of damage for years. Perhaps only the weakest limbs died this past
summer. A year from now when I cut the dead scaffolds, I’ll have new worries and concerns. I probably won’t be able to determine whether they were damaged by the searing foliar spray or wood borers or old age.

  Farming becomes a game of responding to nature. I will remove dead wood, knowing there will be more next year and the year after that. My collaboration with nature may be reduced simply to trying to get out of the way.

  This I do know. The fallen leaves will become mulch, which I will eventually turn into the earth. I’ll burn the dead limbs and use a scraper to spread the ashes throughout the fields. And an unused bag of fish foliar spray will sit in my shed as a reminder, every fall, of my burning leaves.

  chapter thirteen

  orphaned

  Changing Landscapes

  When I left home for college, I sought to escape the provincial world of farmers, small towns, and country life. I longed for the excitement of the city, for the intensity that rural life lacked, for adventure beyond the horizon. I dreamed of exploring the city, living within a new culture and landscape, becoming part of the pulse of an urban jungle.

  Yet some of my best times were driving home, leaving the city behind and slipping back into the valley. As city life faded and traffic thinned, I could see the faces of the other drivers relax. Then, around a bend in the highway, the rangelands of the valley would materialize, revealing a horizon of gentle rolling mounds. The land seemed eternal and permanent. I felt as if I had stepped back in time.

  I took comfort in the stability of the valley. Driving through small farm communities, I imagined the founding families still rooted in their stately homes, generations working the same lands, neighbors remaining neighbors for generations. Small farms dominated the vista. I allowed familiar barn and farmhouse landmarks to guide me.