Though Hank and Ellen Brokaw started their agricultural careers as entrepreneur nurserypersons, their long-term goal was always to produce actual avocados, citrus, and other subtropical tree fruits.
After progressing in the nursery business for over a decade, Hank and Ellen got their first opportunity to become fruit-producing “ranchers” in the mid-1960s. They didn’t have a “ranch buying” income at the time but were able to produce decent quantities of citrus and avocado nursery stock, which continues to be one of the biggest expenses in initial orchard development. They decided to enter into a partnership with a couple of their church friends. The agreement was that Hank and Ellen would scout for the appropriate ranching site and provide all of the nursery stock, while the other two investors would be managing partners.
Hank and Ellen chose a completely undeveloped 100-acre site in Soledad’s Mission Area, upon the mesa that one can see to the west of the valley while driving on U.S. 101. It was 250 miles north of their Ventura County home base and had virtually no history of subtropical fruit production.
At the time, Ventura County was the lemon capital of the world, and the partners were both seasoned lemon growers. Hank and Ellen had already determined that the Soledad Mission climate would reliably support lemon production. Other than the less expensive land prices, the motivating factor for deciding to ranch lemons so far from their home base was Hank and Ellen’s prediction that Soledad lemons would regularly produce during time periods when Ventura County production was light. That meant that Soledad would regularly harvest into undersupplied markets, when lemons would be at their greatest value.
The result of this planning and strategizing was the development of Lemoravo Ranch.
LEMORAVO RANCH
SOLEDAD, CALIFORNIA
Hank and Ellen and their two partners purchased the land in 1967, built road access, drilled a well, developed a water system, cleared the land, and planted eucalyptus windbreaks. It was then leased to bean growers for about three years to allow the windbreaks to grow.
Approximately 85 combined acres of lemons and navel oranges were planted in 1970, followed by another 15 combined acres of lemons, avocados, and kiwis in 1974. The ranch was named Lemoravo to reflect what was being grown: LEMons, ORanges, and AVOcados.
As a toddler, I remember driving with my dad and my older brother, Rob, from Ventura to Soledad in a semi-truck towing a trailered forklift. We were going to assist in Lemoravo’s first lemon harvest. Somehow, my little sister Elena was up there too, and we were each given a picking bag (which we could have fit into) and a pair of lemon clippers. Being prone to distraction at that age, we probably picked a quarter of a bag total between us.
A 100-year freeze in December 1990 completely defoliated every lemon, navel, and avocado tree. It nullified one complete citrus and two complete avocado harvest seasons. The silver lining, however, was that it pushed ranch management into implementing some needed improvements. Navels hadn’t been profitable for a long time, so the 16 acres of navels were replanted with lemons. Additionally, the 13 acres of Bacon and Zutano avocados, which had been profitable in the mid-20th century, were no longer in demand by the 1990s. These were “top-worked” to Hass and an experimental variety called Gwen.
A few decades ago, Hank and Ellen bought out one of the other partners. More recently, the remaining partner decided he no longer wanted to grow lemons there and preferred to plant wine grapes instead. As a result, the ranch was subdivided, and now Brokaw Ranch Company unilaterally owns and manages about 65 acres of lemons, avocados, and kiwis.
Lemoravo has always been significant for Brokaw Avocados’ Farmers’ Market retail and direct restaurant clients. The Gwen avocados are the most coveted, as they are harvested at a time of year when there is almost no domestic Hass production, and Lemoravo is likely the only farm that grows them. Additionally, the single acre of Hayward kiwi vines, planted in 1974, is probably one of the first planted on the Central Coast. Lemoravo kiwis allow the harvest and selling season to begin in early December, while the Gwen harvest lasts well into October. Without Soledad’s production, relying solely on Santa Paula would limit the harvest season to just eight months, from January through August.
CHERAVO RANCH
SANTA PAULA, CALIFORNIA
Hank and Ellen Brokaw had always preferred starting projects from scratch, so their selection of a second ranch site—680 steep acres (only 150 plantable) and with no water source—was of little surprise.
Our family moved to the ranch’s small, two-bedroom home in 1977, on my 10th birthday. A water partnership was formed with a neighboring ranch owner, granting access to a well a couple of miles below, in the Santa Clara River basin. A 10-inch steel pipeline was laid from the neighbor’s ranch, through very rugged terrain, to a reservoir dug at the top of the ranch. Avocado trees were then planted on the 25 flattest acres surrounding the reservoir. Since a cherimoya planting was also in the works, Hank and Ellen named the ranch Cheravo, combining CHERimoyas and AVOcados.
At the beginning, there were definitely a few setbacks. After several years of drought in the mid-1970s, the skies seemed to turn to water starting in the winter of 1977–78, and the ranch’s dirt roads and drainage systems were completely overwhelmed. Over the first four to five years, our family had to walk a quarter mile to and from our house (in the mud) for two to three months every winter. One winter, probably in 1979–80, the flood damage was so severe that our house was without water for several days and without power for six weeks.
Hank and Ellen, who were heavily involved in nursery management at the time, didn’t initially operate Cheravo in a way that would overcome the less-than-optimal soil conditions, steep terrain, and drainage issues. They had always been agronomic innovators; they were successful nursery professionals and, in a way, treated Cheravo as a playground. The plus side of this was that they hosted many UC Riverside experimental orchard plots, some of which led to the development of amazing fruit varieties, such as the Gold Nugget Mandarin.
And what could be the downside of having small amounts of every kind of subtropical fruit variety imaginable, as well as numerous avocado varieties on differing rootstocks? The challenge was that different kinds of trees require different types of care. When intermixed, they become significantly more difficult to manage. For a ranch to be both manageable and profitable, larger blocks of single-variety tree and rootstock combinations should be planted. Additionally, a good portion of them must be of an established variety. The initially planted Pinkerton avocados were fun, but unlike Hass, they didn’t pay the bills.
Then a sea change took place in 2003, when circumstances required a significant upgrade to the water supply and delivery capacity. When making capital investments in the ranch, Hank and Ellen sometimes preferred to cut costs, while at other times they chose to pay for top quality. For this particular water system development, they wouldn’t settle for anything but the best.
They dug a deep well and installed an oversized, thick stainless-steel casing. They analyzed the depths at which the highest-quality water percolated and installed a well casing perforated at those specific depths. They abandoned the original dirt-lined, moss-infested reservoir and built a new one with a thick, durable liner—much easier to clean and five times the capacity. They also installed two 350-horsepower, low-emission diesel pumps—one for the well and the other as a booster—to transfer substantial quantities of water from the new well 1,000 feet up to the new reservoir.
After investing in a water system tantamount to a small civil engineering project, how would the ranch be managed to make it worthwhile? Within a couple of years, the removal of unprofitable mixed-variety and rootstock orchards began, replaced with easier-to-manage solid blocks of Hass avocados on uniform rootstocks. And with the increased water system capacity, planting additional acreage became possible. Cheravo Ranch, which had been breaking even or losing money year after year, became profitable in 2013.
But Hank’s and Ellen’s experimental and innovative inclinations were not thrown out with the bathwater. Cheravo Ranch continues to be highly diverse, cultivating different types and varieties of avocados, citrus, and subtropical tree fruits, while successfully maintaining profitable staple crops such as Hass & Gem Avocados, white guavas, and traditional lemons.
Cheravo continues to host the propagation of many UC Riverside experimental variety plots. A decent acreage of tree-matured white guavas is grown at Cheravo and sold directly to numerous small fruit retailers. Additionally, cherimoyas, mangoes, and lychees are cultivated, which Brokaw Avocados often retails at their farmers’ markets.
While Brokaw Ranch Company plays it safe by growing well-established avocado varieties, its orchard planting and care techniques are modern, innovative, and only adopted by a handful of fellow California growers. Specifically, it employs dense planting and care techniques developed in Chile. Brokaw Ranch Company has sent staff members to Chile multiple times to study and observe these advanced growing methods and continues to do so.
Adopting Chilean dense planting techniques requires that the orchard be planted from scratch, with trees on berms and at three to four times the traditional tree concentration per acre. More skilled maintenance is necessary to keep the trees small and prevent them from shading each other, and a cultural practice called girdling is applied to mitigate alternate bearing tendencies. The result is a more sustainable orchard that requires less acreage, water, and fertilizer per pound of avocados produced. Given that such techniques necessitate a completely different orchard configuration, replacing Hank’s and Ellen’s experimental avocado orchards didn’t turn out to be such a bad thing after all!
When Brokaw Avocados provisions kiwis, Gwen avocados, or any Hass avocados after early August, think Lemoravo, Soledad. And for everything else—all types of avocados, specialty citrus, and subtropical tree fruits—think Cheravo, Santa Paula.
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