Though Hank & 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 having progressed in the nursery business for over a decade, Hank & Ellen got their first opportunity to become fruit producing “ranchers” in the mid-60s. They didn’t have a “ranch buying” income at the time but were able to produce decent quantities of citrus & avocado nursery-stock, which continues to be one of the biggest expenses in initial orchard development. They decided to go onto a partnership with a couple of their church friends, who did have “ranch buying” incomes. The agreement was that Hank & Ellen would scout for the appropriate ranching site & provide all of the nursery-stock, the other 2 partners would be investors and ownership would be divided equally between all 3.
Hank & Ellen chose a completely undeveloped 100 acre site in Soledads’ Mission Area, upon the Mesa that one can see to the west of the valley while driving on US101. 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 capitol of the world and the partners were both seasoned lemon growers. And Hank & 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 250 miles from their home-bases was Hanks’ & Ellens’ 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, while lemons were at their greatest value.
The result of this planning and strategizing was the development of Lemoravo Ranch.

Hank & Ellen and their 2 partners purchased the land in 1967, made road access, drilled a well & developed a water system, cleared the land and planted eucalyptus wind-breaks. It was then leased to bean growers for about 3 years, so as to allow the wind-breaks to grow.
70 or so combined acres of lemons & navel oranges were planted in 1970 and then, in 1974, another combined 30 acres of lemons, avocados & kiwis. The ranch was named Lemoravo to reflect what was being grown, LEMons, ORanges & AVOcados.
As a toddler, I remember driving with Hank (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 Lemoravos’ first lemon harvest. Somehow my little sister, Elena was up there and we were each given a picking bag (which we could’ve fit into) and a pair of lemon clippers; being prone to distraction at that age, we probably picked a quarter bag total between us.
There was a 100 year freeze in December, 1990 which completely defoliated 100% of every lemon, navel & avocado tree. It destroyed a complete citrus and 2 complete avocado harvest seasons. The silver lining, however, was that it pushed us into implementing some needed ranch improvements. Navels hadn’t been profitable for a long time. So we replanted the 16 navel acres to lemons. And the 13 acres of Bacon & Zutano avocados, which were profitable in the mid-20th century, ceased to be in demand by the 1990s; these we “top-worked” to Hass and an experimental variety called Gwen.
A few decades back, Hank & Ellen bought out one of the other partners. And more recently, the remaining partner decided he didn’t want to grow lemons there anymore but wine-grapes instead. We ended up subdividing the ranch and now we own and manage about 65 acres of lemons, avocados & kiwis, without partners.
Lemoravo has always been significant for our Farmers’ Market retail & direct restaurant clients. The Gwen Avocados are our most coveted, they’re harvested at a time of year when there’s almost no domestic Hass production and we’re probably the only farm that grows them. And our single acre of 1974 planted Hayward Kiwi vines is probably one of the first planted on the central coast. Lemoravo kiwis allow us to start our harvest and selling season in early December and the Gwen harvest lasts well into October; were we to rely on Santa Paula alone we’d be limited to an 8 month, January through August selling season.

Hank & Ellen Brokaw had always preferred starting projects from scratch. So their selection of a 2nd ranch-site, 680 steep acres, only 150 plant-able and with no water source, was of little surprise.
Our family moved to the ranchs’ small 2 bedroom home in 1977, on my 10th birthday. A water partnership was made with a neighboring ranch owner, giving us access to a well a couple of miles below, in the Santa Clara River basin. A 10” steel pipeline was laid from the neighbors ranch, through very rugged terrain and to a reservoir we’d dug at the very top of the ranch. We then planted the 40 flattest acres, located around the reservoir. Since a cherimoya planting was also in the works, Hank & Ellen named the ranch Cheravo, referring to CHERimoyas & AVOcados.

At the beginning, we definitely had a few setbacks. After several years of drought in the mid-70s, the skies seemed to turn into water starting in the winter of ‘77/’78 and the ranchs’ dirt roads & drainage systems would get completely overwhelmed. Over the first 4-5 years, we would literally have to walk a ¼ mile to & from our house for 2-3 months every winter. One winter, probably in ’79-’80, flood damage was so bad that our house was without water for several days and without power for 6 weeks.
Hank & Ellen, who were heavily involved in nursery management at the time, relied on a manager to facilitate ranch operations. But between them and the ranch manager, Cheravo wasn’t operated in a manner that would overcome the less than optimum soil conditions, the steepness and the drainage issues. I don’t mean to throw the ranch manager under the bus; the responsibility was very likely with Hank & Ellen, as the ranch definitely needed more of their attention.
And Hank & Ellen had always been agronomist innovators; they were successful nurserypersons and, in a way, treated Cheravo as a playground. The plus side of this was that they hosted many UC Riverside experimental orchard sites, some of which lead 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 and with every possible rootstock combination? Different kinds of trees require different types of inputs. And, when intermixed, they’re significantly more difficult to take care of. For a ranch to be more manageable and profitable, larger blocks of mono-variety tree & rootstock combinations need to be planted. And a good portion of them have to be of an established variety; Pinkertons & Reeds are fun but, unlike Hass, they don’t pay the bills.

Then in 2003, something extraordinary happened. Our neighbor, with whom we had a water partnership, threatened to cut off our water unless we made specific concessions, none of which we felt were reasonable. And Hank & Ellen, a couple of the worlds’ most conciliatory people, got mad; plans to develop our own water system began immediately.
When making capitol ranch investments, Hank & Ellen sometimes preferred the affordable and other times decided to pay for top quality. I don’t know if it was partly out of anger but when making water system development decisions, they wouldn’t settle for anything but the best. They dug a deep well. They put in an oversized & thick stainless-steel casing. They analyzed from which depths the highest quality water percolated and installed perforated well casing at those depth only. They abandoned the dirt lined & moss infested reservoir shared with the previous water partner and built one with a thick durable liner, which was much easier to clean and with 5 times the capacity. And they installed two 350 horsepower, low emissions diesel pumps, one for the well and the other as a booster, in order to transfer considerable water quantities from the new well to the new reservoir.
So after having invested in the installation of a water system, tantamount to a small civil engineering project, how would we manage the ranch in order to make it worthwhile? Within a couple of years, removal of the unprofitable mixed variety & rootstock orchards began and they were replaced with easier to manage solid blocks of Hass on similar rootstocks. And given our water system capacity, we were able to plant additional acreage. Cheravo Ranch, which broke even or lost money year after year, became profitable in 2013.

But Hanks’ & Ellens’ experimental & innovative inclinations were not thrown out with the bathwater. Cheravo Ranch continues to be very diverse in different types & varieties of avocados, citrus & sub-tropical tree-fruits, while successfully maintaining profitable “staple” avocado, White Guava & citrus production.
We continue to grow many of the UC Riverside experimental varieties, such as the Daisy, Nova & Gold Nugget Mandarins. We actually grow a decent acreage of tree matured White Guavas that we sell directly to numerous small fruit retailers. And we grow cherimoyas, mangos & lychee, which we often retail at our Farmers’ Markets.
And even though we play it safe by growing avocado varieties that are already popular, our avocado orchard planting and care techniques are modern, innovative and only adopted by a hand full of fellow California growers. I refer to dense planting & care techniques that were developed in Chile. We’ve sent staff members to Chile numerous times to learn & observe and continue to do so. Adopting Chilean dense planting & care techniques does require that the orchard be planted from scratch, with trees on berms and with 3-4 times the traditional tree concentration per acre. More maintenance is required in order to keep the trees small & from shading each other and a cultural practice called girdling is applied to mitigate alternate bearing tendencies. But the results are a more sustainable orchard with less acreage, water & fertilizer inputs required per pound of avocado produced. Given that such techniques require a completely different orchard configuration, having to replace Hanks’ & Ellens’ experimental avocado orchards didn’t turn out be such a bad thing!

When we provision kiwis, Gwen Avocados or any Hass after early August, think Lemoravo, Soledad. And for everything else, all types of avocados, specialty citrus & subtropical tree-fruits, think Cheravo, Santa Paula.
Thanks for your support!