Farmers : James and Michelle ParkerLocation : Oroville , Calif. Specialty : Mandarin oranges and value - added product
Welty Mandarins , a mandarin - orange orchard located in California ’s Sacramento Valley , draw its start in the early 1960s with J.D. Welty , a retired tunneler who decided to implant some yield trees in bare shaving country . After much searching , he settled onOwari Satsuma mandarinsand painstakingly bud - graft cut to trifoliolate rhizome that provided additional conditions and disease protection to the tree . By 1964 , he had 1,000 Tree and began plant an even larger woodlet . Welty mandarin
tight - forward 50 year : James and Michelle Parker , were living in New England but their hearts were calling them back west — James has a horticulture degree from Oregon State University — and Welty Mandarins was for sale . Taking a endangerment , the couple purchase the farm sight unobserved , selling their family and drive their four kids across the nation , trade urban Connecticut for rural California .
Since purchasing the farm , the Parkers have begun to propose note value - added product made with their orange , including soaps , rim balms , marmalade and orange honey , in addition to the fruits themselves . They ’d also like to eventually broaden out beyond centre alone on mandarins : “ It ’s our intention to diversify our farm to a larger extent in the likely event that we ’ll finally have catastrophic fruit departure , either because of cold-blooded weather condition freezing the fruit or overweening rain that causes molder , ” Michelle Parker pronounce .
Biggest Success
The Parkers consider the development of on-line sale , successful grassroots marketing and product variegation some of their biggest successes to engagement .
Biggest Challenge
Their grownup challenge is James having to equilibrize the mass of the farm procedure along with a full - time caper as a tree farmer for a local electrical utility company . Like many little - scale husbandman , Welty Mandarins is n’t yet at the point that James can step down his full - time job and farm exclusively , but they hope that within the next five to seven years , their farm will continue to fly high and expand , and James will be raise full - time .
Firsthand Advice
To anyonethinking about husbandry , the Parkers tender a Holy Writ of cautiousness :
” It ’s a tidy sum of surd work and long hr and in spades only for some folks . The amorous notion of expend your time lean your beautiful farm in the rolling countryside can evaporate apace as the long , red-hot summers take their bell on your body , your enthusiasm and your farm . ”
They also recommend , perhaps more importantly , that any new minuscule - scale James Leonard Farmer lento work their way into it by have a second course of income . oppress debt from overextending your finances has kill far more small - scale farm than any dirt ball or disease .
Welty Mandarins
