Since 1943 family and dedicated employees are still working Mandarin Hill Orchards in Penryn California. Frank and Bernice Aguilar still live on the property along with their Foreman, but are still very involved with the day-to-day operation and packing. During harvest time their son, Tom, has taken over the responsibilities of managing the orchard and packinghouse.
Last year Tom worked with SolareCity
In 2001, Tom started an ‘Inarching Project’ at the orchard which is extending the life of the 50-year-old mandarin trees which will help continue to provide a secure financial base, quality fruit and keep this acreage in agricultural production for family members in the future.
Electric Co.
of Rocklin, California to convert the farming operation to 100 % solar, installing photoelectric solar panels and system that generates enough electricity to completely zero out their PG&E bill. Currently, they are the first and only completely solar mandarin orchard in Northern California.
What is ‘Inarching’?
“Grafting a seedling into the scion, bypassing the original graft scar.” Like a heart bypass surgery.
After 50 years Mandarin Hill’s citrus trees showed signs of benching, or choking their original rootstock, which is basically the incompatibility between the tree rootstock and the scion (a branch cut for grafting, the bud wood) at the graft scar.
In 2001 Tom contacted Dr. Lawrence Marais, after reading a magazine article he had written on inarching, after completing a project in South Africa on two thousand acres of navel oranges. He came to visit Mandarin Hill and was quite enthusiastic that this orchard would be a good candidate for inarching. This meant that new seedlings needed to be grafted onto the parent tree and bridged over the benching that was occurring. That year Dr. Marais, and Tom planted 4 to 5 seedlings per parent tree and inarched, or grafted, the seedlings into the parent tree, which was 500 seedlings into approximately 110 parent trees. More than 500 seedlings were purchased in 2002 and planted under 110 parent trees, and inarched two weeks later. In 2003, 1000 more seedlings and 1000 cone seedlings, a seedling less than one year old, were purchased. The project was getting very costly so Tom decided to try a smaller and less expensive seedling, but the cone seedlings were too small and many died. In 2004 Tom started to germinate his own Trifoliate seedlings, a high bred rootstock that is a slow grower. The seedlings were placed into pots in his greenhouse for one year and then outside in the nursery for another year. Since then Tom has been producing his own seedlings to graft onto his trees, currently ¾ of the orchard is completed with 99% percent of grafts taken.
