Capay Canyon Ranch Tour
On October 6, 2013, CUESA visited Capay Canyon Ranch, the first stop on “Trail Mix: A Tour of Fruit and Nut Orchards.”
Located in Esparto, about 85 miles from the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, Capay Canyon Ranch grows 100 acres of almonds, 100 acres of walnuts, and 8 acres of grapes. Much of their business is dedicated to almond processing, and they distribute almonds all over the world.
Stan and Leslie Barth started growing almonds in 1972 and expanded their operation to almond handling in 1979. They added table grapes a few years later. Today, they run the business with their children Todd, Tobin, and Tirzah. (Todd and Stan are pictured here.)
Tobin showed us the almond orchards, which had already been harvested. The trees would soon drop their leaves and go dormant for the winter.
The Barths grow about half a dozen varieties of almonds, which have different flavors and culinary uses. Nonpareil, Carmel, and Butte Padre are pictured here. Nonpareil is the most common. It is large with a mild flavor that lends itself to being eaten raw.
Almond trees are planted in a diamond grid, with the alternating varieties in each row, which helps with cross-pollination. The Barths rent beehives every spring to pollinate their crop. Without the bees pollinating the trees, there would be no almonds!
The nut is is surrounded by a hull and a shell. When the almonds are ready to harvest, the hulls will begin to split, and it's time to bring in the shaker, a machine that rattles the nuts off the trees through high-speed vibrations. The nuts dry on the ground for about four to seven days, then are swept into the middle of the row, where they are vaccuumed up by a harvester and brought to the plant for processing.
On their journey from the tree to market, the nuts must be processed through a series of machines. The first stop is the desticker, which removes twigs and other debris that have been picked up by the harvester along with the nuts.
They then go through the large bluish machine shown here behind Todd, called a destoner, which removes dirt and stones.
The almonds are stored in holding tanks before they go to the sheller, which cracks the outer hulls and inner shells surrounding the nuts.
A gravity table shakes everything to separate the hulls and shells from the nut.
The hulls are removed from the processing plant and stored outside.
The unwanted hulls are sent to ranches in Modesto and Fresno and used for cow feed. The shells are used for cow bedding.
Once the almonds have been deshelled, they go to a sizer, which sorts the almonds from small to large, through a series of holes of different sizes.
Todd shows us the ultraviolet sorter, which is one of the last machines the almonds pass through. Using ultraviolet light, it is able to "see" and pick out by color the remaining bits of hull, shell, dirt, or stick as well as damaged nuts.
Finally, the nuts are quality-checked by workers, and any defective nuts are removed by hand before the nuts are packaged. Because of federal legislation, all raw almonds (with the exception of those sold at farmers market or on the farm) must be pasteurized, and the Barths send the nuts to another plant to get the job done. They are working on getting their own pasteurizing equipment.
In addition to processing their own nuts, Capay Canyon Ranch processes almonds for more than 50 other growers.
Capay Canyon sends their own nuts to another facility in Arbuckle to be candied and flavored for market.
In addition to conventionally grown nuts, the Barths grow organic Red Flame table grapes. Their grapes are certified by Farm Verified Organic.
Grapes are picked when they reach 18 units on the Brix scale of sweetness. Grapes that are not high enough quality to sell as table grapes are clipped and left to dry on trays in the vineyard for raisins.
Stan's daughter Tirzah handles the sales and marketing of the grapes. Thank you to the Barth family for the tour!
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CUESA (Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture) is dedicated to cultivating a sustainable food system through the operation of farmers markets and educational programs. Learn More »