"Edward, I know it's rude to ask about income, but I've recently wanted to add a planting project. I want to ask you how much money can you make in growing almonds every year? I heard them say that the profit of almonds can be $4,000 per acre."

Edward laughed:

"It's not that high. Those who say this must have regarded the market price as the price we sell for fruit farmers. The average price we get is only $1.75 per pound this year, but it's better than last year."

"What about the yield per acre?"

"If you only count the flesh, it is usually 2,200 pounds."

Xiao Yifei calculated that the income was about 4,000 US dollars. It seems that they regarded income as profit.

"Then I want to ask, the real profit should be more than 3,000 US dollars, right?"

“So many are done.”

Xiao Yifei then asked his own questions:

"I also heard that the profit of walnuts can reach tens of thousands of dollars per acre, so why don't you shovel the almond-grown walnuts?"

"How can it be tens of thousands of dollars? Nuts are not fruits, and they also have to be expensive to reach tens of thousands of dollars. Where did you hear about it, it is not reliable."

Where else can it be? Except for a small number of people who were chatting with others and most of them were seen in the research materials of Davis professors in the morning.

In fact, Xiao Yifei also found that there might be problems with these information. He didn't know other varieties, but he knew Napa's grapes. If the professors found that the highest yield and highest price of grapes were calculated, the grower's profit could be more than 20,000 US dollars per acre. But in fact, if you want to reach the highest price of more than 5,000 US dollars, the output must be controlled at about 2 tons, so that the income will be more than 10,000 US dollars, and other costs will be deducted. The profit should be between 5 and 7,000 US dollars. On the contrary, to reach the highest 6 tons, the unit price is estimated to be only 3,000 US dollars. Although the total income is a little higher, the cost of various materials and manual harvesting costs will also increase accordingly. Overall, the profit may be less high than the profit of production limit.

Now, he confirmed this from Edward's mouth. It seems that the professors' information can only serve as a reference. If you really want to choose an industry, you must also conduct on-site investigations.

Next, the two began to discuss the issue of fruit tree planting. As the conversation rose, Edward took Xiao Yifei to the rooftop.

Wherever you see, all are square fields. Edward said that the orchards in front of you are basically planted with almonds. Every spring, the leaves have not yet grown, and they all look over, and they are all red and white apricot blossoms. This is the busiest time for bees, and half of the beehives in the United States are transported here, but the supply is still in short supply, resulting in the price of pollination rising every year.

Unfortunately, it was winter at this time, and I couldn't see the scene described by Edward. There were only rows of neat apricot trees, with bare branches extending into the sky. It seemed as if shouting, "We want temperature, we want spring."

The two of them came to the fields again, among the neat rows of fruit trees. Like the vineyards, they also planted green grass. Xiao Yifei saw the drip irrigation facilities. Each row of apricot trees had a water pipe on both sides of each row of apricot trees, and there were two eyes on the water pipes at the location of each apricot tree. This drip irrigation facility was too simple.

Edward said it was very easy to plant almonds. Pruning was to hire temporary workers. Fertilization was to fertilize at the same time as drip irrigation. Experts and associations were involved in prevention and control of pests and diseases, and professional companies were also to pick it. It was not to rely on manual harvesting, but to wait for the apricot fruit to crack in the tree and expose the fruit core. At this time, a vibration harvester was used to shake the fruit core onto the plastic cloth laid under the tree. Of course, a more advanced integrated harvester could also be used.

After harvesting, the almonds are sold to the processor, and it has nothing to do with the grower. Just wait and get the check.

After Edward said this, Xiao Yifei knew that it was so easy to build the almond garden. No wonder he only earned more than 3,000 US dollars per acre. Compared with the vineyards in Napa, pruning is artificial, so I won’t talk about this. (Of course, it is said that there are mechanized pruning now, but no one dares to use it yet.) The vineyards are sprouted and pinched, and tied and tied branches until harvesting depends on manual labor. No wonder the grapes there are so expensive and earn so much per acre.

"Edward, don't lie to me, is it really that easy?"

"Of course it's easy, there's an association for everything."

The association he mentioned is the California Almond Growers Association, also known as the Sapphire Association. This association was established in 1910 and later became the world's largest nut processing and sales company. This company is not a company in the ordinary sense. It is composed of thousands of almond growers, more than 100 almond handlers, that is, processors, in California.

The California Almond Association is responsible for promoting high-quality almond products and increasing global almond consumption. When people are not familiar with American almonds, the Almond Association holds various promotional activities through its representative offices in major cities in Asia, Europe and the Americas to popularize and promote them; they widely develop domestic and international markets to expand people's understanding and demand for almonds. When people accept American almonds, the association begins to develop the nutrition and health care functions of almonds to further cultivate the market. The Almond Association spends about millions of dollars a year to cooperate with many universities in the United States and abroad, and hires personnel to conduct human clinical trials and tests of multiple indicators.

These activities must be funded, and this fund actually comes from almonds. The association's membership fee is 2 cents per pound of almonds, so that the annual output of the Central Valley is enough to ensure that they can have sufficient funds to carry out public relations and publicity offensives around the world.

That is, with the efforts of the Growing Association, California's almond production accounts for 80% of the world's output, and they have made almonds a huge industry worth more than $1 billion. Because 70% of its almonds are exported abroad, it has also become California's largest food export project.

(Aside from the topic, this is a California Almond Association, which is both an association and a company, is essentially an agricultural cooperative. Why can they succeed and those of our cooperatives fail?)

Xiao Yifei continued to ask:

“Just this is the case with almonds or other orchard planting projects?”

"I don't know about other projects, but Walnuts are not like this anyway."

Xiao Yifei was much relieved because if the association had a strong power, Xiao Yifei would not be able to grasp more voice or even pricing power, nor could he develop from the upstream to the downstream, and could not obtain more profits.

Xiao Yifei asked:

“How many acres have you planted?”

“This land is 30 acres.”

With an annual income of less than 100,000 yuan, she has to support two college students. No wonder Shirley is going to study in Canada.

Edward drove Xiao Yifei to the land he rented again.

"It's this piece of land. I've already negotiated with my owner. I shoveled him to plant blueberries this year. The price of blueberries is high and the profit is much higher than that of almonds."

Xiao Yifei is no longer a novice who doesn’t know anything. He has already checked the information about Blueberry.

Blueberries, known as the "third generation fruit", are one of the most unique health-care small berries that have been developed in the world today. They are rich in anthocyanins, soD and a variety of vitamins. Medical experiments have proved that blueberries have obvious effects in alleviating eye fatigue, preventing urinary tract infections, fighting cancer, delaying brain nerve aging, enhancing heart function and improving immunity. Blueberries are also listed as one of the five health foods in humans by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and have extremely high economic value.

According to the research of professors at Davis, blueberries actually had a profit of $80,000 per acre, and even a sky-high profit of $100,000. When he first saw it, he couldn't help laughing out loud. It seemed that there were unreliable experts and professors in any country. Although this profit was unreliable, it also showed that blueberries was indeed very profitable. Otherwise, he would not have planned to grow blueberries in the Osiris space.

"Edward, I know that blueberries are expensive and profitable. However, there is no conclusion yet. Would you be too risky to grow blueberries?"

Xiao Yifei is telling the truth. Although it is an important place for blueberries in California, it may not be suitable for blueberries in the north of the Central Valley.

Blueberries are divided into high-cluster blueberries and low-cluster blueberries. Among them, low-cluster blueberries are suitable for cold environments, such as Northeast my country, Northeast America, Canada, etc. The environment suitable for high-cluster blueberries is generally hot and humid, such as Florida, San Diego, southern California and other places. The northernmost planting site in California is Fresno in the Southern San Joaquin Valley. Therefore, no blueberries are planted in large-scale planting in the Sacramento Valley.

"Why is it inappropriate? Let me take you to see it."

Edward pulled Xiao Yifei back to his house again, pointing to the two trees in the backyard and said:

"Look, this is blueberries, it's sunshine blue. I've planted them for several years. Everything is normal. The blueberries are delicious every year."

Xiao Yifei thought to himself, you are considered garden planting, which is very different from field planting, but he is not easy to persuade him again.

After dinner, Xiao Yifei drove back to the winery.

Originally, the route should be the shortest route according to the route from Shirley to the winery last time, but this route takes 100 kilometers of mountain road. It is too dangerous to walk the mountain road in winter evenings. Xiao Yifei chose to go far and go directly to Olan and drive directly along the No. 5 and 505 expressways from Oran to Winster, and then take the morning route back to Napa Valley. Although this route is more than 20 kilometers away, it is only 40 kilometers of mountain road, which saves a lot of time than the previous route.

Even so, it took Xiao Yifei 2 and a half hours to return to the winery.

"I'm so tired today, you can choose a guest room to rest."

Wang Nan also replied in a daze:

"Okay, I'll have champagne tomorrow."
Chapter completed!