Story

At a u-pick orchard the apples turn out to be the least of it

A friend runs the food side at a u-pick orchard about an hour out and she was short people for the first big October weekend, so I said yes because I'm trying to figure out where I fit in this business and standing in a field seemed as good as anything.

My job was the wagon. Load families on, drive out to the rows they'd opened that day, drop them, come back. I did that from nine to five and my whole body hurt by two.

Once we closed up, the owner sat down on a crate next to me with a cider. He's maybe seventy. I asked how many apples they'd sold and he laughed and said not that many, actually. Then he said the apples are the cheapest thing on the property. What people pay for is the wagon ride and the donuts and the picture of their kid holding an apple.

He said it without any bitterness. He'd worked it out decades ago. The trees are still trees, they still have to be pruned and sprayed and they still get hit by a bad spring, and he still sells fruit wholesale. The weekend crowd is what pays for all of it in a way that wholesale never quite did.

Then he pointed at the far corner of the lot and said the parking field used to be trees too. Took them out in the nineties. Best block he ever pulled.

12 replies

tashaford30PB2APRO7

Took the trees out to park cars on it and calls it the best block he ever pulled. That's a whole education in one line.

marcus_hale41CG4A

This is the thing I keep running into when I look at permanent crop deals. The land and the trees are one story and the business running on top of them is a completely different story with completely different risk. A passive investor buying the ground doesn't get the donut money.

angela_burkeServicePRO6

@canton right, and the donut money is a labor business. He's staffing a weekend crowd. That's my world and it's nothing like owning dirt.

priya_n21PO1C

So if I wanted the income version of this without running a wagon all day, what's the shape? Own the ground, lease it to somebody who farms it, take the check?

renee_dubois Get yours

@marlow that's the shape, and the check is smaller. That's the trade. You give up the upside from operating and you also give up the 5am frost calls.

ehernandez74PO2BPRO5

I've been circling land for two years and this thread is the first thing that made the operating side concrete for me. I think what I actually want is the version where the trees grow and nobody needs me on a Saturday.

karen_whitfieldPG4APRO7

@anchor then look at timber before you look at fruit. Nut and fruit plantings need somebody every week of the year. A pine stand needs a management plan, a tax bill paid, and somebody to keep an eye on the boundary. The compounding happens whether or not you show up.

The thing plumb's owner figured out is that he had a location worth more than his crop. Most acreage doesn't have that, which is why most acreage stays acreage.

mikeoconnell7SP2APRO6

There's a whole service business hiding in this post and it's not farming. Somebody handles the wagons, the porta johns, the food permits, the weekend staffing. I know two people who'd pay for that and never think about an apple.

mitchell_ray4 Get yoursPRO6

@lantern the wagon itself is also somebody's maintenance contract. Old tractor, benches bolted on, hauling families all weekend. Nobody thinks about it until it doesn't start.

wendy_park48CapitalPRO7

@marlow the lease version has its own paperwork problem worth reading. Who's responsible for keeping the planting healthy over the term, who pays for replanting, and what happens to the trees at the end. A ground lease where the tenant lets the block decline for the last four years is a real outcome and the document either addresses it or it doesn't.

aaron_fitz10 Get yoursPRO6

The forester in my thread said something similar about boundaries actually. Different crop, same idea that the asset mostly takes care of itself and the owner's job is showing up occasionally with the right information.

joe_delgado5AP4CPRO6

Seventy years old, sitting on a crate with a cider, watched his own parking lot outperform his orchard for thirty years. I'd buy that guy a second cider.