‘Last Chance’ Peach Stirs Doubts in Antelope Valley : Investors Say Fruit Is Tasty but Overrated
Across the wind-swept Antelope Valley, anxious growers are beginning to worry that their gentleman-farmer dreams of peach orchards may actually be the pits.
Dozens of farmers and city dwellers invested millions of dollars in recent years to plant an estimated 320,000 peach trees in this high-desert area. They were betting that they could get rich on a new variety of the fruit that sprouted from a single pit tossed in Jim Sprague’s backyard 13 years ago.
“It’s an almost perfect peach. That’s what farmers are looking for,” said Sprague, of Lancaster. When the discarded pit in Sprague’s yard grew into what he judged to be a superb tree, the retired Los Angeles County employee decided to market it. He is the sole supplier of the peach trees, and he’s also the fruit’s biggest booster.
Fans of Sprague’s peaches hoped that they would herald an agricultural renaissance in the Antelope Valley. Now, however, even though many of the new orchards are just beginning to bear fruit, some growers are complaining that the trees are overrated. They are said to drink more water, need more space and require more care than Sprague, the trees’ patent holder, had suggested. And others claim that frost has already
ruined some of what they thought was a frost-resistant crop.
Nonetheless, the same nervous investors praise the fruit itself. It’s one of the tastiest, sweetest freestone peaches ever grown, and it freezes well, they boast.
Agricultural experts have watched in amazement as Sprague’s variety, dubbed the Last Chance Peach, has become one of the more popular strains sold in California. The name was inspired, in part, by the peach’s highly desirable late harvest in September or October, when most peaches are out of season.
“It’s people’s last chance to buy a peach (each season), and it’s my last chance to make a buck,” the 76-year-old Sprague is fond of saying.
In 1986, Last Chance trees accounted for 14% of the commercial peach trees sold in the state, according to the California Tree Fruit Agreement, which administers the federal marketing order regulating the state’s peach, plum, nectarine and Bartlett pear industry. This year, with 120,000 trees bought so far, sales have almost tripled. Sales of the trees, which cost $5.50 apiece retail, have pushed revenues of his family corporation to $1.7 million, Sprague said.
To date, most of the trees have been planted in the Antelope Valley. But this year, growers from other peach states began ordering the trees, and inquiries are arriving from countries as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Chile and New Zealand, Sprague said.
Much of the growers’ current anxiety stems from the fact that peach strains are normally created through professional breeding, which often requires 20 years of development and testing. Sprague’s peach did not receive that kind of scrutiny.
Consequently, agriculture experts say, it’s too early to tell whether the Last Chance peach orchards in the Antelope Valley will eventually be profitable. Growers are caught in a cross fire of advice from Sprague and the University of California’s top peach specialists on how to nurture their young trees. And the fruit is still so new that experts aren’t sure how high a price it will command on the market.
“There are quite a few trees in the ground, (but) whether or not it’s a viable variety that will stand the market test is something down the road,” said John Field, assistant manager of the California Tree Fruit Agreement.
One of those who has become skeptical is John Alesso Jr., president of the Los Angeles County Farm Bureau, who sank $200,000 into 4,300 peach trees during the past four years.
“If I had it all to do over, I’d keep my money in my hip pocket,” Alesso said. Frost wiped out his crop last year, and if it continues, the veteran farmer said he will subdivide the orchard for tract homes and name it Last Chance Acres.
Everyone acknowledges that production so far has been relatively modest. Almost all the trees have been planted within the past four years, and it takes three to four years before a farmer can start selling peaches. In 1985, 22,500 pounds were sold; last year, volume jumped to 282,677 pounds. By comparison, California, the nation’s largest peach state, produced 304 million pounds of peaches last year, mostly in the San Joaquin Valley.
Many farmers and businessmen had high hopes that the Last Chance peach would be a shot in the arm for the valley’s ailing agriculture. Steep water prices from the California Aqueduct have forced farmers who raise alfalfa and other water-intensive crops to begin experimenting with crops that use less water.
But Gary Mork, Los Angeles County’s agriculture inspector in the Antelope Valley, now calls the peach episode “a rather touchy subject.”
“We want to urge caution to all these people having $100,000 to throw around to do a little homework,” Mork said.
Sprague’s enthusiasm for his peach, however, has been infectious. By Sprague’s count, 42 growers in the Antelope Valley have started orchards. A police officer, flight engineer, investment broker, carpet layer, aerospace worker, building contractors, an actor and others took the plunge, even though the farming experience of most didn’t extend beyond backyard zucchini and tomatoes.
Some growers refuse to talk to Sprague. They say some of his claims are not panning out.
Sprague has bragged that his trees are economical, that they thrive on little water--less than an acre-foot per season--and require no pruning or thinning. Because the trees are a semidwarf variety, no ladders are needed at harvest time, he says, and growers can plant 680 trees to an acre instead of the usual 109 with full-size varieties.
However, peach experts at the University of California Extension, who have planted a few of the trees, do not think Sprague’s variety is a semi-dwarf. UC fruit cultivation specialist Scott Johnson warns that anyone who follows Sprague’s planting and care instructions will find their orchards turning into “jungles.”
Sprague, however, questions the wisdom of the university’s experts and suggests that people who have trouble in their orchards have done a poor job of farming. Sprague’s grandson James Hansen, one of several family members involved in the business, suggests that the trees have been controversial because they are atypical.
“If you are doing something unusual and do it first, controversy follows,” Hansen said.
To be sure, not all the growers are pessimistic. “It’s the best thing going out there right now,” said Joyce Whiteside, a real estate agent from Newhall. She and her husband, a union official, have planted 25,000 trees in the valley in the past two years. One son lives on the farm, and another will be joining him.
Their peach trees, which will not produce a commercial crop until next year, are doing well, Whiteside said. “We’re excited about it.”
But others express doubt and anger. Chiropractor Kai Drengler and his wife invested $500,000 in 20,000 peach trees. Last year, the Drenglers lost the fruit on 2,000 of their trees because of frost, and the price commanded by the remaining peaches was disappointing because the fruit didn’t have enough “blush,” the orange color that consumers prefer.
“There is one thing that bugs me,” Drengler said. “People are investing money in these peaches where no peaches should grow. People are relying on an old man who is an excellent salesman who promoted his peach trees.”
Equally disillusioned are John Donovan and his wife, Betty Jean, who left their auto body shop in Covina almost 1 1/2 years ago. They live in a mobile home next to their 7,000-tree orchard. They hope to produce their first commercial crop this autumn.
The Donovans’ opinion of their venture is evident from a wooden sign hung above their barn door. It reads: “Donovan’s Grief--Last Chance Peaches.” “The tree was badly misrepresented,” John Donovan said.
“Everybody started doing this because they thought they’d make a lot of money,” added Betty Jean Donovan, as she baked a pie with store-bought peaches.
