It’s a warm mid-summer day in Lake County, California. The sun is still rising, stretching its arms over the green rows of pear trees slanting against the sunbeams. In the distance, Mariachi is playing, setting the pace and time for picking. It’s happy, welcoming, busy work happening all around us. Welcome to Panella Orchards. This is a typical August day, as this pear orchard has been producing for four generations. First planted in the late 1800s, a few hundred and forty-year-old pear trees still produce pears. Today, Gregory Panella and his family are the proud caretakers of the orchard. It’s a way of life, and they love it. It’s definitely not a job for Greg and his family; you can see the joy on the face of Greg’s eleven-year-old daughter, Audrey.
Only an hour before, AgVenture 2024, hosted by California Women For Agriculture, Lake County branch, was schooling this year’s participants in all things agriculture and the vital role it plays in Lake County. Greg had just told us about the science behind everything they do, including sustainable forms of irrigation, constant monitoring of moisture in the soil of the root zone, monitoring how much moisture is evaporating from the leaves themselves, monitoring for freeze prevention, how to attract good insects with puffers, yes you read that right, puffers in the trees that every few minutes release pheromones to attract the good bugs and trap catchers with sticky paper to track and study what bugs are in the orchard and if any need to be addressed.
But this was just the beginning of the tour. The next stop is Scully Packing Company, where Toni Scully stands hooked up to a mic because the packing company is in full swing for the peak of the harvest season. Even a hundred or more feet away from the packing facility, it’s difficult to hear what she says. Fun fact: Scully not only receives, washes, rinses, sorts, and grades, but also weighs each pear individually (no joke, each pear), adds stickers, and packs them according to the pear’s final destination, whether it be Safeway, Costco, or collected volume-filled packs for places like Del Monte. Any pear larger than the size of a walnut is not wasted. After the packing, the pears go into cold storage. And when I say cold, I’m talking about precisely thirty-one degrees of cold storage, where boxed pears hang out anywhere from sixteen to twenty-four hours. It might be cool and refreshing at first, but I can tell you, the forced air will chill you to the bone in no time.
Next door in the old farmhouse, men and women are busy on the phones selling pears all over the United States and across the world. Another fun fact: Scully’s Packing Company not only processes Lake County pears, but also pears from Sacramento and Mendocino County. When you consider the average yield of pears is about twenty tons per acre, combined with the harvest season only lasting about two months, you get the idea of just how busy this packing facility is right now.
Many, many hands sort the washed pears, creating a dividing line between what gets put in pretty boxes and what goes in bulk crates. As you can imagine, the larger the pear, the more likely it’s going to go to Safeway or Costco because the market value increases by the weight that the consumer pays for. But in reality, nothing is wasted; if it doesn’t make it in a jar of Gerber baby food, then it returns to the land as a natural fertilizer and releases nutrients back into the soil.
When farming is a way of life and a dress or suit and tie doesn’t feel as satisfying as watching over and picking your own fruit, I think there’s a reward no matter the cost. This passion was clearly evident in both the Panella’s and Scully’s lives, and for good reason. After learning all things pears, the highlight of my day was walking through the orchards with a paper bag and using my two hands to fill it with green, juicy, and delicious pears.
If you want a Panella Orchard’s pear grown right here in Lake County, stop by Safeway in Lakeport. There, you can pick out your own pear and know that it came to you with great care and love from local farmers.
