After graduation, other students might be able to sleep in and take it easy, but not me. For those who farm, there is no such thing as playing around once the sun is up.
Even so, I allowed myself a bit of leisure today, because there was somewhere I had to go, and I could set out at a relaxed pace around midmorning.
“Good grief... it’s all green as far as the eye can see.”
All I could see were vast stretches of rice paddies and orchards... I had entered the famous Sacramento Valley.
The Sacramento area, where Jacob’s farm was located, was one of America’s representative large-scale agricultural regions. Its expanse was enormous—larger than Gyeongsangbuk-do and Jeollanam-do combined.
The region’s signature crop was rice, mainly California short-grain rice, mostly Calrose. It had a chewy, sticky texture that suited Korean tastes quite well, so it was commonly used by Korean immigrants and Korean restaurants. Our family was the same; if that rice hadn’t existed, we might have had to import rice from Korea.
But just because Sacramento, a major grain-producing region, produced short-grain rice, that didn’t mean America’s main rice variety was short-grain. Fluffy long-grain varieties, Indica, made up about 75%, while short-grain was only around 25%.
After moving for about two hours, I finally arrived at my destination, and as soon as I stopped the car, the distinctive scent of wet rice straw pricked my nose.
Then I saw the hulking Jacob running toward me with his arms wide open, as if he were reuniting with long-lost family.
“Brian!”
“You’re gonna make me go deaf.”
“This is my home, Riverbend Rice Farm.”
“It’s nice. So your family was rich too, huh?”
“Haha, I don’t know about that. Anyway, it’s a place I’m proud of.”
He spread both arms toward the endless rice fields, looking proud, and I felt he had every right to be. Anyone would be proud if those fields belonged to them.
“So what’s the problem?”
“Ah, that’s...”
Just as Jacob was about to say something with an awkward expression, a woman with blond hair tied low stepped out of the house from the front door and walked toward us.
“Mom! This is Brian!”
The woman, who looked very different from Jacob, hurried over and said,
“So you’re Brian. Call me Aunt Maggie. My boy praised you so much, I’ve been wanting to meet you.”
“Jacob praised me?”
“He did. He said you’re a genius when it comes to farming, and that you gave him lots of hints here and there. You’ve been a huge help to us.”
“Haha... yes... I just told him methods everyone uses.”
In truth, I had never told Jacob about knowledge from before my regression, like the biochar compound fertilizer or atmospheric nitrogen packs I used on our farm. I had only told him widely known information, the sort that would appear in a textbook.
“Even so, it helped us tremendously. We didn’t know.”
“Yes...”
I could understand. Whether in Korea or America, older people tended to be stubborn, and because they prioritized their own experience, they didn’t readily accept scientific theories or new technologies.
“Anyway, thank you for coming all the way here to help today. And Jacob said it’s all thanks to you that he got into UC Davis with you.”
“Not at all. It was because Jacob worked hard. And he helped out diligently at Chloe’s farm too.”
As Chloe had said, Jacob had earned significant credit through various volunteer activities, and he was accepted to UC Davis along with me, Armando, and Chloe. I didn’t know about the others, but in Jacob’s case, while the volunteer work mattered, I suspected the background of running a large farm like this had also helped.
“Do you want to eat first? I wasn’t sure what Asians liked, so I prepared mostly meat.”
“No, it’s all right. I’ll take a look at the situation first.”
“Will you? Then... Mr. Alberto is over there, so it’d be better if you went with him.”
Far in the distance, I could see a person, like a tiny dot, standing on the levee between the paddies.
“Is he the farm manager?”
“That’s right.”
“What about Jacob’s father?”
For a moment, her pupils trembled, and she looked at Jacob in distress. Then Jacob said as if it were nothing.
“Dad hasn’t been in good health.”
“Ah... I see? Sorry... Got it. Do you have any boots? Could you get me a pair?”
“Yeah, wait a second.”
When I moved on as if nothing had happened, Jacob smiled again, fetched a pair of boots, and came along with me. Once Aunt Maggie went back into the house, Jacob rubbed the bridge of his nose and said,
“Dad’s health started getting bad last year. So now I have to lead the farm.”
“So there was a reason you matured?”
“... Yeah. I used to live like an idiot. The nasty things I said to you back then were because all those stupid habits I had hadn’t changed yet.”
Jacob, who nodded readily, really seemed to be reflecting on his past.
“If you reflect and change, that’s enough. As long as you didn’t do anything truly terrible...”
At that moment, the farm manager named Alberto, having seen us coming, approached.
“Jacob, you’re here. This friend is that Brian?”
“Yes, that’s right. Nice to meet you.”
I shook hands with the farm manager named Alberto and looked him over carefully. His skin was darkly tanned and wrinkled, and there was a certain tough energy about him that made him seem like someone who had farmed for a long time.
“I truly hope your friend can help.”
“He’ll definitely find the answer.”
Alberto looked unconvinced, while Jacob was full of certainty. Having them act like that with me right there made me rather embarrassed.
“Where is it?”
“Right here.”
He pointed to the paddy in front of us.
“Hmm...”
Following his nod, I examined the paddy closely and saw that the green reflected on the water’s surface was uneven. One row still had its sheen, while the row beside it had a faint brown seeping in from the tips of the leaves. Farther out, the leaves were twisted, and the new shoots were curled up like overturned fingernails.
“Did you spray anything recently?”
Alberto flinched, then spoke in a somewhat softened voice.
“A week ago?”
“Why?”
“The weeds were spreading... so... I sprayed a herbicide the shop recommended. It’s been like that since then.”
I nodded and immediately asked,
“Do you have any records? The date, product name, dilution ratio, things like that.”
“Nothing like that in particular.”
“Then you have some left over from then, right?”
“That... I do.”
“Let me see it.”
“All right. Wait here.”
He ran toward the storage shed, and I stepped into the paddy with my boots on. Then I placed a leaf on my palm, turned my back to the sun, and looked at it while changing the angle. The leaf tip showed signs of drying brown, the middle of the leaf had yellowed, and the newly grown leaf had not spread normally but was twisted. On top of that, the veins that should have run straight were visibly bent in a zigzag.
“It’s because of the chemical.”
Jacob, who had already guessed as much when I asked them to bring the chemical used last time, asked anxiously,
“So... is it ruined?”
“Who said it’s ruined?”
I flicked the leaves off my hand and smiled bitterly.
“Rather than ruined... it’s getting scolded? About that much.”
“I’m getting scolded by the rice plants? Why? Should I have gone fully organic like Chloe’s place?”
“Chloe’s place wasn’t completely organic. It was only organic when dealing with the aphids back then... And organic isn’t always better. When you need to use chemicals, you should. The problem is that you have to use them properly, and when you don’t, you get scolded like this.”
“Ah...”
At that moment, I saw Mr. Alberto running from afar, carrying several containers.
“Don’t run! Let’s go. I’ve seen the condition, so there’s no need to stay here any longer.”
“Huh? Okay.”
I walked toward Mr. Alberto, and soon we met up with him.
“This is everything that’s left.”
I looked at the chemical containers he handed me and nodded.
“It’s 2,4-D, huh? For herbicide use, it looks like you bought the right thing. Let’s go inside and take a look first.”
Perhaps seeing me recognize the chemical’s use at a glance gave him some trust in me, because Alberto followed behind me without complaint.
Once we entered the storage shed, I examined the containers he had brought, then opened the diluted pesticide container rather than the raw 2,4-D, stuck in a wooden stick, and stirred it around. Then I tilted my head and asked,
“What was the dilution ratio for this?”
“That? Uh... roughly one pint to twelve or thirteen gallons?”
“Mmm... so that’s why.”
When I straightened up, Jacob asked,
“Was the dilution ratio wrong?”
“Yeah. You mixed it too strong. You should’ve used twenty to thirty percent more water... And it was pretty hot on the day you sprayed, wasn’t it?”
“H-how did you know that?”
Seeing Alberto deeply shocked, I looked at the weather outside and said,
“When you spray during a high-temperature period, the stomata—tiny openings in the epidermis of plant leaves and young stems—open up, so the plant absorbs too much of the chemical. You mixed the 2,4-D too strong, and on top of that, the weather was hot, so the little ones took a real hit.”
“Then what do we do? Is there a way?”
“Of course there is. I told you, it’s not ruined.”
“Really? Haa... thank goodness.”
Jacob, who had been worried stiff, finally regained a smile. At that, Alberto hurriedly asked,
“Then what should we do now?”
“First, drain all the water. The priority is to fill it with clean water.”
“R-right. Got it.”
Mr. Alberto rushed out of the storage shed. Since it had happened because he overapplied the chemical, his heart must have been all the more urgent. I immediately said to Jacob,
“Write this down.”
“Ah, wait!”
When Jacob took out a notebook and pen, I said,
“Once clean new water comes in, adjust the pH to 6 to 6.5. The acidity of the paddy water is directly linked to the rice plants’ ability to absorb nutrients.”
“Got it.”
“In this case, the problem occurred because the rice plants overabsorbed the chemical due to high temperature and high concentration. So during recovery, it’s important to keep it neutral. If it’s too acidic, apply lime or silicate fertilizer, and if it’s too alkaline, use sulfur or organic matter.”
“Okay.”
“Once the acidity is adjusted, use silicate fertilizer to strengthen the rice plants’ cell walls and help the damaged areas recover quickly. But if the pH is 7 or higher, reduce the silicate fertilizer and use a foliar nutrient spray instead. Then they’ll recover.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
After organizing everything in his notebook, Jacob suddenly hugged me tightly.
“Whoa?”
“Thank you! Seriously, thank you!”
“...... I get it, so could you let go?”
“Haha... I really mean it, thank you.”
“I said I get it.”
At that moment, I suddenly received a call from Chloe. When I answered, Chloe’s clear voice came through so loudly it nearly burst my eardrums.
“Kyaaaah!”
“What! What is it?”
“We won! We won! The rightful ownership of the cherry farm is mine now!”
Unable to contain her joy, she shrieked like crazy. I had never heard Chloe sound this happy before.
“...... Congratulations.”
“I’m so happy. I didn’t know I’d be this happy knowing I can keep raising those children...”
In the end, Chloe’s voice began to tremble with tears.
“Calm down, calm down...”
Perhaps sensing the annoyance in my words, Chloe’s tone turned serious.
“Hmph! I guess I’m the only one who’s happy?”
“It’s not like I’m the one getting the farm. Anyway, congratulations.”
“Good. Dad invited you. He says he recognizes that your farming methods were a great help, and he wants to express his gratitude.”
“... Does he have to?”
“You need to come get the cherries!”
“Ah, okay.”
And so, I was invited once again to Chloe’s cherry farm. And now, it was time to use the tanks that had become clean and empty after I sold all the vinegar.