A few days later, a luxury sedan arrived at Redwood Winery. Those who stepped out were Frederick, Chloe, and, curiously enough, Brandon had tagged along too.
"Take a good look. This is a farm run by a friend who's much better at farming than you."
"Okay."
Brandon wore an expression showing he wasn't pleased, but he didn't complain and surveyed the farm atmosphere. The condescending attitude he'd had at first seemed to have vanished, and now curiosity lingered in his eyes. It was a change that had come about after tasting the cherry wine.
Frederick pointed to a small vineyard tractor puttering along the rows of grapevines.
"Look at that. Even in winter, the tractor keeps moving without rest. Are you working continuously like that on your farm?"
"I was planning to start soon."
"I don't know about other crops, but the walnut farm you're in charge of needs cover crops planted. I told you the reason, right?"
"Yes. When it rains, the soil gets muddy and the land erodes. Since cover crops hold the ground in place, we absolutely have to do it..."
"Good. You remembered."
Though his son grumbled incessantly, Frederick felt proud that he remembered something important, so he gave his shoulder a squeeze and headed up to the winery.
"Welcome."
"Glad to be here."
Dad and Frederick, who had grown quite close by now, greeted each other with a hug. They shook hands with me and sat down, while Chloe and Brandon stood behind them. Dad and Frederick sat facing each other across the table.
"You've heard the story?"
"Yes, it seems our child went to your place and bewitched the boss."
"Hahaha, it seems so. I ended up thoroughly bewitched. The contract is here, so let's review it."
Written boldly on the contract title was: [Redwood–Harris Strategic Partnership Agreement (2004–2034)].
"A strategic partnership agreement between Redwood and Harris... That sounds impressive."
"I think so too. 'Grow Harris Farm and make wine with it.' Isn't that a true win-win? First, the profit benchmark is set at the five-year average. I thought you might be curious about the related costs, so I've attached an annual revenue and expense analysis prepared by an accountant."
This was because it was 30 percent of profit, not 30 percent of revenue, so he had brought detailed records of the expenses. Labor costs, packaging and refrigeration, transportation, pesticides, various fertilizers, insurance, and even loans were meticulously recorded.
Looking at this, I could understand why wineries that owned vineyards in the California region made overwhelmingly more money.
Other farms struggled to process their primary products directly, but vineyards were the only ones that could directly produce value in the form of wine through a winery. And since it happened to be a luxury good, the unit price was high as well.
Cherry wine sold for eighteen dollars per bottle, but even basic Pinot Noir went for twenty to forty dollars per bottle, so there was no comparison. Especially Napa Cabernet Sauvignon ranged from forty dollars to one hundred dollars, and cult-level wines far exceeded that.
Even if you grew and sold grapes all day long, making wine well just once could bring in hundreds of millions—that was the California wine market.
"Can you handle this?"
Before stamping the contract, Dad turned to me and asked with a very serious expression. Once stamped, it couldn't be undone, and moreover, another family's livelihood was at stake. He had been asking since yesterday whether I could bear that heavy weight, but my answer had been consistent.
"Of course. Trust me."
Seeing me nod calmly, Dad signed without hesitation.
"Let's do this well."
"I'll do my best."
And so the two families completed the transaction signatures. As the contract title stated, a strategic partnership agreement was formed between the two families.
"When will you start?"
Frederick asked that immediately.
"I'll visit the farm tomorrow."
"What do I need to prepare?"
"Hmm... quite a lot... you'll need to write it down."
When Frederick tilted his head, wondering what could possibly require writing down, Chloe, who had worked with me several times, pulled out a notebook as if she had prepared it in advance.
"Tell me."
"First, five hundred tons of wood chips."
"What?"
"Not five hundred kilograms, but tons?"
Everyone was taken aback from the very start.
"Yes, five hundred tons. You don't need to prepare it all at once. You'll need to gather it over about two weeks to a month, so just collect it all within that time. You'll need a very large open lot. And we need two hundred fifty tons of fully decomposed compost. Livestock manure is fine, and food waste compost is okay too. Decomposed green manure crops work as well."
As the list went on, Frederick and Brandon's mouths hung open. Especially Brandon looked terrified that he might be ordered to do all of this.
"And we need molasses—a sticky syrup from sugar cane residue—or liquid fertilizer from fish byproducts. About four hundred to five hundred liters. I'll prepare a few additional items myself."
"We can prepare that."
Chloe spoke as if she could handle it, but I waved my hand.
"I have to get those."
"Ah..."
Mycorrhizal fungi (fungi that live symbiotically with plant roots), Bacillus (soil bacteria), and Trichoderma (fungi)—these were the core of the knowledge I possessed. I could show them how to make biochar, but there was no reason to show them the true core.
"So you're saying to gather five hundred tons of wood chips over two weeks to a month?"
When Frederick asked, I nodded.
"Yes. Whether you buy them or collect them doesn't matter. What's important is that you dry them to reduce moisture. Of course, if they get rained on, it'll be a big problem, right?"
Where would you scrounge up five hundred tons of wood chips? They would mostly have to be purchased.
"I... suppose so."
"You'll need to build temporary shade structures on-site, and break up any large branches."
"What on earth are you trying to do?"
"I'm going to make charcoal. Charcoal that's very good for crops. So you understand now why we need a large open lot?"
"You mean to build a makeshift kiln there?"
"Exactly. This is all because your land is enormous, Mr. Frederick. It's two hundred acres, so the scale has to be this large."
The biochar compound fertilizer to be spread on our fifteen-acre farm had been made through tremendous hardship by Dad and me, but since the land was small, that was the extent of it. At the time, the wood chips Dad and I had handled exceeded thirty tons, so the suffering was simply indescribable.
But thinking back, at the time, the thought of cultivating my own farm with my own hands hadn't seemed so difficult.
"Then it will cost a tremendous amount of money?"
"Think of this as an investment. Still, I've planned this as a partial application, so I've kept the amount relatively low. It should be resolved with about forty thousand to sixty thousand dollars."
"Haha, well now..."
Since he had already signed the contract, Frederick smiled awkwardly, thinking there was no helping it.
"It may be difficult now, and you may not understand why, but when you see next year's harvest, you'll be glad you did this."
"I understand. There must be a reason. And just looking at the compost ingredients you're listing one by one, most of them are materials that help farming, so I'm relieved. It really feels like we're doing something for the soil."
Frederick, who had seemed a bit flustered at first, calmly accepted it as he organized his thoughts. Just from this, I could tell he had worried deeply about farming.
"I'll come take a look tomorrow, so please prepare slowly. But don't be too relaxed, or January will pass us by. A calm mind, but quick actions."
Frederick looked at his son, and Brandon, who wasn't completely clueless, repeated after me.
"A calm mind, but quick actions."
"Good."
Finally, I looked at Chloe.
"Check the prepared materials yourself. With your own eyes."
"Got it."
Seeing that she didn't hesitate at all even when told to check the mountain-like piles of wood and the foul-smelling compost, Chloe definitely seemed different from before.
"I'll come around three p.m. tomorrow."
"Then I'll see you then."
Watching Chloe's family leave, Dad asked.
"It seems like you've taken on a huge undertaking... You don't seem scared."
"Scared? I'm thrilled. How great is it to have a chance to make money."
"That aside, are we just leaving our new farm as is?"
Right now, the most important thing to Dad was selling out the cherry wine quickly, and the second was rebuilding the Silver Oak Farm—which they had acquired after it burned down—to better than its original state. Leaving that expensive land idle was unthinkable.
"Dad, when I told Chloe's family to make biochar, I calculated with a teeny~ bit of extra."
"Huh? Really?"
"Yes. After January when spring begins, we'll till all the land, lay gravel, and then spread the biochar left over from what Chloe's family used. But if there isn't enough, we'll just make more then."
"Alright, Dad trusts you."
"Dad, it's your son."
As I scrunched my brow and shrugged my shoulders, Dad patted my shoulder proudly.
---
From the next day, I began dropping by Brentwood, where Chloe's Harris Farm was located, once a day like clocking in for work. It was an extremely difficult distance in terms of route; if I had to go to school, it would feel like going from Gangnam to Pangyo and then to Ansan, commuting between Sacramento, Brentwood, and Napa Valley.
In short, it was a forced march.
The mountain-like piles of wood stacked on a Brentwood lot and the reeking mounds of foul compost were enough to make one's head spin, but Chloe, Brandon, and I unexpectedly worked well together and produced biochar.
Frederick came out to observe carefully when we first started making biochar, and from then on, he helped the laborers follow my instructions.
Chloe and Brandon, who had wondered what we were doing at first, got the hang of it after making charcoal once and began picking up speed.
"You're doing well?"
Of course, it was absolutely impossible for just me and Chloe and her brother to make this enormous amount of charcoal. More than thirty laborers had joined in, all moving according to my instructions.
Just because the laborers knew how to make biochar didn't mean they could immediately use this method at other farms. Without knowledge of the various fungi and bacteria that formed the core, the effect wouldn't be significant.
After busily making biochar for a while, I took the two of them to a nearby cherry tree. Then, pointing with a shovel at the tree trunk and the branches in the air, I said:
"Listen carefully, both of you. Don't put what we made right below the tree trunk here. The effect is poor here. The roots spread most actively in the ground beneath the ends of the branches. This is called the canopy drip line. Dig a circular, donut-like trench about one to two meters away from the trunk, like this..."
I demonstrated first, and the two siblings watched closely and nodded.
"We put what we made in this trench and cover it with soil. You can do it, right?"
It wasn't a difficult task, so both nodded.
"Good."
Having said that, I handed the shovel to Brandon.
"Huh? What? You want me to do it?"
"Of course. I taught you. I'm not a laborer, I'm the teacher. Okay?"
Brandon, who had been pouting, said:
"...Mr. Raymond said this kind of thing won't help at all."
Now that I thought about it, he seemed to have been forcing himself to hold back his reluctance.
"Really? Oho..."
"Do you even know how many trucks are coming and going to get the wood chips? It costs a ton of money too. And yet he says this is all a waste of effort."
"Does Mr. Raymond help you a lot?"
Brandon nodded as if to say, what kind of obvious question is that? And what surprised me slightly was that Chloe, standing beside him, nodded along too.
"Of course. He's worked at our farm for twenty years. He knows everything there is to know about cherry farming."
"Then why did he make that mistake with the fertilizer back then?"
Brandon flinched and averted his gaze. The reason seemed obvious, but I didn't point it out in front of Chloe.
"No matter what Mr. Raymond says, I made a deal with your father. And Mr. Frederick asked me—asked me to make sure you learn perfectly so that you can teach all the workers."
"..."
"So stop complaining and do as you're told."
At that, Brandon snorted heavily, his face flushing red, but he soon forced down his anger and began digging. At that sight, Chloe smiled subtly, as if amused.
"Chloe, try it on that tree."
Having naturally separated the two, I watched Brandon digging diligently in the distance and asked Chloe, who was about to dig beside me.
"What kind of person is Mr. Raymond?"
"Huh? He's the person who manages the farm."
"From what I've seen, Brandon is a bit... lazy, but he doesn't seem like a bad person."
"Right, he's just a bit stupid."
I inwardly agreed with her cold assessment of her brother, but I didn't show it outwardly.
"That's why it's dangerous."
"Huh? What?"
"Brandon seems to trust Mr. Raymond a great deal. Perhaps... your brother is being swayed by him?"
Chloe, who had been absorbed in digging, looked up and blinked.
"Swayed?"
"Put nicely, he's being swayed. Put badly... he could be being used."
Chloe's face gradually hardened.