About seven kilometers northeast of the Brentwood cherry farm, a walnut orchard spread across the broad plains.
Brandon frowned as he got out of the car. When he unloaded the pressure chamber from the back of the truck, the metallic smell mixed with the wind. It was a newly acquired machine. Almost the same model as the one Brian used.
He told himself there was no longer any need to learn from that Asian genius.
“Today will be perfect.”
Brandon connected the chamber to the trunk of a walnut tree. He cut a leaf, covered it with a rubber cap, then slowly raised the pressure, watching the gauge move before recording it in his notebook. His notebook already contained a graph showing steady numbers from a week earlier.
“See? I can do it now too. Scientifically.”
A smile spread across his lips. The farming methods Brian talked about had seemed old-fashioned at first, but once he tried them one by one, the results were clear. The problem was that his father followed anything that Asian young man said without question.
“If that bastard shows up and says one word, Father changes his mind right away...”
Brandon clenched his teeth. Though he had inherited the farm, it still felt as if the authority to make decisions lay in the hands of that man called “Brian Choi.”
He acknowledged the man’s ability, as if he were some kind of walking encyclopedia, but he hated seeing his father listen to that Asian man and decide everything based on his words.
He drove the truck around the entire farm. In the south-facing walnut grove, the leaves had grown thick and dark, and unlike last year, the fruit drop rate had decreased. Everything looked good, and he believed he was clearly doing well.
But when he arrived where the workers had gathered, the atmosphere was strange.
“What’s going on? Why is everyone just standing around?”
At his question, Luis, the old farm manager, took off his hat and spoke apologetically.
“Mr. Brandon... look over there.”
Where Luis pointed, walnuts were scattered across the ground. Their outer husks were charred black, and some had their hulls half peeled away. When Brandon picked one up, the shell crumbled, and the flesh inside was stained black.
“What the hell is this...?”
“It looks like sunburn. The temperature shot up suddenly starting last week.”
“That can’t be... The SWP is normal...”
Brandon hurriedly opened his notes. The stem water potential he had recorded every day was stable, and there were no problems with the irrigation schedule. And yet, the trees were burning.
“Turn up the water! Increase the irrigation!”
His voice rose, but the workers only spoke with darker expressions.
“Understood. But that’s not all.”
Luis led him to another section of the orchard. There, the walnuts did not have damage to the husks, but holes in the kernels themselves. It was obvious at a glance that they were traces of insects.
“Uh... this is...?”
A small moth had laid eggs in the gaps of the shell, and the hatched larvae had eaten their way inside. Some had already begun to give off a rotten smell.
“This is impossible... I followed the pest control schedule too...”
“It seems the timing was late. The rain ended early last month, and then it suddenly got hot, so the pests seem to have spread all at once.”
Brandon sank blankly beneath the tree. Walnut husk stuck to his fingertips and fell to the ground. He glared at the SWP graph, then finally crumpled the paper.
“What the hell is all this... It was perfect...!”
The workers watched him in silence. He had thought he had maintained the moisture data perfectly, but he had failed to proactively prevent the other problems. He had not been constantly monitoring how fiercely the sun was beating down, how dry the wind was, or whether insects had begun to swarm.
Brandon’s heart dropped, and an ominous feeling swept over him. He quickly ran to the truck and took out his cell phone. His hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t press the numbers properly.
After several beeps, the call connected.
“Father... we’re in trouble.”
“What happened?”
“The walnuts... they’re all burned. The husks are discolored, and there are pests too. Right now... I think half of them are ruined.”
His father must have been greatly shocked, because silence lingered for a moment over the phone. Then a low, heavy voice came through.
“Understood. I’ll be there right away.”
Even after hanging up, Brandon stood there blankly for a long time. Cicadas poured out their cries in the distance, and there was no wind at all. In his field of vision, beneath the blazing red sunlight, the walnut grove, dyed black, wavered.
“I was sure I’d done it right...”
Brandon slowly lowered his head. He had followed that Asian guy and tried to do things scientifically, but he was realizing for the first time that before nature’s whims, it meant nothing at all.
---
The vineyard of Ironwood Cellars. Acquired for a hefty sum and now belonging to Redwood Winery, the place was currently in the busiest period for canopy management.
The Cabernet Sauvignon was now entering veraison, the stage when grapes turn from green to purple, and because the thickness of the grape skins and the balance of acidity are determined during this period, controlling shade and light is important.
With gloved hands, I lifted the leaves one by one and checked the direction of photosynthesis. If the leaves overlapped too much, airflow would be blocked, but if too many were removed, the fruit would be exposed to direct sunlight and the skins would burn.
“This row here has had too many leaves removed. At this rate, the clusters will burn.”
“Should we tie them back, then?”
“Yes. Raise them above the cane and tie them. Let the sunlight come in from the side, but avoid it from above.”
The workers moved according to my instructions. In the strong afternoon sun, I checked the stem water potential with a pressure chamber. Minus eleven bar. There was no water stress. The vines’ leaves were healthy, and photosynthesis was functioning well.
‘At this level, the balance is perfect...’
I was standing in the shade beside the trellis for a moment, drinking water and writing in my work notes, when the phone in my pocket vibrated. The name “Fredrick Harris” appeared on the screen.
“Yes, Uncle Fredrick.”
“Brian, I’m sorry, but could you come over right now?”
“What’s going on?”
“Haa, well... there’s a problem in the walnut orchard. It looks like sunburn and insect damage. The workers are in an uproar right now. Could you come take a look?”
Fredrick had operated a walnut farm for a long time. Naturally, if it were something he could solve himself, he would not have called me all the way there. The fact that he had called and asked me to come meant the problem was serious.
“Send me the location. I’ll come right away.”
“Yes. I’m counting on you.”
I took off only my gloves, got straight into my old pickup truck, and headed to the address Uncle Fredrick sent me. Before my regression, I had mostly stayed in university research labs, so I hadn’t driven much, but now it felt like I drove hundreds of kilometers every week.
It was my first time visiting a walnut farm, and when I arrived at the entrance, not only Fredrick but also Chloe and Brandon were standing there. Brandon’s face was stiff and pale, suggesting the problem was quite serious.
As soon as Fredrick saw me, he took my hand and shook it.
“Thank you for coming, Brian.”
“You said the situation was serious.”
When I glanced at Chloe, she, who normally would have been relentlessly criticizing her brother for failing to manage the farm, had her mouth firmly shut. I couldn’t tell whether it was simply because it was no longer my farm, so she didn’t care.
After entering the farm and going in for quite a while, it was clearly visible that several trees had problems. The leaves of the affected walnut trees looked as if they had been scorched by fire, and the uppermost veins had already turned brown and burned. Dark brown spots had even spread across the walnut husks.
Fallen fruit lay scattered at our feet. Looking closer, I saw holes on the surface.
“These are completely burned.”
“Is it sunburn?”
“It is, but... there are insects too. It’s probably Navel Orangeworm.”
I split a walnut in half. The inside had been hollowed out. It was the trace of insects eating their way through. First, I turned my head toward Brandon.
“Did you thin the leaves recently, by any chance?”
“Yeah. To improve ventilation... I removed a lot.”
I nodded.
“That’s the cause of the sunburn, for now. Ventilation may have improved, but the shade disappeared. Under direct summer sunlight, shade acts as a shield. Especially on days above thirty-five degrees like now...”
At present, the California region was experiencing occasional heat waves, and there were even days above forty degrees.
“The SWP was normal, though. I adjusted the moisture too...”
“SWP only tells you the water status. It can’t prevent heat stress. The problem is the canopy.”
“......”
“And when did you spray for pests?”
“Two weeks ago. The weather was too hot, so I finished early.”
“That was too late. This is when they’ve hatched from the eggs. On top of that, in this heat, the eggs mature much faster.”
Brandon’s expression crumpled all at once.
“Then is this all... my fault?”
His voice, having lost its words, sank like a shadow. I shook my head with a pitying expression.
“It’s something anyone experiences when farming. What matters is knowing the reason. That way, you don’t repeat the same mistake.”
But Fredrick knew I had only said that to comfort Brandon. And comfort did not help solve the problem.
Fredrick asked in a low voice.
“Then what do we need to do right now?”
“First, you need to restore the canopy. Tie the branches and install partial shade netting above the fruit. If you block the direct sunlight even for just two or three hours in the afternoon, the damage will decrease sharply. And under the canopy, run the micro-irrigation nozzles only twice a day, at ten in the morning and three in the afternoon. Humidity control is important.”
But when Fredrick saw my face was still stiff, he asked with an ominous feeling.
“What about pest control?”
“Mm...”
When I couldn’t easily open my mouth, Brandon’s face visibly grew even paler.
“Why? Is there no way?”
“For now... the pests are nocturnal, so spray insecticide at dawn tomorrow. It’s too hot right now, so the effect will be reduced.”
“We’ll do that. But complete pest control will be difficult, won’t it?”
He must have known. Since he had farmed walnuts for a long time, he would have known the situation was serious just from the fact that it was Navel Orangeworm, but it seemed he had been hoping I might offer some method, just in case.
“Yes. As you know, if holes are starting to appear here and there in the walnuts, then beginning control from that point is already... late. You should focus on reducing the spread as much as possible and minimizing the damage.”
The fact that holes had formed in the walnuts meant the pests had laid eggs, those eggs had hatched, and the larvae had entered inside the husks. From this stage on, even if insecticide was sprayed, the chemical would not reach them.
They were not visible right now, but a huge number of pests were probably laying eggs and boring into the walnuts. So even if they sprayed insecticide now, it would be difficult to produce any dramatic reversal.
“Damn... All right, for now.”
I wanted to help too, but no matter how much knowledge I had from before my regression, there was not much I could do in this situation. This was why, when farming walnuts, people sometimes said that the moment you saw the insects with your own eyes, you had already lost the war.
Fredrick patted Brandon once on his drooping shoulder, then gathered the workers and immediately gave them instructions.
“Thank you for coming all the way here.”
Chloe wore a bitter expression. Watching Brandon trudge after the workers, I spoke as if it were something new.
“You’re not fighting with your brother today? Before, you would’ve been, you know...”
“If I followed my feelings, I’d want to say a ton to him... but the farm ended up like this. The person most upset must be my brother.”
“Wow... now you even empathize with a farmer’s heart. You’ve completely changed.”
“Have I?”
She tilted her head, then gave a small laugh.
“I guess I really have. In the past, I would’ve snapped at him right away. I would’ve said this happened because he was stupid and lazy. But when I look at the farm, I can’t say that. What do we do...”
I patted Chloe on the shoulder.
“Farming can’t always succeed. You learn from failure and then succeed. Brandon will grow. The walnut farm will do better starting next year too.”
“Do you really think my brother can grow like that?”
“...... Who knows. That’s why you can never let your guard down when farming. You remember that too.”
“... Ah, yes!”
At my words of warning until the very end, Chloe pouted.
# Beware of Bugs #