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The Electric Tractor That Saved Harvest During a Power Outage · Rural-E

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: You're listening to the Rural E podcast, the real stories of people actually working in the rural energy systems, no politics, just what's working and what doesn't.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh today we have on with us from Trune Vineyard in the Applegate Valley outside of Grants Pass, Garrett Long.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: And Garrett is Trun's Director of Agriculture.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: And we're going to talk a little bit today about Trune and some of the journeys you guys have been on.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit about the farm, a little bit about some of the equipment you guys have on site, the solar systems, you know, some of those, some of those things and everything.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: And uh in in the podcast today, we're gonna talk about some experiences that Troon had with testing a couple of uh pieces of equipment through our eFarms program.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so we'll capture that.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: The one the one thing I do want to note is the two different uh tractors that Troon had used at the time were startup companies and both have since gone out of business.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I think we'll talk a little bit about the general concept of of electric equipment, and then I know you guys have some equipment too.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: So with that, I welcome uh Garrett here.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: I've got Maya Gootman, which is I my co-host here today in this uh conversation with Trune.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: But and anyways, Garrett, hey, welcome to the show.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for taking time to join us this morning.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I I'd like to really start off by just asking, you know, tell us about yourself, you know, how you got to to Troon, give us a little background on how you landed where you're at right now.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for having me on the podcast.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I got to Troon, I guess maybe going back to my college days, I really fell in love with biology and that intersection of plants and animals and ecology and climate.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And as I was finishing college, I recognized that a farm is really the intersection of all those things that I was most passionate about.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started woofing.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's worldwide opportunities on organic farms.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to Southern California and took a work trade experience for about three months.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: I committed to work and volunteer on a biodynamic farm.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And little did I, that was back in 2012, and little did I know that during my time there at Apricot Lane Farms, they were filming a movie and it became a documentary that was released in 2018 called The Biggest Little Farm.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a super formative experience for me.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: If anybody's seen the documentary, you kind of understand the story that was told.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was, we transitioned, I helped transition this farm from 50 years of conventional agriculture, you know, lemons, avocados, horses, kind of beat-down pastures, dead soil, and using biodynamic and regenerative organic practices and eventually becoming certified regenerative organic was all a part of my foundational formative journey of falling in love with farming, recognizing that soil and soil health and microbiology and all this stuff was a thing kind of keeping me up at night and that I was really passionate and excited about.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had the opportunity to get my graduate degree at UC Davis.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: I did my master's in soils and biogeochemistry.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh after two years in grad school, I went right back to farming.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: To me, the practical application of soil science and and agriculture is what resonates with me the most.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's not about research or academia or publications or whatever.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't motivate me as much as being out in the farm, getting dirt under my nails, working with our neighbors.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think Robert, you can probably really relate to this that like your passion is really like getting out there and working with farmers and adopting the best technologies and the best practices.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to, after grad school, get right back on the farm.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of jumping through just a couple of years, I've worked now on Troon is my third um biodynamic farm.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I've really fallen in love with that approach to regenerative agriculture.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had a quick stop during COVID in Napa.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm at another farm and vineyard that we were converting to biodynamic.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And in a little less than a year, that project came to an abrupt close, and I was left looking in 2021 for the next opportunity.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I reached out to Troon's then and current um biodynamic consultant, Andrew Beattie, and I was like, hey, you know, this project came to an end.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know of any other opportunities?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he told me, you know, this this farm, this vineyard in southern Oregon that he had been telling me about for the last four years, they were hiring.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's a harvest position and a farmhand hybrid position, and you should apply.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I did.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: So in August of 2021, I got the job.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: I jumped into the raging river that is grape harvest and kind of worked my first harvest almost as an intern, lived with the two harvest interns, and then kind of settled into this director of agriculture role that I've been at for the last five years.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is my fifth season at Trune.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've helped establish a lot of different kinds of enterprises on the farm beyond vineyards, and we can talk about kind of how those all fit together in our bigger picture.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: But that was really my journey of falling in love with farming and soil and eventually landing at Trune.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: In my, I guess almost I did about a decade of farming and and grad school before arriving at Troon.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So now 15 years in, I'm pretty proud of how far we've come.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's impressive.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we hear a lot about soil health, more.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna say more in the last five years, but it sounds like you were involved with that movement kind of before it was cool type of thing.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then the I guess the other thing is, is I believe isn't Trune, aren't you guys got like a gold, gold certified farm of one of few?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you can talk about that a little bit.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: You guys have really made some strides there around this um biodynamic regenerative farming practice.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, just just uh flashback to the kind of early adoption of thinking soil health is cool.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: The United Nations uh every year does an international year of water or whatever.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: In 2015, my first year in grad school at Davis was the international year of soils.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think, you know, globally there is a recognition that how we've managed our soils in an agricultural sense and land use change and everything that's contributed so greatly to climate change is going to make it.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think the UN said that we had you know 50 years left of agriculture we could sustain under our current practices.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: So 2015 was the international year of soils, and that was, like I said, my first year in grad school studying soil science.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it kind of came together really beautifully in in timing, um, where, you know, I was looking to deepen my knowledge and understanding of these practices, of how we build soil health, how we maintain it, and also how do we monitor it?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: That was a lot of the kind of the academic side was how do we measure it, lab tests, quantitative, qualitative tests.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and then you're right, I think there's been a lot more greater adoption uh within the industry and within academia, a lot more, I would say, recognition of how quickly we can build soils and build soil health and build soil organic matter in a relatively short period of time.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's all using these practices that we're talking about.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: So when Troon was purchased by new owners in 2018, it was first established in 1972 and planted as a vineyard.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: The winery came in the 90s, and in 2018, under new ownership, we immediately transitioned using biodynamic and regenerative organic certified practices.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: It takes three years to convert to organic.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're maintaining all of the records for biodynamic and ROC, which is that short version of regenerative organic certified, then you can achieve all of those certifications within a three-year time period.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: So by 2021, when I was arriving, we were just achieving all of those milestones.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse me.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that ROC is set up, there's a bronze, silver, and gold tier.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And when we first came into the program in 2021, we were uh at the silver level.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we've since worked to achieve additional outside certifications in social fairness through the Equitable Food Initiative and a number of other um uh sort of sustainability and social equity focused initiatives that we've uh worked with ROC on.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: We were able to achieve the gold certification.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we're really proud to say it's a crazy superlative.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: I feel weird throwing it around, but we are the only farm in the world to be both biodynamic certified and regenerative organic gold certified.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: So there are other ROC farms that are also biodynamic.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Toblis Creek in Paso Robles is one of those that carries both certifications.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a handful of others around the world, but uh yeah, we're the only one that's at achieved both of those super high bar um certifications.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we're really proud of that.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's uh wow, a huge accomplishment.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: And uh thanks for you know giving us the background on that and everything.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: I I knew you guys were you know doing some stuff that we don't traditionally see.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know in our our travels throughout the Pacific Northwest, uh we were we've been down on your farm a few different times, and I remember this last fall we were down there and and uh you were you were speaking more on you know this uh biodynamic, uh regenerative farming practices and stuff, but I didn't, you know, I didn't really realize the whole picture and I'm still learning from you.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks for thanks for sharing that information.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my with you know, when you're looking at these different programs and stuff, is energy a consideration?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Is is efficiency or you know, how does that play into your guys' management practices and your goals and such?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's a great question.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'll come at it from a couple of different ways.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: One is just very practically part of one of those additional requirements to move from silver to gold level certification of ROC is to do complete greenhouse gas emissions accounting.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: So um we started doing that in 2021.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's a few different tools that are allowed by ROC that they were, you know, hand-chosen by ROC, like the cool farm tool, and I forget a couple of the other ones.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: One's more vineyard specific, and that was the one we went with most recently.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, it's really taking a look at every single aspect of the business um from a carbon footprint standpoint, all the way down to, you know, like employee commutes and things that the business doesn't really have a lot of um power over, but still we're accounting for that in the total scope of emissions.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's just one way that we're thinking about energy and and carbon and how that's tied to carbon footprint.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's an actual certification requirement.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's a standard built into that gold level ROC.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I think just inherent in the business, in the people here and the ownership and management of this company, and it trickles down all the way, um, is really just kind of this moral uh drive, this, this, this uh implication that if if we're to do anything about climate change, we need every kind of solution possible, right?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not just trying to sequester more carbon in the ground.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're trying to limit the carbon we put into the air.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: And as we know in agriculture, so much of that is from diesel tractors and tillage and loss of organic matter and a lot of um, you know, herbicides and fungicides and things like that that also have a negative impact on soil life that can also really damage or or create more carbon emissions, right?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we're really uh I think built in, sort of inherent in both of those certifications, biodynamic and ROC, is this moral imperative to really reduce carbon emissions.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it's both written in in a practical way where we have to account for it and hopefully demonstrate that we have that we are reducing our carbon emissions as we continue to farm here.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: But then really it's that moral imperative that it's just the right thing to do right now, we feel.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I know that uh in visiting the farm there or vineyards, what do you refer to it as a farm or a vineyard?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: What's the problem?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: We recently added Tune Vineyard and farm.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been Troon Vineyard for 50 years, and we added the farm part because of the sheep and the chickens and the apples and the gardens and all that.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I just I don't I, you know, I some of the terms like the biodynamics and even regenerative, you know, are things that aren't uh commonly terms commonly used and stuff.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to make sure I'm on on the right track here and everything.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: But you guys have a number of electric vehicles on site.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so I guess I don't know if you know, maybe tell us, you know, what what types of vehicles are you guys using on the day-to-day now?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what what types of vehicles have you considered and why why did you decide to to move that direction?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the why is sort of what I was saying earlier.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think the transition from a gas and diesel powered fleet to an electric vehicle fleet made the most sense when we installed the solar array.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm sure we'll talk in more detail about that.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: But just completed last year in 2025 was a 153 kilowatt solar array, which has made all of our vehicle charging free and we spend a lot less money on gas and diesel, and obviously burn a lot less dinosaur bones, as our consultant has called diesel.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we are working with, I was just using this morning John Deere Gator, electric gator.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: We have two of those in the fleet.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Those are side-by-side UTVs with a dump bed and all that cool stuff.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: We charge that at the solar barn every night.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've got an electric polar uh Polaris Ranger.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's been really cool.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: I really like, I guess, just driving that one a little better than the John Deere.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: The suspension's a little nicer.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh just an enjoyable ride.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, love to take my son out on a joyride around the farm in that one.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think my favorite vehicle, electric vehicle that we have here so far is an ATV.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: We bought uh we wanted to invest in a really lightweight electric vehicle so that when we go out and do our biodynamic sprays, we have just a small 50-gallon spray rig that's just dedicated to putting out our biodynamic preparations.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: These are either soil inoculants or foliar sprays that we put out rhythmically throughout the growing season at key times.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we didn't, we wanted to avoid compaction.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so towing a big, heavy, 300-gallon spray rig and a you know, full-size uh vineyard tractor, uh, we were able to shave off a ton of weight by switching to this electric ATV and getting the five uh 50 gallon spray rig.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that one's really fun.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it can tow, it has incredible torque.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's just again a really enjoyable experience to operate that.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then the last like passenger vehicle that we have is a six-passenger kind of like tour vehicle.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: We use that primarily for tours, and the owners will bring their friends around and things like that.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that one doesn't really have much of a farm utility purpose.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then going into the winery, we invested in an electric forklift and an electric pallet jack.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the winemakers primarily use those.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but again, when you're in an enclosed space, moving barrels around, having something like a propane fueled or a gas-fueled um uh forklift can just be stinky and smelly and not ideal in an enclosed place, which so so often the winery is.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's been a really exceptional experience for those guys to uh to bring in the winemaking equipment.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and again, everything powered by solar as of a year ago makes it uh just all the better.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I got I got several questions for you here on this.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you basically all the electric vehicles you just mentioned, you guys are charging those on farm from this new solar array that you guys installed in 2025.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Is that correct?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you guys also have an EV charger there for your guests that come into the winery.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: Is that is the solar array kind of cover the energy consumption for the winery and the farm use?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: Or how do you how do you guys have that set up?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you're right.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we also installed prior to the construction of this solar barn, as we call it, we uh worked with ChargePoint to put in a free public charger uh at our at our winery for our guests.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and also our winemaker has driven an electric car for years.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: He's been an early adopter and has solar on his house.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: So his commute has been, you know, uh relatively affordable for the whole time Nate's been here.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that chargepoint charger has been awesome, and our guests have commented on how grateful they are to be out here.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: The Applegate Valley is pretty rural.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're 25 minutes from Grants Pass, 30 minutes from Medford.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a lot out here.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's literally one gas pump in the valley.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so to have an electric, an EV charger here on site is is really wonderful.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh, yeah, we designed that solar array based on a historical accounting of our energy use.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we looked back, I think, the last three years, and that was a part of that greenhouse gas emissions accounting we had to do, where we looked at um all of the energy use on the farm.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: We've got four wells.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's a lot of energy use for the pumps.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've got three homes on the property.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: I live in one of those and two other houses here on the property.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's good consumption of energy.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: All of the cooling in the winery space, winery and barrel rooms, et cetera, tasting room.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to think about kind of the big players in terms of energy consumption.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so we looked at all of that and we uh we maxed out the space on the roof of this manufactured barn.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, we added this 19-foot overhang to increase the solar array even that much more and create a little more shading as well.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so 153 kilowatts was the absolute max that we could get out of that array, and that was really close to 100% of our annual historical usage looking at the last couple of years.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's a good chance we'll be able to install a little bit more to actually get us to 100% or more than 100%, which would be really ideal.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, basically we can say that every single thing on the farm, from our irrigation use to housing to cooling, tasting room, everything is more or less solar powered.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's that's impressive.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I knew we got a chance to take a look at that solar ray on top of your guys' barn.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: It looked like just the perfect place for it, too.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't taking up any of the landscape or anything.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it looks like it took the majority of the roof of the barn there and the fact that it's able to power all those vehicles and and then help offset some of your energy consumption on site there.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: I want to go back to the vehicles though.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: I know, I know a couple times I've been there, you pulled up on that ATV with the sprayer on it that you mentioned.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: You talked a little about a bit about compaction.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: I know one of the questions people ask me was with the batteries, doesn't it weigh more?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so what would what would be your alternative, I guess, to the ATV, battery electric ATV you had uh, you know, as you're talking about compaction?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I think the the heaviest piece of equipment is always going to be our vineyard tractors, whether that is electric powered, you know, the ones that we borrowed or our diesel tractors.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: We have three diesel tractors that get pretty heavy use in the vineyard still.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And our goal is really to transition those to electric tractors too.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we can get into that in a minute.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: But our alternative to that lightweight electric ATV, historically, the couple years before we invested in that, was one of those um gas-powered UTVs.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: We had a Mahindra is one of the local brands that sold here in Southern Oregon.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we had this little gas-powered, not even diesel, but gas side by side.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that that uh piece of equipment definitely weighs more than the electric ATV, which has a relatively small battery bank.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: I could look up what the actual weight of that total ATV is.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I guess you can make a case that alternatively you could just buy another quad, a gas-powered quad, and that would probably weigh something similar.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: But for us, uh, we kind of just wanted to go all the way in terms of limiting carbon emissions as well as limiting compaction.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that was kind of a two for one.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: I guess, you know, the other the other thing I was thinking about, you'd mentioned the tractors.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: We'll talk about that in just a minute.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um the other vehicles you have, how do they operate?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: Are they, do you feel they're as good as a traditional gasoline or diesel comparable?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, their pros and cons.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you kind of talk about that a little bit, even if there's some vehicle specifics there that um you guys, you know, have experienced.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I can definitely say that the general experience of working with electric vehicles has been really pleasurable in terms of less noise and less fumes from exhaust.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: That in general was has been just a great experience.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: So much so that we put uh flags on all of the electric vehicles so people can kind of see us coming out of the ends of the vine rows because you can't hear us coming like a tractor, you would.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there's there's that one tiny bit of safety consideration that we, you know, just put a silly flag on all the vehicles.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: But but in general, it's been a really positive experience.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: They're quiet, almost silent.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's like a little bit of friction of the wheels, you know, rolling on the ground, but they're otherwise almost silent.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and again, especially in an indoor space like the winery would be, or starting up tractors inside the barn or something like that, not having the exhaust fumes is is again just such a better experience overall.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I had never driven an electric vehicle, even just like a passenger car or something like that, before trying out some of these um farm vehicles.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was just really impressed at the torque and the speed.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's just kind of incomparable until you get up to whatever stock cars, race cars sort of thing.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: That just the torque and the acceleration is again, it's really exciting.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's really enjoyable experience.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe if you're a little bit crazy, like a safety consideration for your team.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we do apply speed limits like that around the farm and and stuff.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: But in general, it's a really positive experience.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And again, if we just go to that comparison between that gas-powered side-by-side and the electric ATV, I mean, across the board, it's been a massive improvement.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Compaction, noise, exhaust, everything about it.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's just been a much better experience.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have any considerations on the range?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: I know a lot of times uh when we're looking at the electric vehicles, you know, they're battery powered.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so different folks will always ask us, you know, will it will it be able to perform?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you've talked about they've got a lot of torque and power and and uh almost too much speed sometimes where you've made speed limits, but yeah, does is the battery large enough in those vehicles to do what you need to do every day?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh pretty much across the board it has been.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Some of those biodynamic sprays will will require I'll probably say about six hours.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hours or so of towing a 50-gallon spray rig, you know, that gets a little bit lighter as you put it out.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: But that can be pretty heavy use on that ATV.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And additionally, we have an external battery that's powering the sprayer or the pump for the sprayer.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so the only energy the ATV is using is for care is for towing and carrying me.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: But um the range on all of the UTVs has been totally adequate for a day's work.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're talking eight to 10 hours out on the farm.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's fully charged in the morning and we um park it at the end of the day, and it usually has no less than 20% battery life.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, our goal is always to chart keep the battery charges between about 20 and 80% and not fill it all the way up and not drain it all the way down and try to maintain that battery life and and that memory.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we're pretty much able to do that by not running any of these vehicles below about 20% in just a day's a day's work.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: What one of the other things I I always think about is refueling small vehicles like this.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it might I live on a rural property myself, and we're always, you know, for the lawnmowers and stuff like that, packing gas cans.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that how is it the convenience factor for you guys just pulling up, plugging into the solar barn and not have to worry about having fuel on site essentially for those those vehicles?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you guys still have uh some diesel, a couple diesel tractors, uh, because that there's not an alternative really for you.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, just this the refueling and the ease of that, you know.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then yeah.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think we get a lot fewer visits from the folks who refuel our gas and diesel tanks.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think we just burn significantly less.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the overall experience is exactly what you just pointed out.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: We just drive that vehicle right up the ramp into the barn.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: We park right alongside the wall where that outlet has been installed.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And in the case of the Ranger, it has a built-in like smart battery charger that we don't have to think about it.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: We just literally plug it into the 110 outlet and we're good to go.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: For the gators, we needed to install a timer that would basically not overcharge the battery, which we found we were doing in the early days.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: And as we looked into it, we were able to address that problem just by installing that little$5 timer.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it charges for something like 12 hours overnight instead of the entire time it's plugged in from 2 30 p.m.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: until 6 the next day.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, again, just a really enjoyable experience.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: All you got to do is unplug it, shut the hood, and drive away.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just flick a switch and drive away.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's no starting, there's no any of that.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and the only, and you're right, we do have the diesel tank here.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: We do still have the three diesel tractors.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's not been great adoption in southern Oregon by either dealers for service or for sales of electric tractors.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we are maintaining our three uh diesel tractors here.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then we do have a gas tank on site too, as a lot of our landscaping equipment, zero turn mower, weed whackers, that sort of stuff are also gas powered.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: We'd love to transition all of that stuff.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: All the landscaping equipment is also there's commercial, you know, industrial, badass versions of electric landscaping equipment.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we've kind of uh determined with the owners that we're not just going to replace all of our gas equipment, but when next time our weed whacker fails, then we'll buy an electric one.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll kind of slowly start phasing that stuff out as it breaks down on us.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that's that's good information too.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I was kind of wondering what's next.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what's next you're looking at?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it sounds like a lot of the hand tools that would traditionally be probably a two-stroke powered gasoline powered unit.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I know the a number of the manufacturers of those types of pieces of equipment are making uh kind of a consumer grade and then a pro grade model uh and stuff.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I, you know, sometimes people ask me, and I'm like, well, just go into Home Depot or Lowe's and look at lawnmowers, and there's more electric versions of mowers and trimmers now than there are gasoline, you know, in these stores, and it's quite a transition that we see there.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: So even robot mowers and autonomous mowers and things like that too are becoming more available publicly.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: We're seeing that.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: We're seeing that too.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we're seeing uh it seems like in the orchard, uh, the fruit tree industry, and I'm not sure if you're seeing this in the vineyard industry or not, but a lot of the like in the orchards and stuff, they're planting uh the rows more narrow with smaller trees, and a lot of it ties into picking and uh just kind of some of the labor challenges.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: So they're you know, the less time a person has to spend on a ladder, the faster they can get the fruit picked and stuff.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh, you know, for years it seemed like everybody was going, you know, bigger equipment, you know, bigger uh sprayers and those types of things.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: But in certain industries now, over the last 10 years, I've seen folks, you know, really come into smaller equipment and such, which lends itself to more of you know what I would call like these bot type devices that go out and maybe mow, mow overnight or whatever, come back in and recharge.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: And and we're seeing more and more of that type of technology out there.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I, you know, I think for for what's next for true, and uh we can get into my experience with the automated driving, the autonomous driving of the monarch that we trialed here.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: But when it comes to some of these mowers and stuff, I think it's really appealing for somebody who has a nice lawn of kind of one species of grass and it's relatively flat, not bumpy.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and and that I think is an appeal, but it's certainly not something that we've really talked about at Troon, trying to save those man hours or those labor hours of replacing it with an autonomous mower or something like that.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's largely even as autonomous driving becomes more perfected and available, um, I think there's a real benefit to having the farmer in the field.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: I love the saying that the best fertilizer is a farmer's footprints.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: And there's there's a real benefit of having our guys in the field, our team out there scouting, looking for pest and disease problems, looking for, you know, I mean, there's a number of things that have been caught by our team, irrigation leaks, et cetera, um, that have been caught by our team just by being out there driving and doing undervine cultivation or putting out a powdery mildew spray in the vines or something like that, and they catch stuff.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so with an autonomous vehicle, that's not going to be the case.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so we still really, really value the human side of farming and especially using this biodynamic regenerative approach.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think so much of it is leaning on human labor rather than replacing us with fertilizers and synthetic pesticides and, you know, high-tech equipment and all of that.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's a real benefit to the human element of what we're doing.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we believe in that.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think our next steps will be to empower the humans with electric tools, like a tractor or landscaping equipment, et cetera.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said, hopefully boost our capacity on site to generate a little bit more through solar would be great.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I think those are the main directions.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: A tractor or or eventually two or three, because we get that use out of them.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, increase our solar array, and then move towards that electric landscaping equipment.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think those are really the the future of what we're looking at.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:09
  unknown: Yeah.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: No, thanks.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for sharing that information and stuff.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, maybe we could kind of move into the tractor conversation now.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I know Maya, Maya's working on doing a kind of a case study of the experiences more specific to the tractors that True and had used as part of our eFarms program.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so you guys were actually one of our first uh lenders or borrowers when we had the first select track tractor, and that was a little 25 horsepower uh compact tractor.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: And um you guys had used that.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: We had it down in Medford, and uh one of our folks had reached out to you and asked if you guys are interested, and and we moved that tractor over for you guys.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that was that's been, I'm trying to think, probably three to four years ago when that happened.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they were kind of one of the first electric tractors really on the commercial market in in the United States.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: We do see some activity over in the European countries with Kubota and Fent and some of those guys, but uh a lot of that technology really hasn't came into the United States.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so I don't know, Garrett, did you get any time at all around the Select Track tractor and you know, kind of your initial your thoughts around that?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't do much operating of it, but I was around it watching, kind of trying to take some videos and and better understand it.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think so I I I kind of interrupted you and said, yeah, it was cute.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: It it is a cute kind of home scale utility tractor.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: We felt pretty limited by it.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's got a really small, I think, quarter yard bucket, but at least it did have a loader bucket, which was an improvement on the monarch.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but it's horsepower and therefore its capabilities to run most of our implements, which require about 40 to 50 horses, was just too limiting.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then similarly, if you considered some of the other uses we considered it for were turning our compost with that bucket, and just the tiny scale of the butt bucket was just a little bit untenable.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Our current skid steer, I forgot to mention that one.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's also a diesel-powered skid steer, which we use almost exclusively for just hauling materials and turning compost.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: That one's got a one-yard bucket.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously, you know, four scoops to one at that little select track tractor didn't make a lot of sense for compost turning, and it couldn't run most of the implements.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: But we did have one uh implement that we did try with it, which was this undervine cultivator.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a funny story.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: When uh when the new owners bought the property, there was kind of like there is, I think, on just about every farm, a little junkyard, right?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Little junk pile, it's overgrown with all these willows.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the team started cleaning that out.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is before I arrived.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: But apparently they kind of unearthed this old 1970s Rainier Undervine Harrow, Undervine Cultivator.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it was rusty and it was beat up, but Rainier is a great Italian brand.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so we took it to a mechanic who knew how to work it, fixed it up, and we used that exclusively for undervine cultivation for a couple of years, brought it back from the dead, and the Select Track was able to operate that with pretty good efficiency.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: We recognized, I don't know if you remember this, Robert, but we recognized that the ground speed of the tractor was tied to the PTO speed.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so in order to get the the Harrow tines spinning fast enough that they were actually working the ground, we had to go at a pretty good, a pretty good ground speed, which is a little sketchy when you're working that close to vines and relying on the sensor arm of that of that tool to kind of kick it back as it runs into a vine, it kind of kicks back out of the row and then slides back in.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: And going at a pretty fast ground speed, that was a that was feedback that we had that uh those should be uncoupled and that you should be able to power the PTO at whatever RPM you want and then drive at whatever speed you want separately.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that was an interesting experience.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think it was cool for the novelty of it.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think there was definitely diesel savings, less carbon emissions, less noise, less exhaust, all the things we've talked about that are the benefits of electric farm equipment.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but yeah, those were there were some downsides to that and some limitations really.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we were we were really looking forward to trialing a higher horsepower electric tractor.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that that select track, I remember when it first came out, you know, it's it's a compact 25-horse tractor.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was really, you know, I thought it would work well for a hobby farmer, someone with some small acreage, you know, and and those types of things and stuff.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, we we were impressed by your guys' ability to, you know, work it right into the farm.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you I remember we talked about the uh undervine harrow there, and I think we were looking at uh one of your implements, and I don't know if it was the undervine harrow or something else, but the hydraulic ability of the tractor was a little light for what you guys needed on some of those things.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was it was undersized, I think, in in summary, but it was one of the first electric tractors that we had had.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: We had one other earlier model from Select Track, um, but uh the one you had there was one of the first ones we actually lent out as part of the eFarms program.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: Moving forward in time and stuff, we then acquired through eFarms these Monarch Electric Tractors, which is actually a US-based uh company.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: Monarch was a startup company based out of Livermore, California, and they were really advertising themselves as a vineyard tractor.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was uh 40 horsepower, uh continuous operation, and you could peak to 75 horsepower.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that kind of throw would throw folks a little bit because uh some folks would call it a 75 horsepower tractor.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, well, it's technically you can get 75 horse out of it, but it's really rated as 40 horsepower continuous operation.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: Those tractors, we had we had had the first one out of California came up to us here in Oregon, and I think the second one went to New Zealand to a electric, what I think it's called Electric Cherries, a cherry farm in New Zealand.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so we were in a lot of ways the um, you know, the guinea pigs are the ones that, you know, these first ones that got released to kind of a commercial sale through Marnark Tractor there and everything.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we ended up arranging it was in the fall, uh late summer, fall of 2025.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: We got one of these tractors down to you guys there at Troon and you guys used it.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, what did you use it for?
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think you had harvest coming on and and and those types of things.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about kind of your initial thoughts when when we showed up with that tractor and maybe you know the size and how it looks and those things.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, sure.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it's an impressive piece of engineering for sure.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think Monarch feels sort of like a tech startup that got into agriculture more so than a, you know, a an ag equipment manufacturer that built in some sort of technology.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was the feel, and that was largely driven by kind of first impressions of like this giant um interface, this giant screen with all these on-screen, touch screen controls.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it felt very modern or or futuristic, I guess I would say, given my all of my previous experiences.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's lots, it's got this whole roof setup with lights and cameras on all sides.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: So again, it just looked, it looked like a brand new, beautifully designed, modern or futuristic uh piece of equipment.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it it was it made an impression on us for sure.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you actually start drilling down to some of the specs on it, it it continued to impress us.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, that 40 horses uh continuous operation was enough to run uh several different implements.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: And like you said, we got it in kind of late 2025, right before harvest season started.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we used it for a few purposes during harvest and then a few things right uh kind of after the grapes are picked, we go through and and spread compost and put out cover crop seeds and and things like that.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing we used it for was in the field moving picking bins, we put on the three-point hitch a uh forks, just rear-mounted forks, and we could haul around a picking bin.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh those each of those bins can hold, oh gosh, now I'm blanking how many tons?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think, I think one ton picking bins of fruit.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: I should know this, but uh a pretty good ask to lift and then move these bins out of the vineyard, drive them up to the winery to put them into cold storage so that we could process them later that day.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so we use that.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, the if you can imagine the way that we pick is we've got vine rows at eight-foot spacing, and then this five-foot-wide monarch tractor is going down, and you've got pickers on either side of the tractor.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: And based on the rhythms of the pickers and the and the tractor operator, the the tractor is kind of going back and forth up and down the row a little bit.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: And ideally, you're not pinching one of the workers and one of the pickers in between that narrow one-foot space on either side between the tractor and the vines, but occasionally you do.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think uh one of our operators, Vicente, who who was just trying this tractor for the first time and using it in such close range to to other people who could get hurt, I think he was a little nervous and I think he was going a little slow, um, but it still got the job done and it and it performed exactly as we needed to, had no problem lifting that weight of bin.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: And overall, that was that was uh the first job that we had for it.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then fast forward just a couple of weeks, and once all the grapes are picked, then we go through and, like I said, do kind of that fall field prep, spread compost and put out cover crop seeds.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And we use different seed mixes on the farm.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse me.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: We use different seed mixes on the farm.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we grow hay, actually.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: We did a barley and clover hay field last year on about four acres that I use the monarch to seed, and we use a no-till seed drill.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, sometimes, like in the case of that hay field, we're going into disced, you know, cultivated prepared ground.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: And in other cases, we're just no-till drilling right into existing cover crop that had been mowed shorter.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, in both cases, uh, we're using our no-till drill that was uh, I think maybe the piece of equipment you were referring to that was really pushing the tractor's capabilities of maxing out the what do you call like the lift capacity or whatever of the three-point uh hitch and a fully loaded seed drill was something like 4,500 pounds or something.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Don't quote me on that, but it was really heavy and the monarch did it.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think, I think we pushed it.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: And every, you know, as you know, you go, you drive forward and you seed, and then you lift the drill out and you turn around and then you drop the drill down and you, you know, do another row.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so at the end of every single pass on that four-acre hayfield, uh, it was a lot of lifting and setting it back down.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I we we worked the crap out of that tractor's three-point hitch.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: So that was really cool, but again, it it performed beautifully.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think one tiny bit of feedback that I had in terms of just the operation of it is as you switch, it's got this cool little shuttle switch between forward, neutral, and reverse.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: And as you switch between forward and reverse as you're turning around at the end of the row, the tractor kind of almost like winds up a little bit.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: It starts, even if you just push full, you know, on the gas, it kind of winds up and slowly moves, which is different than a lot of electric vehicles.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you just, you know, tromp on the on the accelerator, it takes off.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think Monarch intelligently built in a mechanism that helps the tractor operator stay safer by not having that immediate torque and then all of the kind of whiplash of the heavy weight being thrown around.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I think even though for me I wanted it to go faster, be more responsive, and be more nimble, that was just such a small piece of feedback that just took a little bit of getting used to compared to our diesel tractors.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was such a small downside to it that it wouldn't have stopped us from buying it or adopting this technology.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it was, if I'm being critical, one of the only things I didn't like about it.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then and then just lastly, we we hauled some trailers around, you know, it's got a great little uh slide and trailer hitch for um a typical ball hitch.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: And oh yeah, and then um the onboard power, actually.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: That was really a pretty special experience to be able to utilize that.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think when we saw it come on and we were, you know, admiring all the bells and whistles and the big touch screen and all that, um, I was thinking about hosting like a little crush pad party where we're cooking food and playing music and you know, got everything just powered by the tractor.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, although we didn't end up using it for that, we the the monarch tractor did save the day one time when we had an unexpected power outage.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: Maya, do you want to maybe ask about that, you know, kind of go through that?
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know that was one of the the things we talked about internally is that situation that arose and and how Trune, you know, kind of how how you guys came about that and and how it worked for you.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just kind of echoing what Robert was asking right there, I would love to hear about that experience and if that was like a first instinct, and if you guys ever gotten another opportunity to use that onboard power from the monarch, uh just in terms of like helping with everyday tasks on the farm.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess as the story goes, um as the story goes, Pacific Power is our power utility around here.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: And in Southern Oregon, wildfire is a huge concern, like a lot of places out west.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so occasionally we'll just get these little unexpected brownouts.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: They're usually temporary, maybe an hour or two.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um we we can check online about estimates of when it's gonna come back.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: But that day that we had this temporary brownout, uh, we were bottling.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we usually bring in a big mobile bottling line and you know, do thousands of gallons in bottle a day.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: But when we're bottling our sparkling wines, we just do it with a small team and we do it in-house in the winery.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so we had this bottling line set up that basically involves a small air compressor and then uh and then the power to that, there's uh equipment that fills the bottles, basically just moves the wine and fills the bottles.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so minimal power needs, basically, but uh critical that when it got shut down, we had wine that was, you know, oxidizing and getting warm if it's not being bottled.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like everything about it was just the worst case scenario, worst time that we could have lost power.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, you know, we've got this text thread on WhatsApp, and so these texts started going out like we lost power, like what are we gonna do about the bottling line?
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: And people started throwing out these suggestions of I'll run home and I'll get my diesel generator and I'll bring it back so you guys can keep going.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I forget what the other suggestions were, and it just kind of dawned on me.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I just write back in all caps, monarch.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just run over to the solar bar and grab the tractor.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Bring it back.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, within 10 minutes, we were up and running again.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: They just swapped where the elect they had an extension cord running to that air compressor.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we were able to power um everything we needed that that um bottle filler and the air compressor jump from just the onboard 110 volt uh monarch, which was amazing and saved the day.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: It really did save the day.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: We were able to keep going.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: At some point the power came back on, the lights came back on.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that was one other thing.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: They just kind of rolled open this big garage door in order to let light in.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I think in in a different scenario where it was nighttime or whatever, I think using the lights of the tractor would have been another really amazing uh save the day sort of thing.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that was uh the most probably unexpected use of the monarch uh and one of the most profoundly important uh things that we were able to accomplish with it.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that was really special.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think our winemaker was extremely grateful that we had that opportunity.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there there are other alternatives, right?
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, we could have sent one of our teammates home to drive 30 minutes to go pick up his generator and then generously lend it to the business and whatever.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: We probably could have worked around it, but to have the solution on site, back up and running in 10 minutes was was just amazing.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that was such a cool story.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: I remember when you first told me about that.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh my God, we got to capture this because you know this these are as we're thinking about some of this equipment or vehicles, one of the things we're thinking about is essentially you have this large battery pack.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think the monarch tractor had about a hundred kilowatt hour battery pack, and uh it's essentially a mobile power plant on wheels, and how else can you can you use that?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it seems like we're always trying to do something where there isn't electricity, run a tool or or some you know, lighting or something like that.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: And and you guys were able to use that, the monarch, as far as a resiliency aspect of it and such, and yeah, so that's really cool.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: The monarch has, and uh, and then I I should also say a lot of the electric pickup trucks and other electric vehicles have outboard power, and so a lot of them have uh your standard 120 outlet power outlets, and then they also have a some form of 240 volt outlet, and a lot of times about a 30 amp, 240 outlet.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so just the fact you guys were able to use that, it had that tractor there, you know, kind of what a coincidence.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: And and I'm was super happy to hear that it that you guys were able to wheel that over and plug it in, and and that that came to mind for you and everything.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, thanks for thanks for sharing that story for sure.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one other thing I was just gonna mention with that too, you and I were trying to address that challenge of charging our uh monarch on site here.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, everything else that we were talking about earlier, those side-by-sides, ATVs, forklift, whatever, those are all just a regular 110, 120 outlet, whereas the monarch requires 240, if I'm right.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so we were trying to figure it out.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: We hadn't installed one of those plugs in the solar barn, which was kind of the natural place that we would charge that tractor overnight.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: But we did have the charge point, you know, public charger out front, and that's got two different ports on it.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we did dominate, we did use one of those ports and still left one open to the public.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that was again just really great to just have that charger on site and not have to pay an electrician to come out here and make a costly addition modification to to our to our outlets in the solar barn.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that was another just great use of having that that charger on site that paired well with the website.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's it.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's a good point too, because I know when we first got started with this program, we were thinking about like we'd have to hardwire these chargers in place at each site that used the equipment.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: And the one thing we found was it was actually a lot easier because of the portable chargers, or most of the farm shops have a 240-volt welding outlet.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: We can charge from there.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the small equipment just charge from a standard uh 120 volt outlet and stuff too.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that definitely um makes it easier than one may think.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, because that's another that's another piece of it.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of go back to earlier comment you had that there's only one gas pump in the valley there.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and so that sounds like you've got a one-to-one ratio because you guys have the one EV charger to the one gas pump, and and uh, you know, just kind of a different, a different way of thinking about fueling vehicles and such.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, the Applicate Valley is kind of an interesting place in that regard.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: The the demographics out here are really interesting, and I think you have a lot of people who are driving around their electric vehicles, and you got a lot of people driving around big old stinky diesel trucks and big sprinter vans and whatever, and that's what's in our parking lot at Troon.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the guests who are coming out as a wide range of of people, and uh yeah, so so it it is about a one-to-one ratio out here, and there's there's some diversity in that sense.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_02: I know that I know that uh you know, Monarch is no longer in business, Select Tract's no longer in business.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: Both of those companies are more of a startup type operation.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we do know that uh both John Deere and Fent have tractors that they've announced in the United States, and we're kind of waiting to see where they where they go uh with their their equipment and such.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and obviously Monarch and Fent have been manufacturing uh traditional tractors for you know 100 years plus, uh all kinds of engineering into it and such.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so, with your experiences, I guess, with the tractors, and then also your your knowledge with electric vehicles and your other vehicles, do you have any reservations if a let's say a name brand electric tracker came to market, would that be something you guys would be looking at for purchase?
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: Or, you know, kind of what's your thoughts around that?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've we've always said that one of the critical components for us farming and living rurally is that we need some support in service, servicing and repairs of our equipment.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, there's plenty of ag dealerships and uh shops around here and and mechanics who are really, really handy.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: But we've always said that until there is a presence here in Southern Oregon of a company that is maybe rep and John Deere and can service those electric tractors that we're not willing to invest if we have to either drive up to Eugene or Portland or you know, several hours away or down to San Francisco or whatever to get them serviced.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we are waiting for that.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's not going to happen until there's a call for it from within the industry, right?
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think we need a lot of people in Southern Oregon saying, hey, we want our local John Dealer, our John Deere dealership to carry electric tractors.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there needs to be vocalization.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think we're very happy to host people out at Troon, talk about our experiences with this and be kind of an early adopter and a leader on this.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: But until the industry really shows up to support this kind of adoption of technology, uh, we're not able or willing to make that jump as well.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, yes, we'll be the first one in line when John Deal, John Deere or one of these other um named brands comes to market.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's got to be here in Southern Oregon, not several hours away.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that and that's a good point too.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I I know I see that a lot uh locally, we have a Kubota dealer, for example.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of guys buy Kubota tractors just for that reason.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: Or if they're, you know, if another area may have a local John Deere dealer, so you see more John Deere tractors there.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just exactly what you're talking about, having that local service person, you know, the availability to go in there and get the parts and those types of things locally.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think, you know, the other piece is from what we've seen too, is the electric equipment's a little different type of mechanic.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's not the traditional diesel mechanic that's coming out, it's this electrical mechanical.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of times the first thing they're doing is plugging their laptop in and diagnosing the equipment.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: They're not necessarily listening to the engine or or these types of things and stuff.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think, you know, one of the other things is the the maintenance for the electric equipment seems to be less or maybe even sometimes different.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so I don't know, you know, what your experiences have been with the units, the smaller units you guys have.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but uh, you know, there's no oil changes.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they do some of them do have some air filters and stuff, but that traditional service just isn't there.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: So it kind of changes um the operation and management of the equipment and stuff.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, you're you're exactly right.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a huge appeal, whether it's just, you know, whether it's for farm equipment and on a big commercial scale, like we're running at Troon or just even in my personal life since this experience, we went out and bought a used 2016 Nissan Leaf.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we love the experience of driving, you know, the electric car and and want to continue moving in this direction.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: And part of that personal decision for my household was, you know, the cost of gas and diesel these days.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: With rising fuel costs and uncertainty, we felt like it was time, and especially because we live here on site at Trune, where we have free charging and everything solar powered, that was just a no-brainer for us to invest in kind of a daily driver commuter type electric vehicle.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so part of it was gas and fuel costs, and part of it is that appeal that you're talking about, just the reduced service and maintenance.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's not basically I'm thinking about on our personal car, besides brakes, tires, a couple of filters, air filters, like you said, there's very, very little expense.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we've put literally no money into that car since we bought it a couple months ago.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: Not a dime.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't paid to charge it.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: We haven't needed to repair anything.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's just been a joy to drive literally for free.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I know that's not exactly the case on a business scale where there always are going to be costs, especially of long-term ownership.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: But that's a real appeal to have those lower maintenance costs and just ease of it.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: But exactly as you started out saying, Robert, I think there's a real specialty and a need for a mechanic and and somebody to really take it up passionately and be sort of like the person who, you know, services all of our equipment down here.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because those generally guys exist down here, these good old boys who can fix anything.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, there's uh a hundred different ways to fix it.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's the case for a lot of these electric vehicles, and you really need to uh uh apply the the appropriate fix in the right way in the right order.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think that's a specialty that just doesn't exist here currently.
• 54:17
  unknown: Yeah.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_02: So you probably didn't even realize that the traditional fuel costs have been extremely high over the last few months.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: You you haven't even realized that because you're just plugging in there at the house or what have you to feel your vehicle.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: With that, I don't know, Maya, if you want to kind of dive in maybe at economics a little bit with uh with the equipment.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just have a a quick question regarding the farms around you in southern Oregon.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious if any of your neighbors have gotten the chance to kind of see what you guys are doing at Truon in terms of your transition to electrifying the different equipment on your farm.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious if there's anyone else kind of doing that sort of thing to kind of try and bring in what you and Robert were talking about in terms of like somebody who can help with the maintenance.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, the more of a market, like the more farms that are adopting these this equipment, the more of a draw there would be for somebody to come in with that sort of expertise.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's needed down here, and I think it's slow.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'm I can't I'm not sure if Troon has inspired any of our neighbors to also adopt, you know, electric vehicles and this kinds of technologies.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think folks who are coming out here are really impressed with what we've been able to accomplish in terms of our farming and improving wine quality.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said, this is a 50-plus-year-old brand that's really completely transformed from what we were back in 2018.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've replanted the entire vineyard, added in a bunch of different enterprises, achieved these, you know, super high bar certifications.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think our neighbors are generally very impressed by what we're doing.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm not sure that our transition to an electric fleet is the first thing that they would comment on.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: Although for us, that is a part of it, and that's a major part of our sort of sustainability push.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's slow, and I think down here it's it's partly cultural as well.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and so I think that the transition's gonna be slow, but I think, you know, as as we've been saying, I think it has to happen in order for it to move down here and become more available.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of the like financing and economic side of things, obviously you're talking about your Nissan Leaf and how you you bought that vehicle and now have had to pay nothing, which is probably such a beautiful experience.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm kind of curious on like if you see fuel savings as a major benefit to like transitioning to these electric vehicles.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know that it's part of like the ethos of your farm, and that kind of was one of the main drivers, but I'm curious your thoughts on that, and also touching on these cultural differences that you're talking about just in terms of being more in a more rural area.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure a lot of your neighbors are maybe maybe this isn't a fair assumption, but um I can imagine that maybe some of your neighbors would be more inspired to make this transition if fuel savings were really, you know, building up and could be noticed in a substantial way.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we uh definitely just off out the gates, there are, I think, enormous savings on on fuel costs.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: But that is specifically because we have solar here.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you're in a place maybe like the Dalles, Hood River, whatever, where you've got relatively cheap hydroelectric power or you're close to a nuclear site or something like that, and you have relatively cheap electricity, maybe it makes sense and you actually can have some savings just simply transitioning um from diesel to for us down here, that's not the case.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not actually sure where all of our energy comes from down here in southern Oregon, but we don't have as much hydroelectric power as as in in the gorge, et cetera.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: So for us, it really, really works in terms of of fuel savings because we've partnered it or paired it with solar.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that that is really critical.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think whether it's at the home scale, like I was describing our winemaker Nate and his family that you know put a few solar panels on their roof and now have exclusively EVs.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: They've got that new Ford Lightning truck and a leaf as well.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: So their families fully adopted it and and again feel, you know, feel that sort of moral imperative.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's their family unit, and then that that those values are shared here at Troon.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know that they're shared as widely in the community and the culture down here in Southern Oregon, but again, there's a huge range of people, and there are more and more folks, especially relocating from California and things like that.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that that uh mindset is really in infused in the community and becoming more prominent here.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I do expect that that is going to continue to shift across the nation and then just right behind that in in rural areas like southern Oregon.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have uh any sort of rough estimate of what you spent on diesel within the last year or the last couple months?
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I'm sure you don't have exact numbers, but really any sort of answer to that would be totally.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'll do my best.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna refer to my iPad here on the side.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, as part of that greenhouse gas accounting that we did a couple years ago, you know, we we do it in say 2024 and we look back at the previous year in 23.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so I can't say for 2025 what our fuel usage was yet.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: We haven't analyzed that yet.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_01: But in 2024, we purchased 1,400 gallons of diesel.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the year before in 23, we purchased about 2,000 gallons.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: So just in that year from 23 to 24, we reduced quite a bit.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_01: I would expect that to go down quite a bit lower in 2025.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, excuse me, I wouldn't expect our diesel use to go down significantly because we haven't transitioned our tractor.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that monarch loan, as great as that was, was for a couple of months, and we were still using a lot of other diesel tractors at the time.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I actually think one of the biggest reasons, it's a bit of a side note, but we in we went from a one-sided Undervine weed knife in in Undervine Cultivator to a two-sided, literally cutting down the number of passes we had to do in half.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that that decrease from 2,1400 gallons that we saw between 23 and 24 was largely attributable to just doubling up that implement.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was a$25,000 investment, and I'm sure that's going to pay off just in terms of diesel savings.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's one thing that we had on file.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and, you know, I guess my best estimate is as I was addressing the survey and communicating with you guys, kind of give my feedback about the experience.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: We estimated about a hundred hours of running diesel tractors was offset.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: That was all of the cover crop seeding, moving bins during picks, uh, running the trailer around the farm, moving materials.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I think for about a hundred hours during those three months, we were, you know, uh sparing ourselves any sort of expense or emissions.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that that was that, although I can't put fuel prices to it going back a couple of years ago, just to purely look at the number of gallons or the or or the number of hours that were offset is is really appealing to the business.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I think when you partner um these savings with solar on site, it just really magnifies the the benefits.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: That makes a lot of sense.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I think we're close to wrapping up here.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_02: Is there anything, Garrett, that you're thinking of that we didn't ask or anything that you feel would be important for folks to know, you know, kind of on your guys' journey, you know, kind of more focused on the electric side of things, whether it be on-site solar or the electric vehicles and that, is there anything that's coming to mind for you that uh you think would should be told?
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I I guess I would just say generally that I highly recommend people try it.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was confessing that I had never driven in electric vehicle, never borrowed a friend's car, test driven at a dealership or whatever before starting to drive around some of these electric vehicles here, these side-by-sides and stuff.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: And just the experience is is so joyful.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: It it it might not sound like a big deal to, you know, skip the diesel fumes if that's what is the if that's all you've ever known your whole life.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: But it really is a much nicer experience, a more humane experience to operate these vehicles in terms of noise, not having to wear the PPE, or you know, risk hearing damage.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's been one of the the just like greatest benefits of this was opening my eyes to the pleasurable experience of operating them.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then you start to look at some things like economics or, you know, the ethics behind this transition.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I just feel that much stronger that this is something that we need to adopt widely and everywhere.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so I I really want to do everything I can to help build that movement and help, you know, uh increase accessibility and adoption here locally.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one thing we did uh through Sustainable Northwest, actually, this was really amazing to host a field day as part of a two-day summit.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we got a group of folks, maybe you guys could speak to this a little better than I can where everybody came from, but I was really uh happy to give a tour talking about our farming practices, everything we've talked about on this podcast today, to a group of industry, nonprofit, state, federal folks.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was a diverse group of people to share our journey with.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this podcast will reach even more people as a result of that.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: But to do those kinds of summits or field days or field demonstrations, I think can really help move the needle, especially in a rural environment, to invite our folks or skeptics or, you know, um anybody out to join us.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I love, I proved myself that this is uh something that I want to do in in my own life and personal and professional life.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I think if anybody's out there and skeptical, just try it.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe go down to a dealership and go test drive a car or test drive that lightning, you know, if you want to drive a truck around or something.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really cool.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's a lot of capacity, whether you're talking about that onboard power, savings in maintenance and fuel costs.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think especially in today's, you know, kind of national political climate where i everything is so inaffordable, I think this is a real moment uh to make the switch.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't I don't see myself and I don't see a lot of people switching back once they try electric.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's oh man, that's a powerful statement you just had there and everything.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I think that's our experiences too, is a lot of a lot of it's unknown, it's new, it's different, and uh there's a lot of skeptics, and I think rightfully so, but once they get a chance to take that test drive or uh use the piece of equipment, and it's like, hey, we can actually talk as we're picking grapes now.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_02: We've never been able to do that because the roar of the tractor, those types of things, you know, start coming out.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of times we're focused on economics.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, it's gotta, it's gotta fit the budget to in order for us to go down this road.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: The upfront cost in the equipment on the electrical equipment tends to be higher so far than the traditional diesel, but that that cost to fuel it, the total cost of ownership really I think is what we're all looking at over a period of time.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_02: Does it make sense to make that move?
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_02: But then there's all these other benefits, the the lack of noise, lack of vibration, uh, these types of things and stuff that come out about it.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, Maya, is there anything else you're thinking of you want to make sure we ask Garrett uh before we wrap up here today?
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not anything crazy.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just have to share that sentiment.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_00: I got to drive an electric ATV last Thursday, I want to say, for the first time, and it was just so much fun.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was like just whipping around a farm, Jensen Farms up in Ellensburg, and was having so much fun, and I saw all of the other people we hosted an event up there and And I like watched people as they got on and off the equipment and everybody's face was just completely lit up, which was such a fun experience to see.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also to be able to do that myself.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last thing, this is totally a side note, but just out of personal curiosity, I'm curious what sort of um regenerative practices you do at Troon.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you touched, like you talked about your no-tilling, the cover crops, composting, but I'm just kind of, I don't know, I'm curious how those play in.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_00: Fit in.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm I'm happy to kind of run through them real quick because I often think about regenerative practice from a standpoint of soil health and the NRCS Natur Resource Conservation Service put together just kind of five principles of soil health, and we use all of them kind of to the nth degree.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_01: No till.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're 100% no-till on the farm except for in the vineyards.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_01: So about half of our total acreage of 95 acres is under vineyards, and then only 20% of the vineyards, which is just the vine row, is tilled.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we're saying more than 80% of the entire farm is no-till moving forward.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_01: Cover crops, we use, you know, a ton of diverse cover crops in the vineyards.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_01: We use two different mixes in the alleys and then under vine, probably 30 different species of cover crops will go out in the vineyards as we start to transition more of those over to no-till cover crops throughout the gardens, our garden beds, winter cover crops, et cetera.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we integrate animals.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a small flock of sheep.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_01: We've got about 20 sheep and uh close to 100 chickens, and they're rotationally grazing.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: We use portable electric fences to move those animals around and integrate them within the perennial crops like the cider apples in the vineyards during the wintertime, and then they graze other irrigated and non-irrigated pasture um throughout the year.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what do we got?
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_01: No-till, cover crop, integration compost.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: We make a shitload of compost, excuse me, about 300 tons of finished compost every year.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of that is per is starting with um organic dairy manure from just our neighbor up the road.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of the cost of our farm inputs is basically that dairy manure that we turn into 300 tons of compost and then spread that across the farm.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_01: And some really interesting and surprising analysis we did recently as we're looking at rising fertilizer costs, is that somewhere between 96 and 97% of all of our applied nitrogen and phosphorus, two of the big, you know, macronutrients, are coming from our compost.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: And we're spending almost equivalent amounts of money on making compost and buy and importing off-farm fertilizers.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_01: And yet we're only in 96% of the benefit is coming from our compost.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we're really looking to gear up or or step up more of our on-farm inputs.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think that really speaks to the nature of our biodynamic operation as well as the economic times.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_01: And here I am, the soil scientists, flex and regenerative agriculture, forgetting what the fifth one is.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_01: You guys help me out?
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_01: No-till, cover crops, animal integration, compost, and biodiversity.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_01: Maximize biodiversity.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, we've got a bunch, we've got more than 10 acres of biodiversity reserves, um, a big botanical native garden with 90 species of Southern Oregon native plants, tons of flowering plants.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually tomorrow meeting with a local nonprofit called Bee Regenerative to establish our um operation as a bee-friendly vineyard, which is a cool voluntary designation, uh, speaking to our biodiversity and our support of pollinators.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: So our regenerative practices are pretty cohesive and they're holistic and they're across the entire estate.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's no mixed production, there's no exceptions to any of that is a whole farm approach to regenerating the landscape.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that this, you know, to kind of tie it all back into energy and that sort of moral imperative, we believe that this is the way that we want to farm.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_01: And even though our impact on just 100 small acres is minuscule compared to global agriculture, we are hopeful to have the spotlight.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_01: You've literally given me a microphone to speak about our practices and hopefully inspire some other people.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if we can inspire these practices on greater acreage as quickly as possible, then we do have a chance to fight climate change and to make a more humane, hospitable future for my young son and for everybody else, you know, growing up.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel really inspired to be able to share these practices and to kind of tie it all back together by doing these deep dives into each of these little elements of what we're doing.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think collectively we're doing a lot.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think our certifications speak to that.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's really it's all in those details.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, Maya, you really captured it.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_01: The look on people's faces as they get off of it, get off of the electric ATV, like it this is really bringing the joy back to farming.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard of I've heard so many of these stories.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've thankfully never had to be asked to go out and don a whole hazmat suit and put out nasty pesticides like so many of our farm laborers are asked to do on a daily basis.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_01: But despite not having that experience, I hear a lot of people tell you tell me that story of their transition or their aha moment or why they switched over to organics or whatever.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And even though, you know, I love the kind of idea that that we can be uh, I'm blanking on the word, uh, like it doesn't matter if you're conventional or organic or whatever, agnostic.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to be agnostic about it, but I do really genuinely feel like this kind of farming makes me happy.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_01: It puts that smile on my face, it brings the joy back to farming.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I can walk outside with my two-year-old son and pick some raspberries right off the vine and know that they're safe and nutritious.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And this this kind of agriculture, this approach to agriculture, when you approach it holistically and and from this kind of ethical standpoint, we really hope to inspire people.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope the folks listening to this podcast will reach out if they have any questions or come visit us in Southern Oregon or visit our tasting room up in McMinnville, Oregon.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you guys today.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, thanks, Garrett.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that was you guys have such a great story there at Trune.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And and we'll make sure we include the link uh to Trune in there.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I think you know, we're talking all about about all these uh farming practices, and hey, you guys make wine too, so everybody should go check out some of the wine you guys make and stuff.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, we kind of get we geek out on the tech side and the farming side and that.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so, anyways, Garrett, hey, thanks for joining us today.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_02: We really appreciate having you.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_02: We we enjoyed having you uh tell your story on our show here and everything, and and it's been great working with you over the years, and we hope to to continue to do so and stay in touch with uh with what you guys are working on and stuff.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you again for taking the time out today to to help us capture some of those stories and some of your experiences and feedback and stuff.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then Maya, thanks for joining me today and helping re get this recorded and and uh and everything.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so with that, we'll call it a wrap.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh thanks again and and uh tune in for our next show here on Rule E.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.