Darrell Cordova and his son, Trevor, hosted a farm visit tour group that was part of the California Farm Demonstration Network at their farm on June 9^th in Denair, CA and provided a complete overview of the goals and management approaches they use for their diverse almond and walnut tree crop acreage as well as their no-till winter forage and summer corn crops that they grow under a 135-acre center pivot for a nearby dairy.  You can see the half-hour video summary of the field day below or go to the You Tube link  https://youtu.be/JYl_J1ZnfDA . 

 

The Cordova's discussed their commitment to efficiencies of all sorts including with water, nutrients and labor.  They are extremely conscientious in their use of sampling and data for all their management decisions and shared with participants how they've not only managed to be extremely careful with all the inputs they provide to their crops, but also that they have seen their production systems provide ever-increasing yields at lower costs over the years.  The coupled benefits they now have achieved from use of their highly precise center pivot irrigation system for the silage crops with their no-till planting systems that preserve surface residues, have allowed them to not only completely reduce water runoff from their rolling hill topography, but to also actually cut down their typical seasonal water application volumes from the typical 3 acre-feet to closer to about 2 acre-feet in recent years.