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California farmer, mostly pistachio and almonds. The farm has been in the family for four generations now and we hope to continue that. I found HN while I work

California farmer, mostly pistachio and almonds. The farm has been in the family for four generations now and we hope to continue that. I found HN while I worked at Google on self-driving cars from 2014-2018. At least two postings on HN have been direct material impact to me: the first about an autonomous tractor we might be experimenting with soon, and the second about water restrictions in CA that fortunately did not end up impacting us, but caused us to come up with some interesting water contingencies.

MichaelMoser123 5y ago
How do you manage with polination? I read that bees are dying off, all over the place.
- opinion-is-bad 5y ago
  Hasn’t been a big issue for us since we are a larger farm and have blueberries pollinating right after our almonds making us a desirable partner. The rates have gone up, but we can afford them easily for almonds. The current almond pollination actually uses essentially 100% of commercial bees in the United States, but almond acreage is almost certain to only go down for the foreseeable future, so I don’t expect it to become a big issue. My understanding is that the colony collapse disorder is not considered a huge threat by bee keepers that do things the right way.
mattowen_uk 5y ago
I've just watched season 3 of the legal drama 'Goliath' starring Billy Bob Thornton, which was ALL about almond farmers in California trying to get water. Really good show, totally recommend it.
- akudha 5y ago
  I second this recommendation. I actually liked all 4 seasons of the show. The games that lawyers play … sigh
- opinion-is-bad 5y ago
  I have not heard about that, I’ll check it out. The water situation is not good for a lot of farmers, but we are fortunate with where our aquifer-drawing land is located and that most of our acres don’t draw from the aquifer at all.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  I really wanted to hate this series, but it's well written, and Billy Bob is a good actor. I thought he would phone it in being a series, but he's on point.
TimSchumann 5y ago
Conversation I was having with my dad (a dairy and grain farmer in the midwest) earlier this week ‘I wonder what the market for an open source tractor is?’ Not sure about autonomous, but just something you own, that you have full schematics and design specs for, and can repair yourself — seems like a huge market given the state of things right now.
- opinion-is-bad 5y ago
  The biggest problem with product development for agriculture use cases is that the conditions are extreme, every situation is unique, and the customers don’t really want what you are selling. It adds up to a lot of failed companies with good ideas that just couldn’t crack the distribution layer. There is definitely demand for tractors from new producers. The inability to repair a tractor during harvest is simply unacceptable. Their technicians can take weeks to get around to you, especially if you are a small shop.
  - Delk 5y ago
    What kinds of repair needs do you usually run into that require vendor's technicians? Is it e.g. electrical, or are they the stereotypical "everything is a computer" type of problems that everybody complains about in cars? Can you try to fix even mechanical problems yourself, or are those typically not the issue? Asking out of plain curiosity.
    - opinion-is-bad 5y ago
      It depends on the OEM, but in the worst cases it’s essentially anything. You can’t even change your own oil.
- randomdata 5y ago
  > seems like a huge market given the state of things right now. It's true that parts availability has been somewhat of a problem as of late, especially when computer chips are involved, but I am not sure it being open source really improves on that. If the OEM cannot keep up with production, your DIY/local supplier efforts are likely to suffer from the same capacity problems. It's not like you're going to setup your own silicon fab on a whim when your tractor breaks down in the middle of harvest.
deleted 5y ago
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MichaelMoser123 5y ago

How do you manage with polination? I read that bees are dying off, all over the place.

opinion-is-bad 5y ago
Hasn’t been a big issue for us since we are a larger farm and have blueberries pollinating right after our almonds making us a desirable partner. The rates have gone up, but we can afford them easily for almonds. The current almond pollination actually uses essentially 100% of commercial bees in the United States, but almond acreage is almost certain to only go down for the foreseeable future, so I don’t expect it to become a big issue. My understanding is that the colony collapse disorder is not considered a huge threat by bee keepers that do things the right way.

mattowen_uk 5y ago

I've just watched season 3 of the legal drama 'Goliath' starring Billy Bob Thornton, which was ALL about almond farmers in California trying to get water. Really good show, totally recommend it.

akudha 5y ago
I second this recommendation. I actually liked all 4 seasons of the show. The games that lawyers play … sigh
opinion-is-bad 5y ago
I have not heard about that, I’ll check it out. The water situation is not good for a lot of farmers, but we are fortunate with where our aquifer-drawing land is located and that most of our acres don’t draw from the aquifer at all.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
I really wanted to hate this series, but it's well written, and Billy Bob is a good actor. I thought he would phone it in being a series, but he's on point.

TimSchumann 5y ago

Conversation I was having with my dad (a dairy and grain farmer in the midwest) earlier this week ‘I wonder what the market for an open source tractor is?’ Not sure about autonomous, but just something you own, that you have full schematics and design specs for, and can repair yourself — seems like a huge market given the state of things right now.

opinion-is-bad 5y ago
The biggest problem with product development for agriculture use cases is that the conditions are extreme, every situation is unique, and the customers don’t really want what you are selling. It adds up to a lot of failed companies with good ideas that just couldn’t crack the distribution layer. There is definitely demand for tractors from new producers. The inability to repair a tractor during harvest is simply unacceptable. Their technicians can take weeks to get around to you, especially if you are a small shop.
- Delk 5y ago
  What kinds of repair needs do you usually run into that require vendor's technicians? Is it e.g. electrical, or are they the stereotypical "everything is a computer" type of problems that everybody complains about in cars? Can you try to fix even mechanical problems yourself, or are those typically not the issue? Asking out of plain curiosity.
  - opinion-is-bad 5y ago
    It depends on the OEM, but in the worst cases it’s essentially anything. You can’t even change your own oil.
randomdata 5y ago
> seems like a huge market given the state of things right now. It's true that parts availability has been somewhat of a problem as of late, especially when computer chips are involved, but I am not sure it being open source really improves on that. If the OEM cannot keep up with production, your DIY/local supplier efforts are likely to suffer from the same capacity problems. It's not like you're going to setup your own silicon fab on a whim when your tractor breaks down in the middle of harvest.

deleted 5y ago

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