Aforestation of the stickery kind

azmtnman · March 03, 2022, 07:16:27 PM

Thanks for doing that. I've wondered about him several times over the past couple years.
I went to visit him and his saguaro farm several years ago but I don't get down that way very often.

catalina · March 07, 2022, 01:34:07 PM

Azmtnman, no thanks necessary, dont know why the mood struck me but it did, lol. Gene

SwampDonkey · March 07, 2022, 03:24:58 PM

Sometimes when you reach out to someone after a long spell it means a lot to them. ;)

mesquite buckeye · November 24, 2022, 01:38:07 PM

Hey guys. Still kicking. Very behind but moving forward. 2 seasons back we started planting in a bottomland field up in Redfield Canyon against my better judgement. On ordinary freeze nights we got around 90-95% kill in that new planting which started a more or less panic for warmer locations. We were able to find some ancient bottomland that is about 150 feet above the canyon bottom and considerably warmer. We started planting that area fall of last year with very good results. This year has been one of land clearing and prep and we now have about 5 acres planted up there. We have also changed to wider planting and no irrigation as we were having uneconomic problems with animal damage on the saguaro hill. So the new area is probably around 10000 plants in the ground. We have over 40 acres of additional suitable land for more fields. The cold bottom will be planted to barrel cactus which are much more cold hardy.

We also got 15 inches of monsoon rains this summer which is nearly double our whole year average. Included in that were two 3" cloudbursts which damaged or destroyed over half of our water control structures. Also came with high wind which destroyed 3 1/2 of our greenhouses. We had lost 2 other ones years earlier to a small tornado. We are moving forward in spite of the ongoing disasters. The field grown saguaros and barrels are now starting to sell and we could possibly actually become profitable by the end of next year.