A lot of growers ask the same thing once they've decided to remove a block: okay, the trees are coming out — but where do they actually go?
It's a fair question, and the answer isn't the same for every field. What we do with all that wood depends on your soil, your timing, and what you're planting next. Here's how it actually works.
Step one: trees come out clean
Before anything gets chipped, the trees and vines have to come out of the ground — and how they come out matters more than people think.
We dig and pile with Caterpillar excavators, which gives us the cleanest pulls we can get. The goal is no stumps left behind and no surprises buried in your field for the next crew to hit. We treat every field like it's our own ground going back into production, because half the time the field going back in is the kind of ground we'd farm ourselves.
Irrigation and drip hose come out first, then the trees, then we pile for grinding.
Step two: grinding it down
Once it's piled, we grind it with Tigercat grinders. This is one of the spots where the equipment genuinely makes a difference in the final result, not just the speed.
A better grinder produces a better, more consistent chip. That matters because the size and quality of the chip changes how it behaves once it's back in the field — even chips spread more evenly and break down faster than the uneven mess you get from lesser equipment. If the plan is to put that material back into your soil, you want it ground right the first time.
Note on equipment: The grinder brand and condition affect chip quality — not just throughput speed. We run Tigercat equipment specifically because the output is consistent enough to go back into the ground the way whole orchard recycling research calls for.
Step three: spread it or haul it
Here's the real decision. Once everything's chipped, those chips go one of two ways:
Option A
Reincorporated into your soil
We spread the chips back across the field and work them into the ground. Done right, this puts organic matter back into your soil and can help with structure and water-holding as it breaks down. For a lot of growers replanting the same ground, this is the move.
Option B
Hauled off for value-added products
Sometimes it makes more sense to haul the material off the field entirely, where it can go toward value-added products instead of back into your dirt.
Neither one is automatically the right answer. The call comes down to a handful of factors:
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Cost Spreading and hauling carry different price tags — and the Air District grant can offset the cost of reincorporation
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Your soil type Some ground benefits more from the added organic matter than others
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Time of year Timing affects how chips break down and when you can get back to work
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Your next crop What you're planting changes what the soil needs going in
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Field-specific factors Access, acreage, and the quirks every block has
We'll walk through those with you rather than just defaulting to whatever's easiest for us.
One crew, start to finish
The reason we can think this way is that we handle the whole job — irrigation removal, digging, grinding, spreading, deep ripping, and final ground prep — with our own crews and equipment. There's no handing your field off to three different outfits and hoping they coordinate.
That means when we decide what to do with the chips, we're already thinking about the disking and ripping that comes after, and the crop that comes after that. It's all one plan, not a series of disconnected jobs.