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Writer's picturePhytech Team

Grower Spotlight/ Larry Dutto: "Trees look better with no stress"

Phy-Talk, field stories. "The trees responded almost immediately with new growth showing almost no stress at all. More importantly, we used half an acre-foot of water less this year", Sales manager Ryan Vieira heard from Larry Dutto, Ph.D. of Dutto-Cleek LLC Almonds how Phytech has helped him grow better yields with less resources. Thank you Larry for sharing your experience and insights and for being an Ag-hero! Without further ado, let's dig in:

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💬 How did you first get involved in farming?

🧑 As Provost Emeritus, for the College of the Sequoias, I established the COS Farm Operations Committee, consisting of local farmers, to oversee the college's 320-acre farming operation in 2012.


💬 How active is the committee today?

🧑 The committee meets once each month to advise the college administration and agriculture faculty on a variety of issues facing farmers today.


💬 When did Phytech join the picture?

🧑 The college established an Irrigation Academy, and this is when I was first introduced to Phytech when we installed the system on our almond crop.


💬 What did you like best about Phytech?

🧑 I was so impressed with the water savings I decided to install the system on my almonds.



💬 What did the setup process look like?

🧑 We installed our system the first week of June. We installed a timer on our pump and followed the daily watering instructions using Phytech to keep our trees growing on their recommended schedule. We also used the system to monitor our deficit watering and were very pleased with our shake getting a majority of our nuts off the tree. After harvest we immediately returned to our daily watering schedule.


💬 What was the end result of using Phytech?

🧑 The trees responded almost immediately with new growth showing almost no stress at all. More importantly, we used half an acre-foot of water less this year than last for the period of June through September.


💬 How does Phytech support your SGMA goals?

🧑 With SGMA we hope to be able to utilize Phytech on this year's crop to keep the trees growing and producing while utilizing the least amount of water to do that.

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