Go For It
November 1, 2008 
If you ask Mike Clayton about his seemingly inexhaustible willingness to try new things, you’re likely to get a blank look in return. It’s as if he can’t imagine farming any other way. It seems like the Orondo, WA, apple and cherry grower was born that way, and he probably was. After all, nobody pushes the envelope more than a jet fighter pilot, and that’s exactly what his father, John Clayton, did.
After a career flying with the legendary daredevil flying group the Thunderbirds and then piloting missions during the Vietnam War, the senior Clayton retired from the Air Force to become an apple grower. Seeing the promise of farming arid land with a good supply of water from the Greater Wenatchee Irrigation District, he and his wife Dottie plunged into a second career with gusto. “My dad was into experimenting,” says Mike Clayton. “He was doing overhead cooling of Reds (to improve coloring) back in the early 1980s.”
Today Mike and his brother Mark are upholding the family tradition at Clayton Orchards. They are constantly experimenting with new varieties, growing systems, nutrition programs — you name it, and they’ve probably either tried it or given it serious thought. “We’re always trying to improve, even after we’ve figured how to do something right,” says Mike. “There’s a Japanese theory of business that you do it the best you can, then you figure out how to do it better. Even though something’s a success, it’s not a place to stop.”
A Closer Look
It’s that attitude that has shaped the landscape at Clayton Orchards, a 231-acre operation overlooking the Columbia River where they farm a half-dozen varieties of apples and five varieties of cherries. This past July, Mike Clayton provided a tour of the operation, and here’s a little of what was seen and heard.
Gesturing at a 10-acre block of Galas, Clayton says he is very much into micro-managing because every block is a little different. “Just because I do something on one Gala block,” he says, “doesn’t mean I will do it on another.” However, micro-managing can be taken too far. “This is a 30-acre block,” he says of another we pass, adding with a chuckle: “If you have something good, it should be big.”
This is one of the first super spindle blocks in the region, planted in 1992. Clayton planted it after learning of the system on a memorable trip through Europe with Tye Fleming, son of the late Doyle Fleming, a celebrated orchardist who was American/Western Fruit Grower’s Apple Grower of the Year in 1996. It wasn’t an organized tour; they just rented a car and drove the back roads of Germany, Holland, Belgium, and France, sleeping in farmhouses along the way. “I first heard of super spindle from them,” Clayton says of the friendly growers. “Luckily, Tye could understand what they were saying.”
Next up is a series of blocks that were recommended viewing by Andy Kahn of Northwest IPM Inc., who serves as Clayton’s entomologist. “It’s pretty impressive horticulture,” he says. “I get a thrill going through those blocks, and I see them every week.” The blocks are densely planted (18 inches by 8 feet) Galas, 3,630 trees per acre. “These are fruiting walls,” says Clayton. “If a branch grows out, we cut it out.”
Early production’s the goal here, and they got 41 bins per acre last year, the third leaf. (This year in the fourth leaf, Clayton later reports, he got 62 bins per acre.) The fruiting walls have the added advantage of being inexpensive to prune and thin. “We tried platforms,” he says, “but they really weren’t necessary because the ladder work goes so quickly and easily.”
The fruiting walls found in these Gala blocks led Clayton to start thinking about new ways of spraying them. After all, he didn’t need super-strong fans to get good coverage because they require little penetration and he didn’t want to waste any fungicides or pesticides. “He uses unique spray equipment, developing some tower sprayers that have proved very effective for him,” says Kahn. “They make for a very efficient use of resources, because if a drop leaves his tank, it hits a tree.”
Staying Open
Not that Clayton uses a lot of sprays anyway. The advantage of farming in what is essentially a desert is that with so little moisture, there aren’t the pest and disease pressures found elsewhere. His wife April, a chemist, did her doctorate on using an MRI to analyze a bottle of wine without opening the bottle. She could use related techniques to show that there are little or no residues on Clayton’s fruit, which he says (tongue only partly in cheek) he would like to use to show he should get paid more for his ultra-clean fruit.
It’s yet another idea for another day. “It’s just the way our Dad taught us,” he says. “He was always open to new ideas. It’s worked well for us. Farming’s the type of business that there’s always a better way to do it.”
A People Person
Unlike most in the new wave of orchardists in the mecca of U.S. apple production who have degrees in horticulture from Washington State University (WSU), Mike Clayton got his degree from WSU’s opponent in the annual Apple Cup football game — the University of Washington. Also, his degree’s not in horticulture, but business. And although he chose business because he wasn’t initially sure he’d return home to the farm, Clayton’s glad he did.
The most important factor in the success of Clayton Orchards is its people, he says, so all those courses he took in management have served him well. “Managing people is one of the toughest parts of this business, but also the most important,” he says. “It takes a really good crew, and we’ve got the best.”
Of course, it helps that his key employees have been around so long. His foreman, Dionicio Lopez, has been with the Claytons for more than 30 years. “All our top guys have been here more than 15 years,” says Clayton. “We have nine families living on the farm besides mine and my brother’s.”
They’re not the farm’s only year-round residents. In recent years the Claytons have constructed two housing facilities. Each has six units with six beds per unit. One can be used year-round. The other is intended to be used for six to seven months per year, during thinning, picking, and a little R&R. “It’s so hard to get workers, I’m happy to put them up before they start working,” says Clayton, gesturing at the meticulously maintained complex. “This is how we’re going to make sure we’re going to get pickers.”
Clayton freely admits that the housing represents a sizable investment, one that’s not easy to justify, at least in the short term. But he’s not thinking short term. “You get zero payback on farmworker housing; it’s tough to make it pencil out,” he says. “But we have very little turnover, which keeps me farming instead of training. Training is expensive.”
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