Here's a sampling of successful field trials using the Blum system.
MANDARINS
A 46 acre plot of seedless mandarins was developed in the Central California Valley inside of a 160 acre farm. Nearly 80,000 trees are receiving water and nutrition automatically and precisely through the Blum system.
Within 18 months after planting, the first commercial crop was harvested. Production rates exceeded 12,000 pounds per acre, a rate that would have taken trees grown by traditional methods approximately 8 years to achieve.
In January 2007 California citrus farms experienced an unusual freeze event. The 46 acre mandarin plot experienced 20 consecutive nights with temperatures at or below freezing. The lowest temperature encountered was 22° F. Many of the surrounding farms were destroyed by the freeze. We utilized thermal blankets to insulate the trees, which successfully provided protection against the extreme cold and spared any crop loss. This would not be possible to do with traditional mandarins grown in the ground.
GRAPES: Wine and table
The power of flavor control is now at your fingertips. The Blum system offers the ability to grow any type of wine grape while controlling it’s flavor and strength.
Wine grapes grown using Blum have the potential to revolutionize the multi-billion dollar wine production industry. In traditional wine grape planting, the flavor of wine is derived directly from the minerals in the soil that the grape vines are planted in. The strength of the flavor is dependent on the environment.
With Blum, in which plants are contained within pots using a soilless medium, the minerals received by the grape vines can be directly controlled to allow the grower to create various flavors of wine from a single plant from one year to the next. In addition, the strength and fullness of flavor in wine grapes can be altered by restricting the amount of water. This allows growers to create vibrant wines bursting with flavor that can be repeated year after year.
The Blum system produces a commercial harvest in 18 months, whereas traditional vines take up to 5 years.
Similar to wine grapes, table grapes grow bigger, faster, and stronger with Blum.
COFFEE
The possibilities for growing coffee using the Blum system are virtually endless. The main advantage is that it allows farmers and investors to grow coffee in environments not previously conducive for coffee plants. For example, the Blum team successfully grew coffee beans in Central California using our technology.
Imagine being able to grow coffee in downtown Seattle or on rooftops in New York City. With Blum, this is now a commercially viable and scalable possibility. Coffee growers will be able to eliminate the need to transport beans from Africa and Latin America. This will dramatically reduce production costs and food miles. This has the potential to disrupt the international coffee trade and provide consumers around the world with local coffee.
Avocados
An average single avocado grown using traditional farming methods requires 60 gallons of water to produce. California avocados are currently grown along the Central Coast and as far south as San Diego, due to the warm winter climates. Much of this avocado farmland has been greatly impacted due to urban sprawl affecting agricultural water availability and the extreme drought that California is experiencing.
The amount of water used to grow avocados is greatly reduced using the Blum system. The condensed spacing of the trees is also a great advantage with the shrinking footprint of farmland.
In California’s Central Valley where we grow Gem avocados, the nighttime winter temperatures can drop below freezing, which risks harming the trees. We designed and built a tent system utilizing a frost blanket in order to protect the trees from possible damage due to freezing temperatures.
BLUEBERRIES
The Blum system produces blueberries at an unprecedented rate. With 400% increase in yield per acre over traditional farming methods, we’ve seen as much as 20 tons per hectare.