Who: Troy Regier of Regier Family Farms
Where: 30 acres in Dinuba, CA
What: Troy grows over 50 varieties of stone fruit. In the upcoming weeks look for June Lady full flavor, sweet yellow peaches, Snow Brite white peaches, Arctic Star and Arctic Queen white nectarines, Honey Blaze low acid yellow nectarines, and Elegant Lady yellow peaches.
How: Troy’s dad grew up on a farm and his father died when he was young. He always dreamed of returning to farming and that dream came true in 1973. Troy grew up on the farm and has never lived in the city. In 1983 his family farm began selling at Farmers Markets, including the Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers Market. When Troy was a junior in High School he started working at his family’s stand at the Wednesday Market and has been doing it ever since. Troy says he will farm and go to farmers markets until he retires.
Regier Family Farms specializes in tree ripe fruit. They color pick their fruit ensuring it is never picked before it is ripe, as well only picking fruit when it has reached full size. Another interesting method for picking fruit that Troy uses on his farm is that when the fruit is picked it is placed directly into the pan-a-pack (the plastic liners that hold fruit inside the case). His farm workers have a platform with a pan-a-pack on top of it that they wear when picking fruit. They pick only ripe fruit and place it in the pan-a-pack. Pan-a-packs come in different sizes for different sized fruit; therefore pickers also have control over what size fruit they pick, making certain that similar sized fruit is packed together. This way, the fruit is handled only once, rather than it being picked and then later sorted. His fruit is always picked on Tuesday for the Wednesday Market and is never placed in cold storage.
Favorite Varieties: June Lady and OHenry yellow peaches, Snow Brite white peach, and Ruby Pearl white nectarine.
