A Legacy Rooted in Innovation
When it comes to modern agriculture, few names carry as much influence as John Duarte, president of Duarte Nursery. Founded in 1989, Duarte Nursery has grown into one of the largest operations of its kind in the world. In a recent conversation with host Nick Papagni, John reflected on the origins of the family business, the innovations that have defined its growth, and the challenges and opportunities facing California growers today.
President of Duarte Nursery
The nursery’s story begins with John’s father, Jim Duarte, who was among the early pioneers in producing virus-free grapevines. As John explained, plants—like humans and animals—are vulnerable to viruses. Through a process of heat treatment, vines can be grown under controlled stress, which helps eliminate viruses from new growth. By propagating from this clean tissue, growers are provided with virus-free vines.
“The concepts are simple, but doing it is the trick,” John said. “Once growers understood the process, they demanded virus-free plants. It changed the industry.”
This same principle extended into nut trees. By cloning the best seedlings from diverse parent crosses—rather than relying on inconsistent seedling rootstocks—orchards could be planted with trees that had uniform vigor, adaptability, and productivity.
Shifting Toward Almonds
In the mid-1990s, as raisins declined in profitability, John and his team began to turn their attention to almonds. “When you’re in a nursery, you look for big crops and big opportunities,” John explained. At the time, almonds were being planted on peach seedling rootstock, which often performed poorly under modern conditions such as replant situations, saline soils, or well-water irrigation.
Recognizing the need for better solutions, Duarte Nursery introduced clonal rootstocks that offered more consistent performance. To support this, the nursery also transitioned to producing containerized trees rather than traditional bare-root stock. Containerized trees eliminated the risk of mortality associated with bare-root transplants, particularly when working with peach-almond hybrids that did not go dormant as reliably as standard peach rootstock.
Orchard Lifespan and Management
One of the most common questions among growers concerns the lifespan of an almond orchard. While pistachio trees can live for centuries, almond orchards have a much shorter productive life.
“With today’s economics, you should plan on a 20-year budget and expect to replant after that,” John advised. “But with improved rootstocks, potted trees, and uniform genetics, we can push orchards a little longer—sometimes 25 years or more.”
He highlighted his own 21-year-old orchard, which was radically hedged back in 2021 and still produced close to 3,000 pounds per acre at age 25. Such practices, when combined with tighter spacings and careful management, can extend productivity and profitability.
Deep Roots in the Central Valley
While Duarte Nursery has expanded its operations, the heart of the business remains in Hughson, California, where John’s great-grandfather purchased land in 1908. “There really is only one place to come to Duarte Nursery, and that’s here in Hughson,” John said. Additional ranches in Modesto support long-term trials and research plantings, but the headquarters remains the hub of innovation and grower outreach.
Nick noted that some of the best almond-growing soils in the world are located on the west side of the Valley—land that unfortunately suffers from chronic water shortages. John emphasized the tragedy of California’s water mismanagement, pointing out that despite political claims, restrictions have neither saved fish populations nor secured long-term agricultural productivity. Instead, water policy has created “a man-made dust bowl” that threatens both farming communities and public health.
A Breakthrough in Almond Productivity
Despite these challenges, Duarte Nursery continues to push forward with groundbreaking research. John highlighted the nursery’s new almond variety, Yorazani, which has delivered unprecedented yields.
“In Modesto, we had an experimental planting produce 2,700 pounds per acre at just 36 months old,” John shared. “Nothing like that has ever happened before.”
The Yorazani variety, paired with Duarte’s optimized growing systems, has attracted hundreds of growers eager to see its potential firsthand. “We’ve probably had 500 to 700 growers in that field this year,” John noted. For producers, the variety represents not only a new nut with excellent quality but also a critical economic shift in an industry where prices can fluctuate dramatically.
“Productivity is everything,” John stressed. “At today’s prices, growers need these advantages to survive.”
Expanding Beyond Almonds: Pistachios and Avocados
Duarte Nursery’s work isn’t limited to almonds. The company has also been advancing clonal rootstocks for pistachios, with trials showing a 30% performance advantage over seedlings across multiple varieties and years. These innovations give growers powerful tools to maximize long-term orchard productivity.
The nursery is also making bold moves into avocados. In the greenhouse, John and his team are pioneering new methods of avocado propagation, including breakthroughs in micropropagation and conventional rootstock development. Duarte’s proprietary clonal Mexicola avocado has already shown strong performance over the past decade.
By 2027, John expects Duarte Nursery to offer avocado trees at scale, potentially transforming the crop’s future in the Central Valley. While acknowledging the risk of freeze damage, he pointed out that consumer demand for avocados as a plant-based protein and healthy fat continues to grow worldwide.
“It’s kind of like almonds were 20 years ago,” John said. “Consumers are telling us what they want, and now it’s time to scale up to meet that demand.”
Prop 50 and the Battle for Central Valley Representation
As the conversation turned to politics, John Duarte addressed one of the most pressing issues facing California’s Central Valley: Proposition 50. For Duarte, the measure represents a direct threat to the region’s political influence and agricultural future.
He explained how collaboration among Valley leaders had led to initiatives like the Rural Roads and Markets Act and efforts to fund projects such as raising Shasta Dam. These were made possible through bipartisan cooperation, with local congressmen pushing hard for improvements to water storage and infrastructure.
“If we lose Prop 50,” Duarte warned, “the Central Valley will have only minimal representation from people like Vince Fong in the south or Tom McClintock in the north. The rest will be safe Democrat seats, and a safe seat is very different than a swing seat.”
Swing districts, Duarte explained, force politicians to work for their constituents. But if Central Valley districts are absorbed into coastal, left-leaning districts, agriculture will lose its leverage. “We do not need the Central Valley represented by a myriad of coastal hard-left legislators,” Duarte said. “Our communities are uniquely vulnerable if Prop 50 passes.”
Farmers as Environmental Stewards
Nick Papagni observed that many urban politicians fail to recognize that farmers are among the greatest environmentalists. They care for their land as though it were family, but in Sacramento and beyond, farming is too often painted as harmful.
“How do we educate those people?” Duarte asked. He criticized California’s water policy for flushing millions of acre-feet of fresh water into the ocean instead of storing it for agricultural or urban use. This, he argued, devastates irrigated farmland, suburban neighborhoods, and rural communities alike.
Children in the Valley suffer from dust-borne respiratory issues, and yet the policies supposedly designed to protect salmon have failed to improve fish populations. “When you put water in the environment, you create biodiversity and health,” Duarte emphasized. “Instead, we’ve adopted the most anti-human, backwards water policy ever known in history.”
He pointed out the irony: California sits at the intersection of the Sierra Nevada—one of the largest natural water banks in the world—and the Pacific Ocean, which delivers enormous precipitation. “And yet we’ve squandered the opportunities God gave us,” Duarte said.
The Economic Toll on Families
The consequences of mismanagement go far beyond farms. California’s trade deficit now exceeds $32 billion, meaning more food is imported than exported. Duarte argued this hurts working families most of all.
“Wage-earning families are being crushed,” he said. Between soaring housing costs, high energy bills, expensive fuel, and poor infrastructure, basic living costs have skyrocketed. He noted that many Californians now face “soul-crushing traffic” just to get to work, with little chance to improve their circumstances.
These pressures, Duarte argued, are driving political realignment. Voters are shifting toward leaders who prioritize affordability, opportunity, and the American dream over what Duarte dismissed as “greenie weenie identity politics.” Young people, once drawn west in search of opportunity, are now leaving California because they see no future here.
For Duarte, stopping Prop 50 is essential to preserving the Valley’s political voice in Washington, D.C. Without it, he warned, “we’re going to lose our ability to solve some of these problems even on the federal level, much less the state.”
A Family Commitment to the Fight
Duarte stressed that fighting Prop 50 requires urgency and grassroots engagement. He praised the role of young Republicans, who he said have taken the lead in organizing door-to-door campaigns across the Central Valley.
His own family is deeply involved. His wife, Alexandra Duarte, is running for a state Senate seat and has committed resources to oppose Prop 50. “She’s a conservative Republican and an agriculturalist,” Duarte said proudly. “She’s going to do an excellent job representing California agriculture.”
Duarte himself has invested in the campaign as well, calling on others to do the same. “If we don’t have local representation in Congress from the Central Valley, we’re going to regret it severely,” he said.
California in Crisis Mode
Papagni underscored the urgency of the situation by pointing to examples like Taft, once a thriving hub of oil and gas, now a shadow of its former self. If agriculture suffers the same fate, entire towns in the Valley—Firebaugh, Mendota, and others—could collapse.
Without water, Duarte echoed, there are no farms, no jobs, and no future for these communities.
Meanwhile, many residents are still drinking contaminated groundwater, including water tainted with hexavalent chromium—the chemical made infamous by the Erin Brockovich case. Instead of investing in clean water infrastructure, Duarte criticized state leaders for wasting billions on the high-speed rail project, which he dismissed as a “useless vanity piece.”
A Call for Common-Sense Leadership
Duarte highlighted candidates like Lorenzo Rios, a military veteran and congressional hopeful whom he described as charismatic, sincere, and deeply committed to the Valley’s needs. Leaders like Rios, he argued, offer the kind of energy and focus needed to restore agriculture and community prosperity.
At the core of his message was a call for common sense. “We don’t need to be distracted by climate alarmism fantasies or divided by identity politics,” Duarte said. “We have a common interest in the American dream.”
For Duarte, that dream centers on the people who wake up Monday morning, go to work, and cooperate with their neighbors to build a better life. “We have amazing opportunities in America and in California,” he said. “But not if we get lost in these nonsense, divisive efforts.”
The Stakes of Proposition 50
When asked whether the outcome of Prop 50 might already be predetermined, Duarte acknowledged the difficulty of the fight. “It is going to be close,” he admitted. “Until late on election night, we won’t know where we are.”
But he insisted that the stakes could not be higher. Losing Prop 50 would mean losing the Valley’s congressional voice and the ability to advocate for the region’s agricultural interests. “We must beat Prop 50,” Duarte said firmly. “Central Valley seats must stay Central Valley seats.”
Looking Ahead
Before signing off, Duarte pointed listeners back to his wife’s Senate campaign. “The truly greatest person you have in the Central Valley is Alexandra Duarte,” he said with a smile. “She’s stepping in to clean up the mess and put a true conservative agriculturalist in that Senate seat. I think you’ll be very impressed when you meet her.”
Duarte Nursery: Innovation Driving California’s Future
As the conversation wound down, Nick Papagni emphasized the extraordinary impact John Duarte and Duarte Nursery have had on agriculture across California. “What you’re doing for the nursery industry and from California all the way around is second to none,” Papagni remarked, thanking Duarte for taking the time to share his story and vision.
For Duarte, the feeling was mutual. “It’s my pleasure, my honor,” he said. “Good luck to you and thank you for doing what you do.”
Proven Results in Almonds and Pistachios
Farmers listening in had one pressing question—what kind of production gains can they realistically expect from Duarte Nursery’s trees? Duarte was ready with specifics:
- 2,700 pounds of almonds at 36 months
- 30% more production in pistachios compared to seedling rootstock
His message was clear: Duarte Nursery’s field-tested results can transform orchard profitability. He encouraged growers to take the next step. “Call Duarte Nursery at 209-531-0351 and we’ll get one of our field reps in your field this coming week.”
Avocados: The Central Valley’s Next Big Crop
Looking ahead, Duarte turned his attention to one of the most exciting opportunities on the horizon—avocado production in the Central Valley. While the nursery is still in development mode, he predicted big changes within the decade.
“We’ll be wrapping up in 2027,” Duarte explained, “and I believe by 2030 or 2032, the Central Valley here is going to be seeing a lot of avocado plantings going in.”
For farmers facing shrinking returns from crops like olives, wine grapes, and even stone fruit, avocados could represent the next chapter of California agriculture.
“We need a new crop,” Duarte said plainly. “Olives don’t quite make enough money. Wine grapes are leaving. Raisins are good for some guys. The stone fruit guys have shrunk a bit. We need a new crop—and I think avocado is likely to be the next big thing here in the Valley.”
Papagni couldn’t help but joke that even the Ag Meter’s backyard might need “two or three avocado trees to be experimented.” Duarte laughed and replied, “I’ll be ready. We’ll work on that.”
Closing Thoughts
The interview closed on an optimistic note. Duarte’s mix of proven orchard innovation and bold vision for new crops captured the possibilities ahead for California growers. His message was equal parts practical and forward-looking: focus on measurable results today, while preparing for the opportunities of tomorrow.
From higher almond and pistachio yields to the promise of Central Valley avocados, Duarte Nursery continues to position itself at the forefront of agricultural progress.
For farmers ready to boost production and explore new opportunities, the call to action is simple: