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orwin 4 hours ago

> Every year farmers cut down a bunch of trees and plant new ones in response to costs and market demand

I'll admit my experience is more with vineyard than orchards, but at least for grape, this isn't true. You only cut down old, unproductive vines, and market demand is not a factor. You never know how much you will produce YoY, so basically you try to only produce what your domain can handle. (The english translation for the following will be rough i realize).

On the "planting" side, you're wrong: a limited stock of "rootstock" (if this is the correct translation of "porte-greffe") is produced each year. As those are specific to a certain type of soil and take time to grow, you don't produce a ton each year. And vines "rootstock" are _a lot_ easier to grow than other trees (you have a mother-vine that you don't prune, you bury its branch in the soil, and over a year it will develop roots). My guess is that for orchards, your rootstock should take 3-4 years, so it isn't that easy.

nradov 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Grape vines have a longer productive lifespan than most fruit trees so I don't know what point you're trying to make. Lots of wine grape vines are being torn out in California. Competition is intense, we're well past "peak wine" (consumers aren't drinking as much), and honestly a lot of it was kind of garbage anyway.