THE GROWERS
Ron and Gail Trace, the founders of Traceland Organics, previously lived in the Chicago area for many years where they raised their four sons and owned a landscape design/build company. They migrated to the Central California Coast in 1998 and purchased an 80 acre ranch in a quiet canyon 2.5 miles inland from the beach. In 2005, they began to plant their existing 10 acre fruit tree orchard, which is now home to their Traceland Certified Organic Hass Avocados, and many other types of fruit. In 2019, Jesse Trace and his wife Amélie Trace joined the family business. As the family grows, so does the selection of fruits, flowers and vegetables! Interested in visiting us?
WHERE ART MEETS AGRICULTURE
At our beautiful ranch we are dedicated to the union of art and agriculture. Our design of the avocado orchard encourages the already plentiful sun to further warm the trees by locating them on a southwest facing slope while protecting them from the offshore, northeast winds. “The compound on the knoll”, the several buildings designed for communal living and working, has been designed to face the sun and put its collective back to the wind as well. Additionally, the orchard and knoll is surrounded by plantings of native trees and shrubs, as we believe that our precious irrigation water should be predominantly used to irrigate only those plants that will feed us. Our organic avocados are grown with only composted manures, organic minerals and wood chip mulches, and we employ the use of honey bees for tree pollination and predator insects for biological pest control.
WHY CAYUCOS?In order to successfully grow subtropicals in California there must be a favorable confluence of climatic and geographic conditions. Cayucos sits in a small area of coastal land defined by the Santa Lucia Mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west, one of the most northern points in California where subtropicals can be commercially grown. This south to north narrowing triangle of land is bisected at various places along its length by wild creeks that flow unimpeded from the nearest coast range to the ocean. Traceland avocados are grown in this special place, with mountains to the east bringing plentiful water to the ranch, and ocean to the west cooling the hot summers and warming the cold winters. 25 miles to the north, where the mountains intersect the coast, the majestic and rugged Big Sur coast begins, and there it is too cold, steep and inaccessible for commercial subtropical farming. In the canyons around Cayucos this unique confluence expresses itself in orchards of late harvest, deliciously creamy avocados in sight of both the mountains and the ocean.
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