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Ortega Ridge Ranch

~ Foundational Site Assessment ~

~ Mainframe Design ~

~ Passive Water Harvesting & Access Retrofit Implementation Design~

Foundational Site Assessment

Location: Summerland, CA

Land & Climate Characteristics: Almost the entire property is a primary ridge, with natural drainages along each longitudinal side and its toe. Temperatures are typical of coastal CA with typical highs between 60-80℉ and lows that only very rarely drop below freezing, with an average of 300-500 chilling hours (<45℉) per year. Average rainfall of 17.7 inches per year, with approximately 40.44 million gallons of water landing on the property per average rain year. Clay and clay-loam soils with moderate to high fragility, low to moderate permeability, and high run off hazard due to the lack of perennial soil cover and organic matter in the soil profile.

Toe slope of the primary ridge at Ortega Ridge Ranch.

Several different basemap layers (zones of use, sector energies, land use and predominant plant communities) were developed to help the owners understand the various interactions between the current orchard systems, inherent landscape characteristics and current management practices.

  • Basemap of sector energies influencing site development.
  • Basemap of existing zones of use.
  • Basemap of different land use zones.
  • Basemap of different plant communities on property.
  • Existing erosion areas.
  • Existing overland water flows.

Foundational Site Assessment Key Takeaways

  • Water
    • Existing drainage patterns and resultant erosion problems from poor drainage of access routes and detrimental cropping practices has led to the loss of thousands of tons of topsoil from the property.
    • Recommendation: Design a site-wide passive water harvesting and drainage system to spread the estimated 11-20 million gallons of annual water runoff out ridge and retain it for as long as possible to allow it a chance to infiltrate to increase soil moisture levels, reduce the annual irrigation expense and increase the health of the orchards and surrounding wild lands.
Existing paths of surface water movement largely trapped by incised orchard roads that led to the creation of the largest erosion gullies on the property. Large catchment areas artificially funneled to small breakout zones one very fragile clay loam soils led to gullies well over 8′ deep in many places.
  • Access
    • Access road management and lack of properly spaced and maintained drainage structures was leading water to become trapped on orchard road surfaces where it would build up to high-concentrations and ultimately discharge from the road surface at high-energy low points, leading to severe erosion gullying, headcutting and rill erosion throughout the orchard areas.
    • Recommendation: Management changes to how the roads were being maintained to eliminate downhill edge berm formation. Additionally, a significant road drainage retrofit was recommended, and ultimately designed (see Passive Water Harvesting & Access Drainage Retrofit Implementation Design below).
  • Living Systems
    • Orchard systems were complete monocrops with no understory vegetation, no mulch or litter cover and completely bare soils.
      • Primary tree crops included lemons and avocados, with some blocks of passionfruit and dragonfruit and a small experimental area with other subtropical varietals.
    • Recommendation: Establishing cover over all bare soils by layering in the missing layers of a functional forest ecosystem within existing orchards to be kept in production in order to provide fertility where it is needed, protect soils from the sun and direct raindrop impact, increase habitat for beneficial insects and create a more diverse and resilient soil life community.

Existing Conditions

  • One of the many headcuts eating away an orchard road.
  • Large section of completely barren ground that was once a lemon block that died.
  • Central access road on the ranch and surrounding orchard blocks. Note the bare, exposed soil throughout.
  • Older avocado plantings that have lost a lot of trees due to drought and heat stress.
  • Another example of the erosion damage commonly seen throughout the orchards.
  • Large section of orchard area that was lost due to heat stress and drought. Zero top soil..JPG
  • Same section zoomed out.
  • The dragonfruit block.

Mainframe Design

Design Scope: Upon completion of the Foundational Site Assessment and now armed with a holistic understanding of the many challenges the property faced, the client requested a Mainframe Design. The Mainframe Design identified which key water, access, shelter, living system, energy, and economy elements would be required to realize the landowners’ vision to bring the ranch back to health and economic health, and mapped out their relative locations throughout the landscape. Reporting included an introduction to and description of each element and outlined reasons for inclusion and synergies with other proposed elements.

Mainframe Design Elements

  • Water
    • A site-wide passive water harvesting and drainage system that will intercept an average of 5.1 – 10.3 million gallons of water every year that is eroding the valleys and being lost from the property as runoff, spread it out to the drier ridges, and infiltrate it into the soil for the benefit of downslope plantings and groundwater levels. This system, which will significantly reduce the costly supplemental irrigation requirements on the property in the long term. See
  • Access
    • Removal of berms from road dragging to decrease entrapment of water on the road surfaces.
    • Additions of small grade reversals (like long, gentle speed bumps) throughout the orchard roads to eliminate the potential for water to build up to harmful levels on any given stretch of road surface.
  • Structures
    • Farm manager and worker residences, a ranch headquarters with an office, equipment barn, packing shed, greenhouse and shadehouse, and a horse barn, with proposed drainage elements from the roofs and hardscapes into the elements of the recommended passive water harvesting and drainage system.
  • Living Systems
    • Soil fertility-boosting recommendations that include cover-cropping in the understory of the orchards, livestock integration, and farm-scale nutrient cycling systems like flow-through vermicomposters. Proper installation and management of these elements will also contribute to greater water holding capacity in the soils.
    • Food production system recommendations that include the consolidation of avocado plantings and addition of understory support species, replacement of the lemon orchards with dryland silvopastures, a food forest around the Main Residence, wind breaks, and riparian buffers, all of which will further increase the water retention and holding capacity on the property and reduce the input and maintenance costs.
  • Energy
    • Battery banks for load-shifting and backup.
  • Economy
    • Additional crop species worthy of trialing were researched and assembled based on the site’s inherent climate and landform existing and potential market opportunities. Subtropical crops that could be interplanted amongst the mainframe avocado orchard and utilize existing irrigation overspray without increasing water demand were prioritized. For the highly eroded areas and certain lemon blocks, dryland agroforestry species guilds were recommended to completely shift away from irrigated crop species to those more appropriate for the Mediterranean / dryland climate of the area.
Mainframe Design map with proposed water, access and structural elements detailed.
Proposed re-organization of the various orchard crop footprints to dramatically reduce water expenditures, increase the intensity of management without increasing management hours, and enhance the wildlife corridors and buffers.

Mainframe Design Map Call Outs

  • Proposed layout for Ranch Headquaters, with packing shed, semi turnaround, equipmennt barn, ranch office, greenhosue and shadehouse all adjacent to the experimental crop trialing zone.
  • Recommended road decommissioning segments to eliminate severe erosion process.
  • Additional decommissioning recommendation due to erosion hazard.
  • Road repatterning and overlay of water harvesting infiltration elements.
  • Proposed location and orientation for horse barn and arena to accommodate truck and trailer access with easy hammerhead turn-around as well as thermally advantageous housing for the horses.

Passive Water Harvesting & Access Drainage Retrofit Implementation Design

Design Scope: Site-wide passive water harvesting and drainage retrofit system to address the critical nature of the soil dehydration, degradation, and erosion issues.

Design Elements

  • 36 passive water-harvesting swales with a combined length of 1.75 miles and a combined bank-full volume of 159,000 gallons.
  • 7 passive water-harvesting infiltration basins with a combined surface area of 3,174 square feet and a combined bank-full volume of 36,000 gallons.
  • 24 rolling dip cross drains, 29 geologically-armored spillways and drains, 17 biologically-armored spillways and drains, 13 geologically-armored energy-dissipation pools, and 8 geologically-armored flow-spreading structures for non-erosively draining overflow water into, between, and from water harvesting features.
  • The essential patterning of the access roads was retained as they were largely laid out on contour. New drainage and infiltration structures were layered amongst the existing access to maintain access functionality.

Existing vs. Proposed Water Patterning

Existing erosive water flows vs. proposed water flows following implementation of the passive water harvesting system and access road drainage improvements.
Water harvesting elements spreadsheet detailing essential specifications on each element along with its estimated water harvesting capacity.