“That’s what I thought.”
Earl laughed.
Daniel picked up the crates.
“All right. Enough school. We picking beans or holding a conference?”
They started harvesting from the earliest production rows.
For nearly an hour, Dalton stayed.
That surprised Emma.
He had not planned to.
Neither had Earl.
At first, the two men only watched.
Then Earl grabbed a crate.
Dalton followed.
They moved down the rows.
The plants were fuller than they had looked from the edge.
Pods came fast.
One handful.
Then another.
The crates filled.
Daniel weighed the first two.
He wrote the numbers on a pad.
Dalton leaned over.
“How does that compare?”
Daniel shrugged.
“Too early.”
Emma smiled.
Dalton noticed.
“What?”
“You wanted me to admit one season isn't proof.”
“Yes.”
“Now you want proof from two crates.”
Earl laughed so hard he had to set his crate down.
Dalton pointed at Emma.
“You’re enjoying this too much.”
“A little.”
By noon, they had picked enough for Daniel to make a preliminary comparison with the control rows.
Not a final yield.
Not even close.
But enough to see a pattern.
The managed block was ahead.
Dalton studied the numbers.
Then looked toward the six ugly trap rows.
He shook his head.
“All morning, I thought those were your failure.”
Emma wiped sweat from her forehead with her sleeve.
“They look bad.”
“They look terrible.”
“I know.”
“And that's intentional.”
“Yes.”
Dalton turned toward the forty-eight greener rows behind them.
“So everything I was judging…”
“Was the part designed to take damage.”
He let out a slow breath.
Earl grinned.
“You got trapped by the trap crop.”
Dalton ignored him.
But Emma smiled.
Then she noticed something near the outer row.
She walked over.
One trap plant had more caterpillars than she liked.
Far more.
She counted quickly.
Her expression changed.
Daniel noticed.
“What?”
Emma checked the next two plants.
More.
Dalton came closer.
“Problem?”
Emma nodded.
“Maybe.”
That pleased nobody.
She looked at the sticky card.
Then at her notebook.
Pest pressure had risen since morning.
Fast.
Earl frowned.
“What do you do?”
Emma didn't answer immediately.
This was the part nobody romanticized.
A system working yesterday could fail tomorrow.
She examined five more plants.
Then ten.
Daniel waited.
He did not tell her what to do.
Finally Emma stood.
“I'm removing this section.”
Dalton looked surprised.
“The trap row?”
“Part of it.”
“Why?”
“Too concentrated.”
She pointed at the caterpillars.
“If I leave this many, they may spill into the production rows faster than the predators can catch up.”
Earl looked impressed.
“So the row did its job.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Now I don't get sentimental about it.”
Daniel smiled.
Emma pulled several heavily infested plants.
She placed them into a large bucket.
Dalton watched.
“What will you do with those?”
“Dispose of them away from the crop.”
“No spray?”
“Not yet.”
Again, that word.
Yet.
There was no ideology in Emma's system.
Only decisions.
That seemed to matter to Dalton.
By early afternoon, clouds had begun building beyond the western trees.
The men prepared to leave.
Earl climbed into Dalton's pickup first.
Dalton remained near Emma.