Booth Ranches
Booth Ranches was founded in 1957 when Otis Booth Jr. inherited his first 40 acres of navel oranges. Today, his legacy is carried forward by his daughter and company president, Loren Booth. Under her leadership, Booth Ranches has now grown into a fully integrated citrus company that farms 7,000 acres of citrus throughout California’s Central Valley.
What sets Booth Ranches apart is its commitment to excellence and tradition. Jason Reynolds, Vice President of Farming, emphasized, “We’re fully family-owned, with one grower, one family. This independence allows us to operate the way we want, without being beholden to anyone.” The company’s operations include a diverse citrus portfolio of navel oranges, lemons, mandarins, and Cara Cara oranges. Every orange is grown, packed, shipped, and sold directly by Booth Ranches.
Adding to their uniqueness, Booth Ranches is also a woman-driven company. Loren Booth’s leadership is complemented by women in key roles, including the CFO, CEO, and PCAs on staff. Stephanie Herring, a PCA at Booth Ranches noted, “Having a woman-driven team in agriculture is something completely unheard of, and it’s amazing to see it here at Booth Ranches.”
Before adopting Agworld, Booth Ranches faced significant workflow limitations that slowed efficiency. Stephanie said that writing recommendations for just half of their acreage took four to five hours with their legacy system, limiting their ability to stay productive. Additionally, agronomists and PCAs spent too much time on administrative tasks instead of working in the field.
“We saw a real need for a more holistic approach to how we managed our programs,” explained Jason Reynolds. “The main reason we switched to Agworld was its ability to keep us in the field while ensuring uniform operations across the entire company.” Evolving regulations added complexity, requiring extensive manual reporting and underscoring the need for a streamlined farm management system.
Booth Ranches turned to Agworld to streamline operations, improve compliance, and save time and the impact was transformative. “Agworld’s flexibility and user-friendly interface stood out. It’s built for growers, allowing us to operate off iPads and smartphones, which is crucial for keeping our boots on the ground and our eyes on the trees,” said Jason.
Switching to Agworld brought immediate improvements to Booth Ranches’ workflow, particularly in rec writing. The process, which once consumed hours, is now twice as fast. “I think now it would take me maybe 2 hours, and that is insane compared to what originally it was.” said Stephanie. One of the biggest game-changers has been the ability to edit recommendations in real-time. “Writing recs has always been somewhat cumbersome. There are legal issues, there are environmental issues, there are a lot of different stuff going on, and any time you have to go back and make a change, it can take up quite a bit of time. Agworld enables us to make that change in the field on the spot. You can edit very rapidly. It takes, I think literally minutes instead of hours to go through and make a change,” said Jason.
Stephanie pointed out that the system offers built-in safeguards to enhance compliance, making it easy to set custom limits for active ingredients or application frequency. “What’s really great is that Agworld offers a way to add safeguards on top of what's already there for compliance. So I can go in and add, I don't want to put more than this amount for an active ingredient. I don't want to apply this more than once. It's completely customizable to me. So I really enjoy that side of it,” added Stephanie.
The ability to quickly swap out products has been another breakthrough. “Changing out a product used to take just as long as rewriting the entire rec again, so 4 or 5 hours for hundreds of acres,” Stephanie recalled. “But with Agworld, we changed out 4000 acres of a product one time and it took us 20 minutes.”
Over the past year, evolving state regulations have kept growers on their toes, but Agworld has been instrumental in helping Booth Ranches stay ahead of compliance changes.
Jason Reynolds cited a recent example of Agworld’s rapid response when the county tightened its compliance reporting window from 10 days to just 24 hours. With little time to adjust, Booth Ranches needed a solution fast. Agworld was able to respond quickly to the increased compliance regulations. Agworld enhanced standard reports within the platform to take into account these changing regulations and ensure that Booth Ranches and other clients in California have the tools they need to continue to comply with California's ever-increasing requirements.
Jason Reynolds emphasized that their previous provider wouldn’t have been able to adapt as quickly, leaving them to figure it out on their own. The Agworld team built the reporting system with audits in mind, and Jason believes he was the first to be audited under the new rule. “The new report breaks down everything I need so I can run it in five minutes and finalize it in 20,” said Stephanie. “Without it, I would have had to create a custom report for every single block, which would have taken a week and I would have had to repeat that every 24 hours. This report has been a game-changer for us.”
Agworld’s mobile-first approach has transformed how Booth Ranches operates, allowing team members to work efficiently from anywhere and reducing unnecessary trips back to the office. “If you're sitting in Bakersfield and your office is in Orange Cove, it's going to take you. 2.5 hours to come back and write something on a computer, whereas Agworld, as soon as you have signal, even if you don't have signal, you can write the rec,” said Stephanie.
Not being tied to a desk has allowed the team to stay agile and responsive. “Agworld saves time. It saves energy. There's way less truck time driving back and forth to the office. Now we're out in the field. We could stay on target working with our scouts,” added Jason. Better communication has also been a key benefit, keeping the entire team aligned no matter where they are. “It enables me personally to communicate with a large team with different needs, different requirements, different reporting needs all in one space,” said Jason.
The success of Agworld at Booth Ranches has influenced their entire operational ecosystem. In Jason Reynold’s view, it would be simpler if everyone switched to Agworld. “We have to communicate with our outside operators, spray rig operators, FLCs, etc. They all use different programs,” he explained.
“But as we integrate more with Agworld, the process is becoming much simpler for everyone to work on the same platform, and we're getting more and more feedback that it is much easier for them to operate off that platform. So ultimately, it would be a lot easier if just everyone switched to Agworld.”
"The less time they spend in the office dealing with paperwork, the better everyone's job is going to be, but especially the more productive they will be as a whole. This program helps us do that immensely. It saves time. It saves energy. There's way less truck time driving back and forth to the office. Now we're out in the field. We could stay on target working with our scouts."Agronomy team Booth Ranches
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