In part, Brantley’s research is a personal narrative, but his account is also a precise explanation of the intricacies of the stone-fruit market. Simple explanations, such as his definition for price look-up codes (PLUs), help us to measure the size of the market: PLUs are “based mostly on color and size. Four colors—red, black, green and purple—have two codes each, one for large plums and one for small plums.” Gauging the size of the industry as a whole by learning important logistical classifications, one conjectures about the individuality of a breeder or grower: how does he distinguish himself in the marketplace? In a California valley loaded with crop production, output numbers are daunting.

In the San Joaquin Valley, pistachio production is valued at $275 million, carrots at $315 million and citrus at $450 million. Grapes are worth $600 million in sales and almonds weigh in at $500 million. But the pressures of the commodity-driven market do not come entirely from organizational methodology of the CTFA (California Tree Fruit Agreement) and other government-regulated standards. There is the supermarket to consider—a driving force behind a breeder’s quest for new varieties—a grower’s obsession with consistency of the product, a seller’s price per box, a buyer’s acceptance rate and the consumer’s buying preferences. While the CTFA works to promote the nutritional benefits of stone-fruit, the supermarket itself—by nature of display and pricing—plays a huge part in the repeat sale of produce.

In the summer of Brantley’s explorations (part four of his story), we reconsider why breeders and growers continue to strive for sales within a tumultuous buyer’s market: it boils down to guts, glory and competition. The stone-fruit market, as grower Ron Milton explains, is a “moving target”—preferences change all the time. Organizational control and government policy may stay relatively firm, but consumers’ tastes and expectations are fickle.

The “simple truth” about plums in the US is stated as Brantley’s honest opinion: “they often suck. Not always. Maybe not even most of the time. But often enough so that it feels risky to buy them.” Still, in the San Joaquin Valley, new kinds of stone-fruit with unimaginable tastes, shapes and textures, are quietly germinating, growing, blossoming and hybridizing. Through Brantley’s pursuit, we meet the great fruit breeders of this generation, and learn the history of the plum and the science behind stone-fruit breeding. As breeders turn select seeds into novel produce, they require not only dogged faith in their toils but a tremendous amount of luck.