This Las Vegas orchard defies desert climate, serves area through fruit

A local horticulture expert told Ahern Family of Companies Vice President Lloyd Benson in 2016 that cherry trees would never do well in Las Vegas.

“Nobody can tell me I can’t do something,” Benson said.

Benson quickly planted dozens of cherry trees. For eight years, nothing. Suddenly, last year, Benson’s cherry trees blossomed, becoming ripe with fresh, crimson cherries.

The cherry trees are a fraction of his grand total of 2,130 fruit trees at Ahern Orchard — 750 peach trees, 344 plum trees, 320 apple trees, 200 apricot trees, 150 pear trees, 125 pomegranate trees, 81 date trees, 80 nectarine trees, 28 jujube trees, 25 cherry trees, 12 almond trees, 10 quince trees and five pistachio trees.

Donating the orchard’s fruit is one of the Ahern Family of Companies’ efforts to give back to the Las Vegas community, Benson said.

Occasion for agriculture

In 2016, Ahern had recently acquired property on the corner of Bonanza Road and Clarkway Drive in the Historic Westside for a manufacturing facility, intending to build forklifts and scissor lifts. Shortly after purchasing that land, the company found a perfect location for a manufacturing plant in Henderson — so perfect that they decided to abandon any plans for a facility on Clarkway.

That left Ahern to decide what to do with the land. They didn’t want to sell it — inspired by Don Ahern’s father, who was involved with an early Vegas-area dairy, Benson and Don Ahern wanted to explore the property’s agricultural potential. To maintain water rights over the property, Ahern had to use some water from five large wells.

“We thought, well, let’s do something for the community,” Benson said. “Let’s do something that’s sustainable.”

Benson, who worked on a Utah dairy farm as a child, was the man for the job.

He initially considered planting vegetables, but soon rejected that idea — “vegetables are a lot of work in this town.” He eventually settled on fruit trees.

The orchard now produces about 24,000 pounds of fruit annually. About 15 percent goes to the orchard’s neighbors, 20 percent goes to Ahern employees, 30 percent goes to local churches and the remaining 35 percent goes to local charities — including the City Impact Center, the Just One Project, Three Square, the Rescue Mission and the Blind Center of Nevada, Benson said.

Benson inspects the orchard for about three hours every evening, but he isn’t alone. Five Ahern employees maintain the orchard full-time, doing landscaping work and maintaining the irrigation system.

Elpidio Perez is one of them. In 2017, he started pulling weeds, and has since worked his way up at the orchard. Today, he oversees operations, harvesting and irrigation.

“Growing up, I was in one of those families that needed a little bit of help,” Perez said. “So for me, it feels good to be in the position where I could help. It might only be fruit, but for some families, fruit is very expensive, and it’s expensive to buy groceries during hard times. It feels good to know that all the fruit that we give out goes out to people who need it.”

Beating the heat

Since day one, Benson’s biggest challenge has been figuring out how to consistently grow ripe fruit in the desert climate of Las Vegas.

“I didn’t know if it was possible for me to do a fruit orchard in this type of environment because you don’t see any fruit orchards around here,” Benson said. “There’s a reason for that.”

Most fruits, Benson said, require cool nights, more humidity, higher elevation and consistent rainfall. The only fruits native to arid environments, he added, are apricots, pomegranates, jujubes and dates — all of which he grows at the orchard.

The orchard runs on an emitter irrigation system, where each “block” of trees receives about three gallons of water each hour. Between each block, the packed mulch never sees any of that water, in order to prevent weeds from growing. Powered by two of the property’s five wells, the system delivers water to the trees every other day, Benson said.

As Benson learned more about the unique challenges of maintaining an orchard in the desert, he began to develop strategies to mitigate the climate’s impact on his yields.

For example, Benson’s peaches are uniquely small. If he doesn’t take them off the trees early, he said, they quickly spoil in the heat. Despite their size and shape, Benson’s desert peaches taste just like peaches anywhere else — and they’re just as juicy.

“As soon as they get a certain size I take them off,” Benson said. “Once they’re off the tree, I have to get them out of the heat within 30 minutes.”

In a building in the center of the orchard lies a capacious walk-in cooler filled with days’ worth of freshly picked fruit, waiting to be distributed.

A cycle of service

The orchard’s mission — to give back to the Las Vegas community with fresh fruit — attracts local churches to volunteer to thin the fruit trees, pull weeds and spread mulch. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and First United Methodist Church have both volunteered at the orchard, Benson said. Volunteering at the orchard also comes with a perk: free fruit.

“They come down and harvest, and then they take some home,” Benson said. “I tell them, ‘You can take as much as you want, but under one condition: You don’t waste.’”

Churches are among the recipients of the orchard’s fresh fruit, though local food pantries receive the most.

The City Impact Center, which hosts a full-service food pantry, receives about 1,000 pounds of food from Ahern Orchard each year, Executive Director Vic Caruso said. Recently the center received a fresh donation of peaches.

The fresh fruit the orchard provides allows the City Impact Center to add a few extra items to the baskets of the food-insecure people who rely on its services, Caruso added.

The Blind Center of Nevada receives approximately 2,500 pounds of fruit from Ahern Orchard annually, said Gerald Ward, the Blind Center’s executive chef and culinary director.

“A lot of our members are low-income,” Ward said. “Therefore, it helps them be able to have healthier options to eat.”

Once a month, the orchard delivers food to the Blind Center, which uses the fruit to prepare meals for its members and ensure they have fresh food for the weekend, when the center is closed. In turn, Blind Center members occasionally travel to the orchard to learn about gardening and plant their own seeds.

Different owners, same orchard

In late 2022, United Rentals acquired Ahern Rentals for $2 billion in cash. The deal was an asset acquisition: United purchased just the rental company’s equipment, not the land.

While several nearby former Ahern Rentals locations now bear a different name, the orchard never changed. Benson and each of the five full-time employees still manage the orchard almost every day.

Over the years, Benson said, the company has allowed weddings at the orchard and hosted events celebrating its employees. While some of those events have slowed since the acquisition, the mission, to help feed the community, remains the same.

“The stuff that they give us is very beneficial to our members, because it helps them to not have to spend money that they don’t have on food,” Ward said.

Contact Isaiah Steinberg at isteinberg@reviewjournal.com. Follow @IsaiahStei27 on X.