It is a true privilege to have such deep rooted, passional agriculturalists representing Arizona. Julie Murphree, the Director of Communication for the Arizona Farm Bureau, kindly shared with us her well-rounded upbringing in Arizona agriculture, and how the years she spent in FFA has played a part in shaping who she is and where she is at in life today.
Julie’s involvement in the agriculture industry began in her earliest days growing up on a cotton, wheat, and alfalfa farm in Pinal County that her parents ran. She remembers, “Our main farm was in Maricopa - one section - along with leasing lots of acreage too. Over the years we’ve grown just about everything you can imagine that grows in our Arizona climate. We even tried pistachios, specifically in Maricopa. Southeast Arizona has had the greatest success with pistachios and they’re still growing there today. In the 1970s, Mom and Dad had a Pistachio seedling nursery. We grew the Pistacia Atlantica rootstock at the time, getting our seeds from California. We sold quite a few trees throughout Arizona and some in New Mexico. We’ve calculated that a couple of hundred acres are probably in existence today from the rootstock we grew in our seedling nursery and sold to pistachio farmers in Arizona and New Mexico. Pistachio trees can live for 200+plus years.” Her family’s seedling nursery has the potential to impact Arizona pistachios for centuries!
