Bulldozers soon will level Sonoma County's largest surviving prune orchard, closing the chapter on a colorful era when fortunes, festivals and the county's culture centered on prunes. For more than a half-century, prunes were the premier fruit crop in Sonoma County, dominating the economy and defining the culture. But Sonoma County is inching closer to the day when every prune orchard is gone from the county's farmscape. The 100-acre Carraro prune orchard -- an agricultural landmark on the west side of Highway 101 just south of Healdsburg -- is slated for removal by the end of the year. The trees will be replaced by wine grapes, which have become the county's agricultural identity. When the Carraro Orchard is gone, the Spaich family's 40-acre ranch on Pleasant Avenue in Windsor will be the last commercial prune orchard, according to Agricultural Commissioner John Westoby. And that ranch is only minimally farmed and one day will be removed too. Prunes once covered more than 20,000 acres, planted in orchards from Santa Rosa to Cloverdale. The area was known as the Prune Belt, and helped shape the identity of the region. In the 1920s, Healdsburg's semi-professional baseball team was called the Prune Packers. Each spring there was a Prune Blossom Festival to celebrate the billowy clouds of white flowers in the orchards. Prunes were so important to the local economy that the opening day of school was often delayed so kids could help with the prune harvest. But prune acreage here is dwindling. Orchard owner Frank Carraro, 63, said prunes have been a money-losing proposition for years but that his elderly father wanted to keep the old trees, even if they lost money. When the senior Carraro died last September, his son decided it was time to yank out the trees and plant wine grapes, which are more profitable. "For years we kept the prune trees as a sentimental thing but now it's time to move on," Carraro, owner of a San Francisco-based construction company and a resident of San Mateo, said at the Healdsburg ranch. No one is predicting a comeback for prunes in Sonoma County. Prunes -- which the industry now prefers to call "dried plums" -- have long suffered an image problem. Besides having all those wrinkles, prunes are infamous for their laxative powers. They are associated with old people in a world that celebrates youth.Prunes have this stigma because of all the bathroom jokes. I think changing the name to dried plums has helped their image," said Greg Thompson, general manager of the Prune Bargaining Association in Yuba City.  Still, the industry is in a crisis situation because of a huge oversupply, flat sales and falling prices. There are more than 100,000 acres of prune trees in California contributing to the glut, most in the Sacramento Valley. Growers are being paid to pull out prune trees to reduce the supply. During this year's harvest season, farmers were encouraged to dump fruit to ease the surplus. Carraro said he will participate in a federal agricultural program that pays prune farmers $8.50 for every tree they pull out, part of an effort to reduce the surplus and prop up prices. To qualify for the federal farm program, Carraro was not allowed to harvest this year's prune crop, which rots on the ground. Some prunes still hang on the trees, shriveling and moldy from the recent rain. The Carraro family has owned the Healdsburg orchard for 60 years, hanging on to their prune trees even when most growers moved to wine grapes in the 1970s and '80s. "We've seen a tremendous transformation," said Carraro, who picked prunes as a kid. His grandfather, Giuseppe Carraro, bought the Healdsburg property in 1942 and planted the prunes. The family acquired additional parcels over the years. Some of their land, about 75 acres, is already in wine grapes. In September, longtime farmers Ruth and Ron Waltenspiel bulldozed their last 40 acres of prunes. The trees on the Waltenspiel's Geyserville ranch were harvested for the last time in August and then pulled out. "I have this allergy to losing money," Ruth Waltenspeil said. The land will be planted in grapes. "It's such a shame too, because prunes are such a delicious and nutritious fruit. People should be eating more of them," Waltenspiel said.