Agriculture Experiment Station
Agricultural Experiments Stations: Where Research Takes Root
Heat is rising in undulating waves on this summer afternoon at the ANR West Side Research and Extension Center. Director Bob Hutmacher looks out over a freshly harvested field, his hand a visor against the sun.
“This is canola,” Hutmacher says. “It was a new crop for us and when we planted it, and we really didn’t have the right equipment. I ended up planting it with a fertilizer spreader. It worked out pretty well, actually.”
Work is always an adventure at this ANR Research and Extension Center outside Coalinga and at the handful of other centers strategically located throughout the state. The staffing is lean, the experiments are diverse and the environment is challenging. But for the scores of University of California researchers stationed at these off-campus centers, they are right where they want to be.
“This is my lab,” says Cooperative Extension Pomologist Kirk Larson, who has bred strawberries for 16 years at the ANR South Coast Research and Extension Center near Irvine. “My lab is a seven-acre plot in an environment that’s dusty, hot, cold and hard to control. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
Research and Extension Centers, also knows as Agriculture Experiment Stations, are an offshoot of the University of California’s Cooperative Extension program which began in 1913 as a way to connect university research to the public. The concept was this: What good is groundbreaking agricultural science if you can’t communicate it to the farmers and consumers and taxpayers who utilize and help fund the research?
Over the years, the university stationed scientists at several centers throughout the state - in rich valleys, on dry desserts, on foggy coasts. The various ecosystems are excellent for field testing a wide range of projects and the far-flung locations help scientists stay in touch with the needs and people the university serves.
Throughout their history, Cooperative Extension and Agriculture Experiment Stations have produced amazing advances. For example, California’s strawberry industry was saved in the 1940s when UC scientists developed a virus-resistant plant. Nearly 80 percent of the strawberries planted in California are varieties that UC scientists developed. And, some half-dozen tomato varieties developed at Agricultural Experiment Stations from 1956 to 1982 now account for about 75 percent of the nation’s production.
Staffing and research at the stations blossomed in the 1960s, but staffing at most of the centers has been pruned over the last several years after grueling rounds of state budget cuts. So what’s going on at ag experiment stations these days? Grab your boots and sunscreen and let’s go take a look.
Strawberries are king at the ANR South Coast station - 200 acres of deep, moderately sloped alluvial fan soil. The winters are mild, the summers are warm and the coastal breezes are lovely. “Isn’t that nice?” asks Larson, smiling as a salty wind nudges the warm Irvine air. “I love that afternoon breeze. So do the strawberries, which is why they do so well in this climate.”
Larson leads the breeding program at South Coast, working closely with Doug Shaw, a UC Davis strawberry geneticist who also conducts experiments at the ANR Research and Extension Center in Watsonville. “Doug uses genetics to help determine which strawberries might make good parents,” Larson says. “I’m more interested in the horticulture side of things - spacing, disease-control strategies, fertilizers, things like that. I help plants grow to their full genetic potential.” Larson and Shaw breed berries that improve life for strawberry growers and consumers. They strive for varieties that are sweet, juicy, conical, colorful and sturdy.
“And we look at yield, and timing of that yield,” Larson says. “If you’re a grower, you don’t want all your berries to come ripe when the market is glutted.”
Thanks to years of Cooperative Extension science (with an assist from California’s climate), strawberry farmers in this state have a 12-month growing season - compared to a few months or weeks in other regions. Researchers help California strawberry growers produce six tons to the acre in one week, compared, for example, to two tons per year in New York. The University of California holds 33 patents on strawberry cultivars which generated almost $5 million in royalties last year.
So how do breeders develop a winning variety? They cross plants with desired traits and select the best offspring over multiple generations. It’s like time-lapse evolution, although it really doesn’t happen very quickly. It takes about seven years of plot testing to give birth to a variety good enough to name. “Here’s a plot of berries we’re evaluating,” Larson says, standing amidst a sea of green and red. “I walk down each aisle with a clipboard and rank each berry on a scale of 1 to 5 for taste, color, shape, firmness. I do it once a week for 26 weeks, and I do it blindly. I don’t want to be influenced by who its parents are, or how I ranked it the week before.” He moves down the row, picking and tasting as he goes. Some berries are too watery. Some are too bland. “Here’s a beauty,” he says. “Nice shine. Nice shape.” He bites into it. “Holy cow! What an interesting flavor! It tastes sort of like a mango.” After weeks of testing, Larson will put flags besides the plants with consistently high marks. They will become his future. He will propagate them and begin testing all over again. "We just keep narrowing it down, until we find a variety that has it all.” Larson adjusts his straw hat, picks up his clipboard and tastes his way down another row.
Strawberries are an important crop, too, at our next stop - the United States Department of Agriculture Research Center in Salinas, where several University of California scientists field test their research. Strawberries are grown here (along with many other crops) to test alternatives to methyl bromide - a soil fumigant critical to crop production for the past 40 years. Methyl bromide works systematically in the soil to control a wide range of plant pathogens and pests, like nematodes, rodents and weeds. The trouble is, it destroys the ozone layer, as well. “The government is phasing out the use of methyl bromide because it’s an ozone-depleting chemical,” says Husein Ajwa, a UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences soil specialist. Ajwa recently won the 2009 Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for his work in developing Methyl bromide alternatives. Ajwa and his team have conducted more than 100 trials over 12 years just to get down to four promising alternative fumigants. “Here we have a few tests underway,” Ajwa says, walking into a plot of ripe berries. “We’re testing not just alternative fumigants, but also alternative application methods, like shank applications and drip fumigation.” And impermeable plastic tarps. “Regulations are based on emission plus toxicity,” Ajwa explains. “We’re testing plastic tarps imported from Italy that have been known to reduce emissions three to four times. It’s very promising. Growers could use less fumigant, and less would escape into the environment.”
Like other Cooperative Extension specialists, Ajwa spends a lot of time sharing research results with growers. “I love that part of the job,” Ajwa says. “Growers appreciate whatever we can share. Farming is a struggle on a good day.” The afternoon sun is kind at this center, where lush, green farmland stretches out like a carpet to the Gabilan mountains. In Irvine, housing has gobbled up land right to the borders of the South Coast station. Not here; not now. “Monterey County has the toughest land use policies in the county,” Fennimore says. “That’s why you still see so much farming.”
Farming flourishes, too, at ANR’s Kearney Research and Extension Center - 330 acres of rich, fertile Central Valley soil. This is the most staffed and utilized agriculture experiment station, with more than 100 scientists and staff conducting experiments on some 45 different crops—peaches, plums, cherries, olives, walnuts and more. If you know someone who 
thinks produce grows on grocery store shelves, bring them here to this center just east of Fresno. To them, this could be a zoo. There’s a kiwi plant, its vine arcing like an elephant’s trunk. There’s a grove of pistachio trees, their nuts hanging in clusters, like grapes. “There’s the mother pistachio,” says Carlos Crisosto, the Cooperative Extension specialist at the wheel of this tour. He points to a venerable old tree, the matriarch of the pistachio breeding program. Crisosto is a noted expert in the whole gambit of postharvest research - how orchard conditions, storage, transportation, delivery and DNA affect fruit quality. “We’re also looking at flavor,” Crisosto says. “My main goal is to increase fruit consumption. It’s not enough to deliver fruit that looks good and holds up well. If it doesn’t taste good, people aren’t going to eat it.”
We drive past a collection of fig trees and their fragrance fills the air. Cooperative Extension Pomologist Scott Johnson joins us on the tour. His specialty is helping growers improve efficiency by reducing labor, fertilizer and water without hurting quality or yield.
“So here we have a series of tests going on,” Johnson says, leading the way through a grove of nectarines, blood-red fruit hanging heavy on the limbs. “We’re looking at a variety of factors, like what happens when you withhold water during certain periods of the season? Can you do that without affecting fruit size and yield? And if so, when?” “And, how much nitrogen is too much nitrogen?” he asks. “How much can growers cut back on their nitrogen use, which will reduce ground-water contamination, without hurting size and yield?”
Johnson and his team are also looking at how pruning practices and reducing tree size can improve efficiency. “And look at this.” Crisosto appears in the grove, a nectarine in his hand. He slices into it with a pocket knife. “See how it’s starting to look pithy? That’s not good. That’s one thing we look at in our lab - how can you control fruit disorders like this on a cellular level? You have environmental conditions during storage and transportation you can control, but there are the genetic disorders to consider, as well.”
We climb back in the truck and continue the tour through fields of fertile land. “Welcome to Jurassic Park,” Crisosto jokes. “We’re the dinosaurs.” And they’re trying to keep farmland off the endangered list.
Next stop: The ANR West Side Research Center – 320 hot, flat acres in western San Joaquin Valley. Farmers here grow row, nursery, field and orchard crops, including almonds trees, which is pretty amazing given the 5.5-inch annual rainfall in this valley outside Coalinga. “This is one of those just-add-water areas,” says center Director Hutmacher. “Water availability is a constant issue, so there is a tradition of water-related work, like irrigation issues and crop adaptability to saline soils and water.”
Hutmacher is a leading expert in cotton, a crop once ubiquitous in this region. “But farmers are diversifying, adding more high-value and vegetable crops,” Hutmacher says. “It can be risky, given the water issue, but they have to widen their portfolio in order to make it in this business.” As a result, the crops and experiments at West Side are more diverse. You see fields of pima cotton, with their lovely, cream-colored flowers, surrounded by acres of row and orchard crops and a growing number of potential biofuel feed crops, like canola and switch grass.
You see long, tall conservation equipment, the work of Cooperative Extension Specialist Jeff Mitchell. Mitchell is a tireless pioneer of conservation tillage in California, an approach to tilling that leaves more crop residue on the soil and emits less dust and greenhouse gases into the environment. Conservation tillage research investigates impacts on crop responses, soil and water quality to determine which practices can leave fields healthier, streams and skies clearer and reduces fuel use and wear and tear on tractors. “Growers are interested in conservation tillage, as long as it doesn’t hurt plant establishment and yield,” says Hutmacher, standing in the shadow of one of Mitchell’s contraptions. “They can’t afford for too many seedling transplants not to take.” Mitchell was here a minute ago, dragging some pipes and tubes from his office to his truck, off to make improvements to yet another system he’s testing in a nearby grower’s field. Mitchell blows through the Kearney and West Side stations like a dust devil, his mind and body moving a mile a minute. “I tell Jeff, ‘When I need to talk to you, I’m going to bring a lasso, so I can keep you in one place for more than a second,’” Hutmacher says with a smile. “But that’s Jeff. He gives it his all.”
They all do. With their sun-burned faces and dirt under their fingernails, these agriculture experiment station scientists have a can-do attitude, mandatory when staffing is lean, projects are diverse and the very nature of agriculture is in flux.
Agriculture isn’t just about food anymore. It’s about promoting health and saving the environment. It’s about securing a safe food supply, finding alternatives to ozone-depleting fumigants and growing crops that can be converted to alternative sources of energy. It’s about life.
