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 Research and Extension Center, 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.
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