The Central Valley Is in Experimental Bloom

Manuel Jimenez walks through the steamy greenhouse, pushing past leaves of papaya, guava and litchi.

“Do you smell that?” he asks, referring to the trees’ fragrant blossoms. “That’s a new smell to the Central Valley.”

Jimenez is nowhere near the tropics, yet the hot-weather plants he’s cultivating at the University of California’s Kearney Agricultural Center may soon mean that crops currently being imported can be bought fresh from California farmers.

Scientists -- whose work is often funded by the agriculture industry -- are looking for ways to grow new, profitable crops in California’s rich soil.

Fields of kiwi, almonds and olives are no longer a novelty, but they were introduced to California growers as specialty crops, Jimenez said. When demand for these crops grew, so did the acreage devoted to them.

More than 250 different crops are grown commercially in the San Joaquin Valley, and California leads the nation in more than 80 of them.

“The problem with California is that as soon as people find out you can grow something, everyone wants to grow it,” Jimenez says. “Everybody grows it and the niche is gone.”

Take blueberries, for example. When Jimenez began planting the shrubs at the agricultural center eight years ago, growers thought he was crazy. Blueberries traditionally grow in cold climates and acidic soils -- the exact opposite of the San Joaquin Valley’s conditions.

Farmers acidified the soil and grew berry varieties that did well in warmer weather. California farmers produced more than 9 million pounds of blueberries in 2005, 3 million pounds more than the year before, according to the North American Blueberry Council.

Jimenez is betting on the nonnative crops that are popular with Latinos and Asians.

He is particularly interested in the papaya. There is a variety from China that is growing well at the experimental plot.

The tree grows without the help of fertilizer or heating, under a makeshift greenhouse of clear plastic stretched over metal framework.

“We can force just about anything to grow,” Jimenez said. “What we want to do is grow them in the most rudimentary way possible. If we can grow papaya straight from the dirt, we can grow anything.”

Jimenez also works with the school’s Small Farm Center, which helps small-farm owners through educational workshops and introduces them to cost-saving techniques.

Large growers often are hesitant to give up acreage for fruits and vegetables that stray from the mainstream, Jimenez says.

But developing new crops is vital for farmers who have been edged out of the state’s more popular produce because they can’t compete on a large scale, says Joe Santellano, who has a 10-acre farm near Fresno where he grows cherry tomatoes, chili peppers and eggplants -- popular sellers that aren’t usually grown on huge farms.

Most small-farm owners sell what they grow through direct marketing, taking their wares to farmers’ markets, restaurants and independent grocery stores.

“We’re always looking for the next crop to grow,” Santellano said. “If there’s something better, we jump on that.”