California State University is helping create the ‘farm of the future’
Growing food has never been easy, despite the fact California farmers and the state’s massive agricultural infrastructure make it seem that way.
California, which is home to over 70,000 working farms, is the highest producing farm state in the U.S. by value, generating $50.2 billion (over 12% of the U.S. total) in cash receipts in 2017, according to the USDA Economic Research Service. (The 2017 data is the most recent available from USDA.) By way of comparison, the Golden State’s closest competitor, Iowa, had annual cash receipts of $26.6 in 2017.
When it comes to feeding the nation, the importance of California agriculture and its farmers can’t be overstated. For example, in addition to the impressive statistics above, the state produces more than one-third of the vegetables and a whopping two-thirds of all the fresh fruit and nuts in the U.S.
The phenomenal success that is California agriculture is a team effort though. A key member of that team is the state’s system of higher education, which includes community colleges, the California State University system and the University of California.
The value of the practical farm training offered students by community colleges that have ag education programs and the education and research conducted by the California State University and UC campuses, is as significant and important to the state’s farmers as California agriculture itself is to the nation. In fact, It’s not an overstatement either to say that without California’s three-tier system of higher education and its historic and present day focus on agriculture, the powerhouse that is California agriculture probably wouldn’t exist.
Faculty and students affiliated with The California State University Ag Research Institute, which is comprised of programs at six campuses – Fresno State University, CSU Chico, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CSU Monterey and Humboldt State University – have taken on a new mission to help farmers and the ag industry as a whole tackle a number of current challenges in California including, limited water resources, the impact of climate change, and crop loss do to disease and pests.
Faculty and student researchers not only are conducting scientific research in these areas, they’re also working on practical applications such as commercialization in the form of creating and working with startups. These efforts are designed to help create the “farm of the future” in the Golden State — to help ensure California’s place as the nation’s leading farm state for decades to come.
Below are four innovative programs already having an impact and making a difference to the present and future of farming in California.
CSU Monterey and San Jose State University: ‘Cleaner’ dirt
When pesticides are used on crops, trace amounts of the chemicals often get left behind in the soil and may even leach into groundwater. But farms of the future could harness the natural cleaning power of microbes to “eat” the pesticide residue and purify the soil, thanks to research taking place at CSU Monterey Bay and San José State.
In 2018, CSUMB scientists began a multi-year study on microorganisms that have the natural ability to break down and metabolize environmental pollutants such as pesticides and nitrates used in agriculture. By sequencing the genome of different strains of microbes, researchers hope to develop natural ways to mitigate pollutants in soil and groundwater.
Building off previous work on nitrates (with matching funds from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation), this collaborative project brings together faculty experts from two CSU campuses: assistant professor Nathaniel Jue, Ph.D., associate professor Arlene Haffa, Ph.D., and lecturer John Silveus at CSUMB’s School of Natural Sciences; and professor Jonathan Geller, Ph.D., of San José State and Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.
“Pesticides have an important role in the agriculture industry. We’re trying to find the right balance, but still protect public resources. Our hope is that this project will lead us to a low-cost, low-maintenance solution to accomplish that task,” explains Dr. Jue.
Students are also in on the action. Jue says that at least three graduate students and up to eight undergraduates contribute to the microorganism research at any given time. And in the spring of 2019, six students presented project findings at a California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) meeting.
“Farmers have a lot of things to worry about,” he notes. “They’re interested in trying to find solutions that are going to be good for them and the state. We’re hoping we can continue to work with them to support that effort.”
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo: Stronger strawberries
It probably comes as little surprise that Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Strawberry Center sits in the heart of the region in which this $3 billion berry industry thrives. (Nearly 90 percent of fresh strawberries in the U.S. come from California.) Partnering with the California Strawberry Commission, the center is dedicated solely to strawberry research and education on plant pathology, automation of growing and harvesting, and controlling insects. Gerald Holmes, Ph.D., the center’s director, puts it plainly: “Anything we can do to reduce labor or make growing and harvesting easier for workers is an area that we focus on.”
These days, fungal diseases that kill strawberries are much on his mind, especially “now that the industry can no longer use the fumigant methyl bromide to prevent them,” he says. Breeding plants with greater resistance to these pathogens (creating what’s called “host plant resistance”) is crucial. While Cal Poly’s Strawberry Center doesn’t breed the plants, it does provide vital information to the industry about which plant varieties are more resistant to disease.
Every major strawberry breeding program in the state participates in the center’s robust plant-disease screening project, which has collected data on more than 800 varieties, explains Dr. Holmes. The center also hosts an annual Field Day—the state’s largest event for strawberry growers—where it brings together industry players and researchers to showcase Cal Poly’s results.
“The industry is using this information,” says Holmes. “It helps strawberry breeding programs know where to go next in developing improved disease-resistant varieties.”
In addition to the key plant screening data, the center also provides essential hands-on research and learning experiences for undergraduate and graduate students. Jack Wells (shown below), a Cal Poly senior in the BioResource and Agricultural Engineering Department, recently received the Strawberry Automation Research Award for his improvements to a “bug vacuum” that has been used by the industry for decades to control the lygus bug, a common strawberry pest. Wells’s redesigned device has the potential to improve the efficiency of the vacuum by two- to three-fold and the California Strawberry Commission is now in the process of rolling it out to the industry, Holmes says.
CSU Monterey Bay: Zero-waste watering
Growing food is a delicate balancing act. Water, soil moisture, fertilizer, and, of course, weather, all play their role. Thankfully, the introduction of precision agriculture—including GPS, GIS and remote-sensing technologies to aid in farm management—has made this balancing act a little easier, and researchers continue to develop new solutions.
Forrest Melton, executive director of the Agricultural Center for Education and Research at CSU Monterey Bay’s School of Natural Sciences, has partnered with the UC Cooperative Extension to develop precision ag software called CropManage that uses information about soils, crop type, weather and satellite imagery to allow farmers to use water and fertilizer more efficiently while still increasing their crop yield. Growers in California’s Salinas Valley are using the software already on more than a dozen different crops, including lettuce, broccoli, strawberries and spinach.
“Using a more dynamic data-driven approach to irrigation management can reduce the use of applied water [irrigation] by as much as 20 to 40 percent,” says Melton, who is also a researcher with the NASA Ames Cooperative for Research in Earth Science and Technology (ARC-CREST) and a leading expert in the field of satellite data for precision agriculture.
“Use of these crop-management software tools in production trials of lettuce and broccoli has also shown that we can sustain crop yield and quality, while reducing loss of nitrates below the root zone by up to 75 percent,” he explains. When nitrates (which come from fertilizers) are kept
in the root zone where plants can use them, the amount that leaches into the soil and groundwater is reduced.
Another cutting-edge area of research—and one with the biggest potential impact for sustainable water management—is measuring the amount of water lost through evapotranspiration (the process by which water is transferred into the atmosphere from the ground and plants). Melton, along with colleagues from CSUMB and other organizations, is leading OpenET, a western-states effort that should make it easier and less costly to track water lost to evapotranspiration. Farmers and water managers across the west will be able to access the free data, he says, which will provide a shared basis for decision making about groundwater management, support the development of incentive-driven conservation programs and help California manage its most limited and valuable resource.
Fresno State University: High-tech farm tools
What’s the next big ag tech innovation for the farm of the future? At Fresno State’s Water, Energy and Technology (WET) Center, staff, faculty and students are helping California entrepreneurs bring new technologies to market for more sustainable farming.
Mitch Partovi graduated from Fresno State with a bachelor’s in psychology in 2014 (followed by a master’s in public administration from Sonoma State) and now serves as director of water markets for start-up company Waterfind. Based at the WET office space on the Fresno State campus, Waterfind assists farmers with acquiring water.
“Fresno State is doing incredible work to support ag technology in the Central Valley. We’re doing more than stimulating the Central Valley economy—we’re preserving a way of life,” says Partovi.
The center acts as an incubator to get new start-ups off the ground, offers product testing services, and includes a business accelerator to help companies scale and grow. The accelerator—called Valley Ventures—is a component of the statewide BlueTechValley Initiative, funded by the California Energy Initiative.
“When our team evaluates innovative technologies aimed at the ag industry, we focus on identifying solutions that will actually solve a real problem. In our efforts, we are attempting to act as a ‘filter’ for the industry and put forward some of the topline innovative and promising start-ups,” says Helle Petersen, WET Center program manager and an alumna of Fresno State’s MBA program.
Here are just a few of the kinds of high-tech, precision ag tools that the WET Center has helped get off the ground:
- Automated irrigation systems
- Software platforms
- Biofuel for energy and soil conditioning
- Wastewater filtration (using microbes and earthworms)
The future is bright
We quite naturally often focus on the negatives and challenges of farming in California, such as the ongoing water and farm labor shortage issues, but the positives far outweigh those negatives.
The Golden State is on the cutting-edge of technological innovation in agriculture, and its farmers are still the most creative and adaptable and growers in the nation. These realities, combined with the research being done at the state’s land-grant university ag departments, are cause for optimism rather than pessimism. What we all do need to do starting today though is to work harder to cultivate a new crop of young farmers who will continue the marvel that is California agriculture. That’s the future.
