- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Stories about blueberries are still trickling in. Today, the Visalia Time-Delta reported on the fact that 35 percent of California blueberries are produced in the newspaper's Tulare County circulation area.
For the story, reporter Hillary Meeks spoke to Steve "Doc" Blizzard, a local blueberry farm manager. He said the company started growing blueberries with encouragement from Manuel Jimenez, the UC Small Farm Program farm advisor for UC Cooperative Extension in Tulare County.
Jimenez recently arranged for several Central Valley growers interested in the crop to take a tour of the Lagomarsino blueberry farm,...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Los Angeles Times freelance writer David Karp sent a response today to last week's ANR News Blog post about his May 27 blueberry production story. The nicely written article covered the introduction of a crop usually associated with the Northwest, Michigan and Maine into California; it didn't go into UC's role.
Karp wrote in his e-mail that he agonized over what to include in the article, given the amount of space he would have in the newspaper. He interviewed more than 40 sources, but only had room to cite two.
"If I had room to cite the...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
On Saturday, the Fresno Bee published its take on the Valley's burgeoning blueberry industry. Writer Robert Rodriguez, well acquainted with UC Cooperative Extension, spoke to farm advisor Manuel Jimenez for perspective on producing a crop whose value climbed from zero at $30 million in less than 10 years. Jimenez's home county, Tulare, is the state's leading grower, producing a blueberry crop valued at $17 million.
"We have nearly every level of production right now from small plots to large commercial plantings of more than 1,000 acres," the Bee story quoted Jimenez.
Rodriguez noted that Valley farmers have spent years...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
I'm not sure about writer Cecelia Parsons' opening analogy - the "blue wave" cresting and growers "still putting their boards in the water" - but her article in Capital Press about last week's blueberry field day at the UC Kearney Research and Extension Center did hit all the important points.
Now that blueberry production in the Central Valley has been underway for the better part of a decade, and many growers have invested heavily to coax the healthful fruit out of the Valley's uncooperative alkaline soil, folks are starting...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
California farmers interested in branching out with blueberries have gained much wisdom from UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Manuel Jimenez, who has maintained extensive research plantings of the crop at the UC Kearney Research and Extension Center near Parlier since 1998.
Annual blueberry field days consistently bring significant numbers of farmers to the station to get the latest information on blueberry varieties and cultural practices, the most recent of which was held last week. According to a report on the field day in The Packer, more than 60...