- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
While serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Venezuela, Mark Gaskell got his first experience with thriving coffee plantations. Years later, as a UC Cooperative Extension advisor to small-scale farmers in California, he wondered whether coffee could be a viable specialty crop for Central Coast farmers.
Gaskell established transplants in 2001 and discovered that the sub-tropical plants could thrive in the Golden State, reported Jodi Helmer on Valley Public Radio's The Salt.
Local farmers embraced the idea of California...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Planting coffee shrubs right next to avocado trees is allowing a Central Coast farmer to grow a commercial crop of coffee without using any additional land, water or fertilizer, reported Parma Nagappan in TakePart.com.
The farmer, Jay Ruskey was working with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources advisor Mark Gaskell when they had a "eureka moment," the story said. Coffee bushes can benefit from the environment created by an avocado plantation.
"I went through lots of cycles of plantings looking at options for using unused land," Rusky...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Several years ago, Jay Ruskey of Good Land Organics and UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Mark Gaskell started an experiment to see how well coffee plants would grow in Santa Barbara County's temperate coastal climate, reported Sara Cole on the website Eat Drink Explore. After harvesting and processing the beans, they were pleasantly surprised by the results. They found that coffee plants tolerate a temperate climate as long as they are protected from extreme weather like frost, wind and high heat.
"Fifteen years ago this would not...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
On the 20-acre organic farm of Goleta resident Jay Rusky, more than a dozen coffee varieties are being cultivated on a trial basis. Rusky first planted coffee in 2000; he now has about 400 trees. Gaskell told the reporter it is likely the most extensive coffee planting in California.
Coffee beans are the seeds of coffee cherries. The coffee tree is native to...