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South Coast REC studies pesto profitability for small-scale basil growers

UC ANR advisors, staff research methods in conserving highly perishable product

If you visited the greenhouse at the University of California South Coast Research and Extension Center in early fall, you would have smelled a sweet aroma with notes of lemon, pepper and licorice.

In one of the conservatories, a team of UC Cooperative Extension advisors and staff grew seven varieties of basil and by the end of October, the plants stretched nearly two feet tall with leaves large enough to warrant a closer look. The wonderful smell would soon become delightful tastes, as the team planned to turn the basil into pesto.

“The rationale was to provide a high-value crop and a value-added solution for urban horticulture, transforming a highly perishable product into something that can be conserved,” said Gerardo “Gerry” Spinelli, UC Cooperative Extension production horticulture advisor for San Diego County, who initiated the passion project.

After noticing a sign at South Coast REC asking consumers to use produce grown onsite in their everyday cooking, Spinelli felt inspired. The sign also requested photos of homemade dishes be sent to South Coast REC's interim director, Lindsey Pedroncelli, to generate content for the REC's Instagram account.

Envisioning a “bigger picture” for this effort, Spinelli turned to Pedroncelli for support. The two agreed that the basil project demonstrates a viable pathway for urban growers who have limited space, and positions South Coast REC as an ideal partner for such endeavors. Uniquely located in urban Irvine, South Coast REC has nearly 200 acres of land reserved for agricultural research and is one of nine RECs housed under UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“Urban growers are constantly looking for new ways to grow food and market their products. Growing plants using the Kratky hydroponic system is a low-input method that is simple to establish and easy to maintain,” said Pedroncelli.

Aside from its research purposes, the project was the perfect opportunity to engage other advisors and staff at South Coast REC. The extra hands and taste buds that helped with this effort would later be known as the South Coast REC Pesto Task Force.

Growing in hydroponics

Given Spinelli and Pedroncelli's Italian ancestry, it was no question that the basil would be used to make pesto – a traditional sauce originating from Genoa, Italy that's commonly consumed on pasta. In just about two months, the following basil varieties flourished in a hydroponic system: cinnamon, Mrs. Burns' Lemon, Kapoor Tulsi, Thai Towers, Amethyst Improved, Red Rubin and the traditional Genovese. With these varieties, Spinelli and Pedroncelli were also interested in testing how taste and color affect the pesto.

Since learning about the Kratky method, a passive hydroponic technique developed by Bernard Kratky at the University of Hawai'i, Spinelli has championed it as an easy and affordable way to grow food. He has produced several videos in English and Spanish about the technique on his YouTube Channel and created a fact sheet that can be downloaded from his website.

Some of its advantages are the low initial capital investment, excellent water and nitrogen use efficiency, short cycle of production and the fact that it is modular and easy to set up, move and store – a major advantage for growers who only have access to space for a limited time and investments on immobile structures are not justifiable.

For the setup, eight 2'-by-3' tubs were used, and each was filled with 20 gallons of water before adding a fertilizer mix that contains one ounce of calcium nitrate, one ounce of magnesium sulfate or Epson salt and 0.6 ounces of lettuce formula. With the additional steps of seeding, drilling holes into the Styrofoam, and placing the net cups with seedlings into each hole, Spinelli estimated about 30 minutes of setup for each tub.

Estimating potential profit for urban growers

Although prices per quantity vary, he also estimated about $25 for the 20-gallon tub, a panel of Styrofoam and net baskets, which can all be reused. In addition, the fertilizer and propagation materials, including seeds and pellets, will cost roughly $68. When breaking these materials down according to the number of growing cycles, about one to two months each, the cost amounts to approximately $5 per tub for 25 cycles.

Using basil sold at Trader Joe's for reference, Spinelli estimated that each ounce of basil grown is worth about 70 cents. The “million-dollar question,” as Spinelli puts it, is how much profit one can earn from this endeavor. Because the Amethyst Improved and Red Rubin varieties had the lowest yields of 12 and 18 ounces, they were combined to make 40 ounces of pesto. In contrast, Genovese had the highest yield of 51 ounces of basil – which produced 64 ounces of pesto.

Using a ratio of 0.7 to 0.9 ounces of basil for every liquid ounce of pesto, and calculating projected value based on Trader Joe's pricing, the Amethyst Improved and Red Rubin combined pesto had a projected value of $21, whereas Genovese had a projected value of $36. Without being combined with any other variety, however, the smallest projected value was the Kapoor Tulsi variety which had a yield of 22.5 ounces, making 28 ounces of pesto and resulting in a $16 projected value.

There are a few costs that Spinelli and Pedroncelli could not account for, such as hypothetical transportation to the market for sale, and the various prices of ingredients used to make pesto – almonds and walnuts, for instance, could be used as a cheaper alternative to the traditional pine nuts.

“With a traditional recipe you spend $5 for the basil and $25 for the other ingredients to produce eight 8-ounce jars of pesto. If you can sell each jar for $10 at the farmers market, there are $50 for profit – maybe more if you can sell one jar for $15, or you can save with non-traditional ingredients,” Spinelli explained.

An additional advantage, which may come with additional expenses, is that pesto can be conserved. The business model could be that the grower sells basil at the farmers market and transforms the unsold product into pesto before it goes bad.

“Getting involved in agriculture can be intimidating and costly, so researching and showcasing inexpensive methods that can easily be scaled to fit your needs is incredibly helpful for both new and seasoned growers,” Pedroncelli said.

South Coast REC staff offer taste buds at ‘pesto party'

Following their harvests in October, Spinelli and Pedroncelli hosted two “pesto parties” for staff at South Coast REC. Although traditional pesto is made with Genovese basil, pine nuts, garlic, Pecorino cheese and olive oil, Spinelli and Pedroncelli experimented with different cheeses and nuts across the seven varieties of basil. Staff offered their taste buds and critical review of each pesto, advising the two chefs to add more or less of a particular ingredient.

Eager to share their progress and vision with UC ANR's senior leadership, Spinelli and Pedroncelli carefully preserved and packaged eight jars of homemade pesto and had it specially delivered to Vice President Glenda Humiston.

“This is a creative way to demonstrate innovation and a fantastic opportunity to support our urban communities. It's not just practical, but economically feasible,” said Humiston, who was pleasantly surprised by the pesto delivery. “Plus, I love pesto!” she added.

What started out as a passion project quickly turned into an opportunity to show how a resource hub like South Coast REC can empower its urban clientele both educationally and economically. It was also the perfect opportunity to engage South Coast REC staff in an activity outside of their day-to-day responsibilities, making for excellent photo ops and social media posts.

Floods, droughts, then fires: Hydroclimate whiplash is speeding up globally

New research links intensifying wet and dry swings to the atmosphere's sponge-like ability to drop and absorb water

Key takeaways Hydroclimate whiplash – rapid swings between intensely wet and dangerously dry weather – has already increased globally due to climate change, with further large increases expected as warming continues, according to a team of researchers led by UCLA's Daniel Swain. The “expanding atmospheric sponge,” or the atmosphere's ability to evaporate, absorb and release 7% more water for every degree Celsius the planet warms, is a key driver of the whiplash. Co-management of extreme rainfall or extreme droughts, rather than approaching each in isolation, is necessary to find interventions and solutions, researchers said.

Los Angeles is burning, and accelerating hydroclimate whiplash is the key climate connection.

After years of severe drought, dozens of atmospheric rivers deluged California with record-breaking precipitation in the winter of 2022-23, burying mountain towns in snow, flooding valleys with rain and snow melt, and setting off hundreds of landslides.

Following a second extremely wet winter in southern parts of the state, resulting in abundant grass and brush, 2024 brought a record-hot summer and now a record-dry start to the 2025 rainy season, along with tinder-dry vegetation that has since burned in a series of damaging wildfires.

This is just the most recent example of the kind of “hydroclimate whiplash” – rapid swings between intensely wet and dangerously dry weather – that is increasing worldwide, according to a paper published Jan. 9 in Nature Reviews.

“The evidence shows that hydroclimate whiplash has already increased due to global warming, and further warming will bring about even larger increases,” said lead author Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and UCLA. “This whiplash sequence in California has increased fire risk twofold: first, by greatly increasing the growth of flammable grass and brush in the months leading up to fire season, and then by drying it out to exceptionally high levels with the extreme dryness and warmth that followed.”

Global weather records show hydroclimate whiplash has swelled globally by 31% to 66% since the mid-20th century, the international team of climate researchers found – even more than climate models suggest should have happened. Climate change means the rate of increase is speeding up. The same potentially conservative climate models project that the whiplash will more than double if global temperatures rise 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The world is already poised to blast past the Paris Agreement's targeted limit of 1.5 C. The researchers synthesized hundreds of previous scientific papers for the review, layering their own analysis on top.

Anthropogenic climate change is the culprit behind the accelerating whiplash, and a key driver is the “expanding atmospheric sponge” – the growing ability of the atmosphere to evaporate, absorb and release 7% more water for every degree Celsius the planet warms, researchers said.

“The problem is that the sponge grows exponentially, like compound interest in a bank,” Swain said. “The rate of expansion increases with each fraction of a degree of warming.”

The global consequences of hydroclimate whiplash include not only floods and droughts, but the heightened danger of whipsawing between the two, including the bloom-and-burn cycle of overwatered then overdried brush, and landslides on oversaturated hillsides where recent fires removed plants with roots to knit the soil and slurp up rainfall. Every fraction of a degree of warming speeds the growing destructive power of the transitions, Swain said.

Many previous studies of climate whiplash have only considered the precipitation side of the equation, and not the growing evaporative demand. The thirstier atmosphere pulls more water out of plants and soil, exacerbating drought conditions beyond simple lack of rainfall.

“The expanding atmospheric sponge effect may offer a unifying explanation for some of the most visible, visceral impacts of climate change that recently seem to have accelerated,” Swain said. “The planet is warming at an essentially linear pace, but in the last 5 or 10 years there has been much discussion around accelerating climate impacts. This increase in hydroclimate whiplash, via the exponentially expanding atmospheric sponge, offers a potentially compelling explanation.”

That acceleration, and the anticipated increase in boom-and-bust water cycles, has important implications for water management.

“We can't look at just extreme rainfall or extreme droughts alone, because we have to safely manage these increasingly enormous influxes of water, while also preparing for progressively drier interludes,” Swain said. “That's why ‘co-management' is an important paradigm. It leads you to more holistic conclusions about which interventions and solutions are most appropriate, compared to considering drought and flood risk in isolation.” 

In many regions, traditional management designs include shunting flood waters to flow quickly into the ocean, or slower solutions like allowing rain to percolate into the water table. However, taken alone, each option leaves cities vulnerable to the other side of climate whiplash, the researchers noted.

“Hydroclimate in California is reliably unreliable,” said co-author John Abatzoglou, a UC Merced climate scientist. “However, swings like we saw a couple years ago, going from one of the driest three-year periods in a century to the once-in-a-lifetime spring 2023 snowpack, both tested our water-infrastructure systems and furthered conversations about floodwater management to ensure future water security in an increasingly variable hydroclimate.”

Hydroclimate whiplash is projected to increase most across northern Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, northern Eurasia, the tropical Pacific and the tropical Atlantic, but most other regions will also feel the shift.

“Increasing hydroclimate whiplash may turn out to be one of the more universal global changes on a warming Earth,” Swain said.

In California this week, although winds are fanning the extreme fires, it's the whiplash-driven lack of rain that suspended Southern California in fire season.

“There's not really much evidence that climate change has increased or decreased the magnitude or likelihood of the wind events themselves in Southern California,” Swain said. “But climate change is increasing the overlap between extremely dry vegetation conditions later in the season and the occurrence of these wind events. This, ultimately, is the key climate change connection to Southern California wildfires.”

Under a high warming scenario, California will see an increase in both the wettest and driest years and seasons by later this century.

“The less warming there is, the less of an increase in hydroclimate whiplash we're going to see,” Swain said. “So anything that would reduce the amount of warming from climate change will directly slow or reduce the increase in whiplash. Yet we are currently still on a path to experience between 2 degrees and 3 degrees Celsius of global warming this century — so substantial further increases in whiplash are likely in our future, and we really need to be accounting for this in risk assessments and adaptation activities.”

The research was supported with funding from The Nature Conservancy of California and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

UC wildfire expert: Lack of rain ‘primary factor’ in L.A. fires

 

Siting, design of communities key to limiting catastrophic damage

Jan. 8 statement about wildfires in Southern California by Max Moritz, University of California Cooperative Extension statewide wildfire specialist based in Santa Barbara

“Santa Ana winds can be expected at this time of year, but this episode seems unusually strong. Some people are focusing on climate change and higher temperatures drying out the vegetation, but that's not really the primary factor here. It's the lack of rainfall that's unusual, and that's likely also related to climate change. More erratic and extreme precipitation patterns – drier dry periods and wetter wet periods – are extending the fire season. We still haven't started our typical fall and winter rains, and it's January! By this point of winter, usually it has rained so fuels contain more moisture and are not as flammable.”

How to prevent catastrophic wildfires?  

“We can reduce the various sources of ignition, especially during red flag conditions, but we really need to treat wildfire as a public health concern and address it through urban planning.  

We can retrofit existing communities to better withstand such events. Providing better water supply and distribution systems, hardening homes, establishing evacuation plans for communities, and training community members how to live with fire and reduce risks. 

We should prepare for the inevitable by building and rebuilding differently, such as in the siting and design of communities in fire-prone environments. Placement of communities on the landscape, such as near bodies of water and agricultural buffers, and how they are laid out can minimize their exposure to wildfire. This goes well beyond structure-level building codes.”  

Young orchard water and nutrient management workshops offered in Madera, Stockton, Parlier, Tulare

Growers invited to discuss young almonds, pistachios, walnuts, olives, citrus and peach orchards starting Feb. 18

To help growers manage irrigation and nutrients for young and immature orchards, UC Cooperative Extension is offering workshops in Madera, Stockton, Parlier and Tulare. 

The workshops will feature presentations by various experts and researchers focusing on best irrigation and nutrient management practices tailored specifically for young orchards in the San Joaquin Valley. They will cover almonds, pistachios, walnuts, olives, citrus, and peaches.

“Attendees will gain insights into the irrigation and nutrient needs of young orchards, which are different from those applicable to mature orchards, and learn strategies for adjusting these practices as orchards mature,” said Moneim Mohamed, UC Cooperative Extension irrigation and soils advisor for Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced counties. “This knowledge aims to ensure healthier tree development, better resource use and more resilient orchards in the face of climate change.”

Growers, certified crop advisers and other agricultural professionals are encouraged to attend. Workshop attendees may request one-on-one assistance from a UCCE farm advisor.

Speakers include UCCE advisors Moneim Mohamed, Mae Culumber, Cameron Zuber, Tobias Oker, Phoebe Gordon and Raymond Mireles; UCCE specialists Giulia Marino and Khaled Bali; Charles Hillyer of Fresno State; and USDA research agronomist Sultan Begna.

The Young Orchard Irrigation and Nutrient Management workshops will be held in four locations: 

Madera

Feb. 18 (8 a.m.–12:30 p.m.)
Madera County Farm Bureau, 1102 S Pine St., Madera, CA 93637

Register at https://ucanr.edu/orchardsmadera

Stockton

Feb. 20 (8 a.m.–12:30 p.m.)
Robert J Cabral Agricultural Center, Assembly Room 3, 2101 E Earhart Ave #200, Stockton, CA 95206

Register at https://ucanr.edu/orchardsstockton

Parlier

Feb. 25 (8 a.m.–12:30 p.m.)
Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Nectarine Room, 9240 S. Riverbend Ave, Parlier, CA 93648

Register at https://ucanr.edu/orchardskearney

Tulare

Feb. 27 (8 a.m.–12:30 p.m.)
UC Cooperative Extension, 4437-B S. Laspina St., Tulare, CA 93274

Register at https://ucanr.edu/orchardstulare

Workshops are free and include coffee breaks, lunch and workshop materials along with the presentations. Registration is required. 

These workshops are supported by a grant from California Department of Food and Agriculture and co-sponsored by Almond Board of California, California Pistachio Research Board, Meter Group Inc., AvidWater, SWAN Systems, and HotSpot AG.

Wildfire takes toll on mental, physical health of food producers

Farm Bill could support awareness of help available

The people who produce our food need support – especially in the areas of mental and physical well-being – to recover from increasingly widespread wildfire, scientists have found. The federal Farm Bill could help, but it is languishing in Congress (an extension of the previous Farm Bill was passed in late December 2024).

Postdoctoral researcher Natalia Pinzon Jimenez used surveys to hone in on the experiences of ranchers and farmers impacted by wildfire. Pinzon recently earned her Ph.D. at UC Davis and produced her findings with a team that included Leslie Roche, a professor of Cooperative Extension in the Department of Plant Sciences.

The team surveyed more than 500 ranchers and farmers affected by wildfires between 2017 and 2023. Pinzon recently summarized her findings in this research report. She also recently launched a website, Wildfires & Agriculture, based on her findings. Its goal is to help producers become more resilient to fire by providing tools, improving research and effecting policy.

Financial and technical assistance also matter, but are secondary, said the producers who participated in the surveys.

“The No. 1 wildfire impact for ranchers is on their physical and mental health,” said Tracy Schohr, a research team member and livestock and natural resources advisor in Plumas, Sierra, and Butte counties with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (Schohr earned her master's degree with Ken Tate, also a professor of Cooperative Extension in the department.)

“This underscores the need for future United States Department of Agriculture disaster programs to prioritize physical and mental health and emphasizes the importance of USDA investment in training staff and partners in trauma-informed approaches to aid farmers and ranchers affected by disasters,” Schohr argued.

In addition to being scorched by wildfire, farmers and ranchers are on the front lines of wildfire response, both on their properties and in their communities. When it's not wildfire season, they manage future risks by reducing fuel loads on their properties, installing off-grid systems and water storage, planning for wildfire response and training employees, Pinzon reported.

Need for greater awareness of help available

While producers were optimistic about their chances of recovering from wildfire, Pinzon found they have a limited financial safety net supporting them. Most producers relied on personal savings to recover from significant losses. Small producers, those using organic or sustainable practices, beginning producers, first-generation producers and people renting their land all had fewer resources, including crop insurance.

In addition, 78 percent of farmers and 58 percent of ranchers did not use financial assistance offered through the USDA to cope with disasters, Pinzon reported. Many didn't even know such assistance is available, or they reported the application process was too difficult.

All those pressures led to a quarter of the respondents admitting they had considered shutting down their operations.

Pinzon pointed to the federal Farm Bill as a source for funding greater collaboration between the USDA and on-the-ground organizations such as Cooperative Extension. The aim would be “to raise awareness, expand access to assistance programs and provide science-based solutions for wildfire recovery,” Pinzon recommended.

Surveys lead to more insights

Pinzon's work is part of a larger, statewide effort to use surveys and interviews with ranchers and farmers to understand their needs, direct scientific inquiry and develop solutions to their problems.

The team includes the University of California, UC ANR, federal, state and local agencies, producer organizations and private individuals. The surveys go back to 2011 and were conducted by Roche and a network of colleagues.

Read about California ranchers' response to drought and their needs for staying strong.

Farmers and ranchers: Learn what you can do

You can prepare for wildfire on your land. Get free, online information through Farmer Campus, co-founded by Pinzon with support from the USDA. Start by downloading your Wildfire Preparedness Workbook. It includes practical, hands-on activities to help you get your operation ready to survive a fire.

This article was first published on the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences news site.

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