Successful Farming in Unlikely Places

Orange County, California, is best known as home to Disneyland. It’s California’s third most populated county, with more than 3 million residents. Thanks to ingenuity and adaptability, it’s also a big farming region.Orange County farmers grow about $90 million worth of crops each year- primarily nursery crops, trees, berries, and vegetables. Strawberries and green beans are the specialties for Orange County Land Management Services, where Vice President Mark Lopez has worked since 1999.Lopez said adaptability is key to farming in such an urban area, meaning they grow crops in several non-traditional areas.“Land in Irvine is about $4 million an acre,” Lopez remarked. “The military base that used to be there in Irvine, El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, when they shut it down in 1991 or ’92, it was vacant for a few years. We got called out there and they started letting us farm. We farm right between the runways … several little islands of 10-15 acres of green beans and strawberries. We do still currently farm at Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station … farming on a gigantic magazine of about 1,000 acres.”One of the ways this farm has succeeded is careful use of inputs, including help from Redox Bio-Nutrients. Lopez said they had big success using Supreme in their green beans, with results easily seen. They are also planning on trialing Mainstay Si in their strawberries.Berries are a large crop at Lopez’s farm and in many areas of the California Coast. A wet winter has hurt some yields, but optimism remains for a good crop and excellent demand during the all-important marketing period around Valentine’s Day.