Last of the Citrus : Vast Groves Squeezed Down to 5

Just after World War II but long before diamond lanes, in the San Fernando Valley’s shift from farms and ranches to freeways and condos, there existed nearly 15,000 acres of citrus trees--seemingly forever a staple of Southern California heritage.

Today, in the remnants of five groves, only 44 acres remain, and of those acres only a baker’s dozen are officially protected from eventually becoming a parking lot or mini-mall.

The five groves, a number agreed on by Valley historians, are predominantly populated by orange trees, followed closely by grapefruits, and are in varied geographic areas of the Valley: two on college campuses, one at a Catholic high school, another surrounding an aerospace firm, and the last in a city park.

Historians speculate the oldest active grove exists in Mission Hills, just a short walk away from the San Fernando Mission, at our Lady Queen of Angels Seminary, where 7 acres of orange trees successfully cohabit with students and seminarians. The grove owes its beginnings to the initial 1910 citrus cash crop plantings by Valley farmers.

Valencias Now

Originally a lemon grove but replanted with Valencia oranges when the first trees began dying out three years ago, Our Lady maintenance man James Miller oversees 600 trees, with most of the crop--the school doesn’t keep accurate tabs on the exact amount of fruit harvested--going to the seminary. Although the fruit is not available for public picking, Our Lady workers and students are allowed to partake in the harvest.

And although, Miller says, the school and the Catholic Archdiocese are serious in wanting to preserve the grove, the trees are not completely safe. Tentative plans for a home to be built for a bishop would require the removal of 50 or 60 of them.

In Northridge, on Nordhoff Street between Zelzah and Lindley avenues, stands a 7-acre grove on the campus of Cal State Northridge. When it opened in the mid-1950s, five citrus groves dotted the 350-acre campus, but as the school physically expanded, the trees were methodically felled.

This last grove is an unofficial historic monument to the campus and considered untouchable by the school’s present administration, say CSUN’s Terry Dawson and David Lee, members of the school’s plant management team. They are dedicated to keeping the trees in good shape but admit to harvesting problems now that densely populated suburbs have moved in around them and there aren’t enough trees to pick.

“Up until the last few years, we could get contractors to come in and buy the oranges, putting the money toward various scholarship programs,” Lee says, adding that each tree produces 12 to 14 40-pound boxes of fruit annually. “But the last 2 years we haven’t been able to find anyone willing to come this far from their home bases in Oxnard or Orange County to pick a comparatively small grove such as ours.”

The 460 trees are off-limits to the general public because of liability insurance problems, but charitable organizations are permitted to pick the fruit and donate it to local churches and missions. Nature does most of the harvesting now, as the oranges are allowed to fall off the trees and rot on the ground, eventually being thrown away by maintenance workers.

Farther west on Nordhoff, near Corbin Avenue, there is a compatible blend of Valley past and present, where workers not only enjoy the fruits of their labors but of the trees that continue to grow on company grounds.

About 500 grapefruit trees surround the headquarters of Teledyne Systems Co., maker of sophisticated aerospace products. Company officials say the citrus trees were purposely left in place to create an atmosphere of harmony between nature and concrete.

According to Teledyne’s director of industrial services Chuck Scott, “the trees were inexpensive landscaping. It seemed at the time irresponsible to remove something like that. It was a long-lasting part of the Valley, and today it’s really a windfall, because you don’t see them anymore.”

Tasty Produce

Originally part of the 700-acre Mulholland Orchard Co., Teledyne opened its 35-acre plant--12 acres are reserved for grapefruit--in 1968 after purchasing the land from the descendants of William Mulholland, the man who brought water here from the Owens Valley. The trees date to 1916, and employees who regularly pick the grapefruit maintain it’s the best they have ever had.

Although there is no formal picking program and the company does not solicit professional harvesters, Teledyne management allows various senior citizen groups to pick the trees and take the grapefruits to shut-ins. Another group packages the fruit for underprivileged families in Mexico.

But citrus is not the only time Teledyne has harmonized with nature.

Jack Neville, an art director with the firm for 20 years, remembers the wild chickens that once made their home among the trees in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

“The chickens discovered they could skirt in and out of the groves and wander up the paths to the lobby and get free food,” he recalls. “Ultimately, somebody bought chicken feed. We were probably one of the few divisions of a multinational company to have a 50-pound bag of chicken scratch in the lobby.” The chickens, well-protected by the trees they scurried under, eventually died of old age.

Due south of Teledyne, deep inside Los Angeles Pierce College, by Winnetka Avenue and Victory Boulevard, is yet another--and the most varied--grove still standing, with 600 Valencia orange, Dancy tangerine and Mineola tangelo trees populating 5 acres on the east side of campus.

The citrus was planted in the early 1950s by the college to teach students the art of citrus farming.

Object of Study

“We use the grove for many of our courses,” says Pierce horticulture professor Dick South, “including our pruning classes and our extensive pest control program. Every course that we teach is involved in some way, large or small, with our orchard.”

But although enrollment at Pierce is on the rise, school officials say, interest in courses related to tree care has declined to the point that only the introductory class is being offered. The advanced course and one on fruit production have not been scheduled for the last three years.

“Let’s face it,” South says, “we don’t do much farming in Los Angeles on a large scale anymore. Things change. However, we are still teaching people how to take care of trees, but now they’re in back yards.”

Some of the Pierce citrus is professionally picked. The school also sponsors a Pick Your Own day between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. every Wednesday, when anyone can go into the orchard and pick whatever fruit is in season, including grapes, avocados, peaches, plums, figs and, of course, citrus, for a nominal per-pound fee.

The Orcutt Ranch

Finally, at the far west end of the Valley on Roscoe Boulevard near Valley Circle, slowly being surrounded by homes, is the last 20 acres of the Orcutt Ranch, classified a Horticulture Center by the City Recreation and Parks Department in 1966 and designated a historical monument that same year. Here, among the nature trails, gardens and ranch buildings, stand 8 acres of grapefruit and 5 of oranges: 13 acres that no one but visitors and admirers of nature can touch.

The 200-acre parcel was originally owned by William and Mary Orcutt, who used it beginning in the 1920s as a country getaway. An engineering and geology graduate of Stanford University who hired on with Union Oil in 1899, Orcutt, who eventually became the company’s first vice president, is said to be the first person to stumble onto prehistoric bones while exploring the La Brea tar pit.

The horticultural center sponsors a semi-annual public fruit picking--this year it was in June and August--where, for a nominal amount, visitors could bring their own bags and help themselves. It also allows outdoor weddings, which have become so popular that the facility is already booked into next year.

“It’s almost like the Garden of Eden,” says Orcutt supervisor Ernest Mathis. “All of a sudden you leave the outside world and come into a totally different atmosphere. Kids are always amazed at the place.”

Mathis says that once in a while, especially in the early morning or just before sundown, when the center is quiet, he sometimes feels as if he might bump into William Orcutt’s ghost.

“It’s the shadows of the citrus trees,” he says. “It’s a strange feeling, because you’re walking around by yourself, and you can almost see some of the ghosts. You can sit in a chair that Mr. Orcutt sat in and almost imagine how he felt, reassured that the citrus would be here forever.”