IRVINE : Ranch Still a Ranch on 44,000 Acres
Stepping outside of his Irvine Ranch farm headquarters on a recent late afternoon, Pete Changala surveyed the skyline. He was looking for clouds, but not necessarily for rain.
“If it clouds up, it stays warmer at night,” Changala explained. “When it’s clear, the temperature can drop into the high 20s. Of course, 32 degrees is the threshold. When it freezes, we can have some crop damage.”
Crop damage is something Changala constantly looks out for as director of the agricultural division of the huge Irvine Co. home-building and land-management empire.
Overnight lows on the ranch and the adjacent Saddleback Valley farmland have stayed in the high 30s so far this winter, nothing like the freezing temperatures that have plagued farmers in Texas and Florida, two of California’s major agricultural competitors.
“In Texas, the weather got down into the teens, meaning they actually lost some of their citrus trees,” Changala said. “That’s devastating for a farmer. It’s one thing to lose part of a crop and have some damage. It’s another to lose the trees altogether.”
Changala, 30, watches over what has become a diminishing ranch program. Long gone are the heyday of lima beans and such crops and the old warehouse off Sand Canyon Avenue near the Santa Ana Freeway--now the site of a La Quinta Inn, Tia Juana’s and Sirius Cellars.
“As the Irvine Co. has evolved and land values in Southern California have become astronomical, the farming business has changed around here,” said Changala, who was born on the Saddleback Valley’s Moulton Ranch. “This has become an urbanized area. Grading controls have increased. We have to get permits for any agricultural grading, just like a development. Pesticide controls are very strict. We can’t start our machines up until 7 a.m. and we have to shut them down at 5. It makes it very difficult to compete with the San Joaquin Valley.”
But 44,000 acres of Irvine Ranch land are still being farmed or used for pasture. And while oranges remain the No. 1 crop, necessity has mothered the invention of newer, hybridized vegetables. The first seedless melons were grown on the ranch and, these days, red (Sunworld’s Le Rouge Royales), yellow and even orange bell peppers are being harvested, patented and given a trademark.
“We seem to be taking a lot of our directions from the Israelis, who are great innovators when it comes to farming,” Changala said. “The Israelis have developed a new strawberry variety and a new tomato variety with a longer shelf-life.”
With the ranch flatlands gradually being taken over by new homes, local farmers are now turning to planting on the hillsides, thanks again to techniques from the Israelis.
“Avocados are often grown on hillsides because the trees are non-sensitive and can adapt to the poorer soil you find on a hillside,” Changala said. “But we also have some tomatoes, cabbage, squash, strawberries and bush beans growing on the hillsides.”
Strawberries used to be the second biggest crop on the ranch, but they are gradually being replaced by bell peppers, Changala said. Celery and asparagus are also beginning to disappear at the ranch, although not completely.
“Our early-season berries get air-freighted to Europe and the Far East,” Changala said. “Most of our asparagus go to Europe, to the high-end market. Ninety percent of our Valencia oranges go by boat to the Far East, places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan. For some reason, they really like our oranges. . . . “
Educating buyers is part of a grower’s job in a specialized market, according to Changala. A group of Korean buyers recently visited the ranch to taste the avocados, he said.
“They loved our avocados, which were new to them. You have to educate people about different products. The Koreans had not seen a lot of avocados. But then a lot of our own people from the Midwest don’t know what avocados are either,” Changala noted.
