Study Center Has Field Day : Agriculture: Irvine’s living laboratory opened its doors and acres of experimental crops to the public as part of its 35th birthday celebration.

Entomologist Blair Bailey broke a Valencia orange off its branch Tuesday morning and pointed to the California citrus industry’s most dangerous pest.

“That’s the California red scale,” said Bailey, pointing to a tiny red insect resembling a worm in a groove on the orange’s skin. “They spread by just blowing in the wind, although the males actually have wings. A citrus farmer can spend a lot of money trying to control them.”

Bailey was standing in an orange grove representing one of more than 100 experimental crops spread out on the flat, 200-acre University of California South Coast Research and Extension Center below the foothills in east Irvine, across the street from the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro.

As part of its 35th birthday celebration Tuesday, the center offered public tours of 12 of those research projects under way at this living laboratory, one of nine such centers sprinkled throughout the state.

Visitors got a close-up view of the bugs, pesticides and pollutants that affect the county’s $256-million agriculture industry, computer-based irrigation techniques that can save farmers as much as 80% of their water usage, and breeding techniques that search for new varieties, called cultivars.

There was a stop at a row of artichokes, including the thornless Imperial Star variety, one conceived at the center and one “that has the farmers in Castroville (a major artichoke growing center) very interested” because of its resistance to cool weather and its shelf life, said scientist Wayne Schrader, its cultivator.

There was a stop at a lima and garbanzo bean field where scientists are trying to test resistance to wilting. Such beans represent a throwback to the old days in Orange County because “beans were a huge crop in this area,” said scientist Bill Isom, gesturing to the surrounding Irvine Ranch.

Bailey’s specialty is bugs and the pesticides used to control them.

“The key to the research and the successful battle against such pests is to find the point where they are not doing significant economic damage,” said John D. Fox, a center spokesman. “You’re just not going to wipe them out, it won’t happen. But you must control them, and do it in a way that’s safe to the consumer.”

Often, chemical sprays are not the answer for controlling unwanted insects, Bailey said. It can be better to bring in another bug, called a beneficial, that feeds on them.

For the citrus farmer, threats strike from all angles--not just bugs and cold weather, but imported pests such as the Mediterranean fruit fly, which so far has been controlled through aerial spraying, and common garden intruders such as snails, Fox said. Medflies are not indigenous to California and are not yet a problem, but snails are, he said.

“Snails can be a major problem. We’ve seen 80, 90% of a crop wiped out by snails in a bad year,” said Fox, pointing to an orange tree literally crawling with them. “It’s not a problem in Europe because people eat them.”

Visitors viewed projects related to vegetables, trees and ornamental plants. Ornamentals are the No. 1 crop in the county, representing a $135-million industry in 1990, said Nanci M. Jimenez, the executive director of the Orange County Farm Bureau.

With the projected growth of Orange County and the accompanying decline in the land available for vegetables and citrus groves, that figure will only get higher, she said. A large part of the research here centers on that industry, including such things as weed control, the composting of sewer sludge for fertilizers, and drip irrigation techniques.

While the ornamental nursery business may be the county’s largest, the strawberry industry may be its most well known, thanks to this field center, Fox said. Even before the center was opened by UCLA avocado researchers in December, 1956, a young scientist named Victor Voth had planted strawberries on the property. He still works there.

“About 85% of all the strawberries in the country are grown in California,” Fox said. “And the California strawberry industry was virtually invented here. Such things as the growing technologies and drip irrigation were pioneered here.”

“Anybody who knows what a strawberry looks like and tastes like knows the work of Victor Voth,” said Lowell Lewis, a visiting professor from UC Riverside.

It was tomatoes, however, that occupied the immediate attention of visitors William Roell of Westminster and Martin Breitmeyer of Orange. The retired Breitmeyer, a farmer for 40 years, still grows tomatoes.

“My wife is home canning tomatoes today,” Breitmeyer said while wandering among 40 experimental varieties of tomatoes lined in rows. “It is very important for the farmer that research is done on all different varieties, ones with shorter growing seasons and tougher skins. That’s really necessary for the commercial farmer, one who picks them by machine.”

Roell has found he can grow a better crop than most commercial varieties in his own front yard. He believes something needs to be done to help the industry.

“I’m all for anything that can help the tomato growers,” Roell said. “Most of those you buy in the market today are no darn good.”