Sultan of Strawberries Holds Field Day to Share Expertise

When Victor Voth speaks, the strawberry industry listens.

It’s that way the world over. Voth, 71, is the acknowledged guru of strawberry research. During his 40 years studying the tasty fruit at the University of California South Coast Research and Extension Center in Irvine, Voth has developed more than 20 marketable strains.

“When you go to a supermarket and buy strawberries for your family, they are undoubtedly from a strain developed by Voth,” said Bob Bevacqua, superintendent of the five-acre field station here where Voth works. “The same can be said all over the world. The industry has basically followed his lead.”

Voth, pomologist and impromptu philosopher, held court Wednesday morning at the field station’s annual Strawberry Field Day. For the 40th time in his career, Voth offered his strawberry expertise at the station’s open house before about 100 strawberry growers, researchers, horticulturists, and even a sprinkling of laymen seeking only simple tips for jams and preserves.

The Southern California strawberry industry in particular owes much of its life to Voth. In 1952, when Voth began serious work on strawberries in this area, only 10% of the California strawberry industry, the world’s largest, was located south of Oxnard.

“By the 1970s, thanks to the techniques discovered by Voth, over 60% of California strawberry production comes from Southern California,” Bevacqua said. Today, the strawberry is the No. 2 crop in Orange County’s $250-million annual agricultural industry, making up about $35 million in annual sales, according to the Orange County Farm Bureau.

Voth, whose face has the tawny, lined complexion of someone who spends his day outdoors, attributes the success of Southern California growers to the climate. For strawberries, it is unmatched in the world, he said.

“I’ve traveled all over . . . to Spain, both sides of Gibraltar, to Italy, Israel, Chile and Colombia, but, in all my travels, I have never found anything like this climate,” Voth said. “They say it’s a Mediterranean climate, but it’s unique.”

Unlike many in the crowd Wednesday, Voth has no postgraduate degree, only a bachelor’s degree from UC Davis. Anyway, he didn’t learn about plants from books, he said.

“Everything I’ve learned, I learned from the plant itself,” he said. Voth, who grew up on a farm in the San Joaquin Valley and now lives in San Clemente, has worked almost his entire career at the field station, nestled in the foothills east of Irvine.

His specialty in strawberries was never intended to last, he said.

“I didn’t find the strawberry, the strawberry found me,” he said. “I’m a frustrated farmer. I went to work for the university for a few years just to get back on the farm. I’m still here.”

Voth likens himself to Sherlock Holmes, observing, checking for clues and ever on the lookout for a new breed or new hybrid of the strawberry--which, like the apple, nectarine and pear, is actually a member of the rose family.

“The blooms are where the similarities lie,” Voth said. “That’s where it all starts, in the flowering parts.”

Because of land and water costs and the fact that strawberries are so labor intensive--strawberry growers estimate a cost of $11,000 an acre before even one berry gets picked, compared with $50 an acre for corn--it’s essential to keep developing new, more productive strains.

That expense keeps Voth at work, experimenting with such things as drip irrigation, which he revolutionized at the field station, and new strawberry breeds.

Youth is the number one asset of any plant, Voth said. The younger the plant, the prettier the flower, the bigger the fruit and the better the shelf life, he said.

“The older I get, the more respect I have for juvenility,” Voth said. “That’s where it all is.”