College of Agriculture (California State Polytechnic University Pomona)

Ornamental Horticulture Production Unit

The Ornamental Horticulture Production Unit (Bldg. 19) has 18,000 square feet of glass and plastic greenhouses under which many varieties of tropical foliage plants and flowering plants are grown. In addition, more that 8,000 square feet of lath and saran houses, two acres of nursery growing grounds, plus other acreage, is used to produce floricultural crops, bedding plants, woody ornamentals, turf, and Christmas trees. These facilities are used in the regular course work for student projects and research. The OH unit provides an opportunity for the student to gain valuable horticultural experience in propagation, growing, sales and nursery management on an independent or in-class basis.

Agronomy Farm

The farming operation basically operates as a working laboratory to support courses in the Horticulture/Plant & Soil Science Department. The farm operation is located at building 28, the Fruit and Crops Unit. Part of this building is devoted to agronomic packing equipment used for crops produced on the the Ranch. The Agronomy farm totals 800 acres, which produce hay, grain, vegetable and field crops. Several of the crops are produced through student enterprise projects, where the students culture, harvest and market their own crps via a crop share lease with the Cal Poly Foundation. The farm also maintains more than a hundred acres of irrigated pasture which serves as home to several of the famous Arabian horses.

Fruit Industries Farm

The Fruit Industries program operates as a nursery devoted to the production of fruit trees, and is located within a block of citrus trees north of South Campus Drive. The facility is equipped with an indoor working area as well as a lath shade structure specifically for the propagation and production of fruit trees. As mentioned earlier, the Fruit Industries program shares Building 28 with the Agronomy Program. A packing line for citrus and a juice plant, both fully operational is housed in this building. Incidentally, this citrus packing house is the only operational production line in Los angeles county. An additional 62 acres of the ranch at Cal Poly is devoted to trees. Approximately 25 of these acres are located at the Spadra Farm. Only 5 of teh 62 acres are devoted to deciduous fruit production of peaches, plums, nectarines and others. The rest of the acreage is planted in assorted citrus trees primarily dominated by Valencia and Washington Navel oranges. A small amount of acreage consists of avocados and macadamia nuts.

Pine Tree Ranch

Pine Tree Ranch is a 53 acre citrus and avocado orchard located in Santa Paula, California. It was donated to Cal poly by Carl Wasmendorf who wanted to see the Ranch continue as a fully functional orchard. In 1978, Cal Poly assumed the operation of the Ranch and began using it as an internship training program for students in the Fruit Industries program. Students from other majors, however, have also participated in this internship.

On this ranch site sits a 2700 square foot, two story home and a mobile home. Student interns are housed in the mobile home and the house is rented out to various tenants.

The Ranch currently consists of 30 acres of lemons and 15 acres of avocados. Both crops are currently highly productive and are lucrative sources of the Ranch's income. The remaining acreage is devoted to Valencia orange production.

Sustainable Agriculture Farm

Soils Laboratory

A comprehensive and fully equipped laboratory is available for students studying soil science. In this facility students are able to conduct the important physical and chemical analysis required to make sound recommendations to improve various soils in California as well as in other geographic areas.

Farm Store

The Farms Store located in the Fruit and Crops unit is open to the public. Here much of the produce grown on campus is sold at very reasonable prices. Some of the products sold are: the various varieties of citrus and avocados, fresh sqeezed orange juice, special gift packs, nut crops, sweet corn, pumpkins, assorted squash, nursery crops, honey, meats, eggs, and more depending on the time of year and crop availability.

Apiary

The apiary on campus is operated as a private/public corporate enitity. The resident bee population of this fully functioning facility provides all of the pollination services for the field and orchard crops grown on campus. The subsequent honey that is produced in the hives is sold at the farm store.

Tractor Shop

The tractor shop provides power equipment to handle all types of jobs. Equipment pieces ranging from weed eaters to large Caterpillar tractors are housed here. All of the necessary farm type attachmnents are available for all applications. Besides providing the necessary equipment, the tractor shop is also responsible for servicing and repairing of each piece of machinery. Accompanying this operation is a heavy duty machine shop to modify and outfit existing farm rigs for different purposes.

Campus Horticultural Laboratory

The wide selection of plant material on campus exists largely due to the efforts of Mr. W. C. Kellogg, who had his summer mansion up on what is now known as Kellogg Hill. His introduction of a wide variety of exotic plants to landscape his home is the source of what now provides the horticulture classes with an endless outdoor laboratory. The plantings flow from the mansion downward into the area known as Palm Canyon. Here, a meandering stone paved pathway leads one into a naturalized population of countless species of trees, shrubs, vines and groundcovers.

After Mr. Kellogg willed this property over to the State of California to become a university, the concept of landscaping the campus with a wide variety of plant materials was continued. This has provided our campus with a most valuable resource for plant species.