On February 11, 2008 the second year Crop Technology class of 2006-2008 flew out of Edmonton to land in San Fransisco. The main reason for us our class trip was to experience the diversification of agriculture in another region.
While in California we had the chance to attend the World Ag. Expo, one of the largest world expositions. Oranges were in harvest season so we had the chance to tour two processing plants and a citrus orchard. We were happy to be able to pick the fruit off the trees and eat.
Most of the vegetable farms in the area were getting prepared for seeding. We had the opportunity to tour a large greenhouse were the seeds were started and later could be taken and transplanted in the fields. We then went out into the fields were they had just transplanted lettuce and were in the process of setting up hand move sprinkler irrigation.
After the Vegetable tour we went back to the World Ag. Expo for our final look at the trade show. The trade show was so large we didn't get to see nearly everything. Most of the machinery there, none of us had ever seen befor so we would attempt to guess at what it might be, most of the time we had to ask. Some examples were the lettuce harvester, cotton pickers, and nut Shaker.
We then made our way to Fresno State University were we toured the university farm. Instructors from the university took us to see the machinery used on their farm. we also toured their green houses, orchards and olive groves. We finished off the tour by grabbing a snack from the university market which is supplied by the farm.
We made our way to Paramount Citrus were we had a chance to see how a large scale, high tech orange and lime packing plant was run.
Later on that day we made our way through some mountain trail that eventually lead us to the Pacific coast. Here we spent the last two days of our trip exploring the beach and touring Cal Poly Tech University. The time had finally come to make our way back home. We drove up along the coast towards San Fransisco were we departed the next morning. According to all of the students this truly was a trip of a lifetime.
Thank-you to all of our sponsors who made this trip possible for us.
