University of California Citrus Experiment Station
The University of California Citrus Experiment Station is the founding unit of the University of California, Riverside campus in Riverside, California, United States. The station contributed greatly to the cultivation of the orange and the overall agriculture industry in California. Established February 14, 1907, the station celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2007.
The Southern California "citrus belt" developed rapidly in the 1870s after experimental navel orange plantings were conducted in Riverside, using cuttings introduced from Bahia, Brazil. Within two decades commercial orange groves stretched eastward from Pasadena to Redlands beneath the foothills of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains. A citrus grower named John Henry Reed is credited with first proposing a state-funded scientific experiment station specifically for citrus research in Southern California, and organized a vigorous lobbying effort of the local citrus industry towards that end. As founding member and chair of the Riverside Horticultural Club's experimental committee, he also pioneered a collaborative approach to conducting experimental plantings, and published more than 150 semitechnical and popular papers on citrus and other subjects between 1895 and 1915.
Riverside California State Assembly member Miguel Estudillo worked with Reed and a committee of the Riverside Chamber of Commerce to draft Assembly Bill 552, which provided for a pathological laboratory and branch experiment station in Southern California. On March 18, 1905, a legislative board of commissioners was appropriated $30,000 to select the site and implement the measure. On February 14, 1907, the University of California Regents established the UC Citrus Experiment Station (CES) on 23 acres (93,000 m2) of land on the east slope of Mount Rubidoux in Riverside. However, the University's decision to concentrate on the development of the University Farm in Davis led to only one scientist among two initial staff being assigned to the CES. Dubbed the Rubidoux Laboratory, the initial purpose of the station was to concentrate on various soil management problems such as fertilization, irrigation, and improvement of crops.
...
Wikipedia