LYCHEES NEW MARKET CROP? COASTAL AREA FARMERS BRANCHING OUT TO EXPERIMENT WITH EXOTIC FRUITS.

Byline: Cecilia Chan Staff Writer

SOMIS - Nestled in David and Ann Premack's Haas avocado grove are trees bearing a subtropical fruit once prized by emperors of China.

The Ping-Pong ball-sized lychee, with its thin red pebbled shell and grapelike flavor, may become the next cash crop for Ventura County.

``When Americans put their mouths on lychees, not to mention longans, they don't forget them,'' David Premack said. ``I see it as a new fruit of the world.''

The Premacks' site is one of 20 locations along the frost-free coast from San Luis Obispo to San Diego counties testing different varieties of lychees and the closely related longans for commercial production. The fruits, indigenous to China, are eaten fresh, dried or canned.

The California Department of Agriculture Pest Exclusion Program provided a three-year, $112,000 grant to try to establish domestic production after truckloads of the fruit, which can host pests that damage California crops, were smuggled in from Canada to meet consumption demands in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

``There's a well-established market around the world for the fruit,'' said Mark Gaskell, the University of California Cooperative Extension adviser to small-scale farmers in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. ``There is a pent-up demand from Asians and Hispanics. It's also gotten popular among upscale restaurants and natural food stores.

``The demand far exceeds the supply at this point. It's a fruit that is up and coming in the world.''

Areas where lychees are grown include Mexico, Israel, Hawaii and Florida. Wholesale, the fruit goes for $4 to $5 a pound.

Gaskell and his counterpart in Ventura County - Ben Faber - oversee the test program, which began four years ago with the planting of 2-foot-high saplings at the experimental pods.

``We will also work with nurseries to increase propagation to make the trees more readily available,'' Gaskell said.

Faber said it will take another three to four years to determine which fruit variety fares well and in which location. Ventura County looks like a good prospect so far.

The Premacks are cultivating about 100 lychee and longan trees and will eventually have 250 trees of 17 different varieties on site. The Bengal variety looks promising with its small brown seed and big fruit.

A few of the Premack's longan trees, planted three years ago, already sprout marble-sized fruit and will be ready for harvest in December.

The couple takes daily strolls to monitor the trees, which are now about 6 feet tall and are ``the best looking lychees in the program,'' according to Faber.

``There are no other lychees in the program that look like that,'' said Faber, who was in the orchard one day teaching the Premacks how to prune the trees. ``The others look scrawny.''

The trees can grow up to 40 feet or more, but will be kept to 12 feet tall because the fruit must be picked by hand.

The trees, which cost $30 to $70 each, are relatively immune to pests and diseases. When young, they are fragile, with hairlike roots that are sensitive to over- and underwatering, Faber said.

The slow-growing, long-living lychee and longan trees tend to grow well in coastal areas where avocados are grown, he said.

``I don't think it'll ever be as large of an industry as the avocado industry,'' he said. ``There's probably room for 100 million pounds because we import close to 50 million.''

In Ventura County, where agriculture is the leading industry, crops generated $1 billion in 2001, with avocados ranking fifth with a value of $67 million.

Plans are under way to establish an association to help growers cultivate and harvest longans and lychees, said Bill Vogel, president of Tavilla Sales Co. of Los Angeles, which markets fruits and vegetables.

Vogel himself planted about five acres of lychee trees on his avocado ranch in Temecula.

``It's a risky venture at this point,'' he said. ``It's still in the experimental and trial stage.''

But ``at the time we will produce, there will be very little production anywhere in the world so there is a potential for exporting the crop,'' he said. ``It's got some real possibility. It just remains to be seen how much fruit can be produced.

``Once we get the volume in, the market is really going to open,'' he said.

Vogel doesn't see a problem marketing lychees and longans to Americans.

``Twenty years ago, who was eating mangoes, kiwi fruits and hot chili peppers?'' he asked. ``Today it's part of everybody's cuisine.''

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Photo:

Ben Faber, farm adviser for the University of California Extension, talks to a farmer, hidden by foliage, about lychee trees, exotic Chinese natives.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer