Sonoma County’s newest exotic crop: Goji berries

Jay Jensen doesn’t seem the least bit fazed about trying to farm goji berries, a Chinese super food that? has yet to be commercially grown in any significant amounts in the United States.

The biggest question he had about the exotic berries wasn’t how to farm them but what would become of them after harvest, said Jensen, CEO of Novavine grapevine nursery in Santa Rosa.

“I can grow anything, but what do you do with it after you grow it?” Jensen asked this week as he stood inside a spacious greenhouse with 8,000 goji plants, most of them speckled with tiny red berries.

Jensen has become a pioneer in raising a new Sonoma County crop. He did so, he said, because his future business partner already had developed a product for the fruit: an organic goji tea that has been found to be high in antioxidants.

Jensen and Tibor Fischl are partners in Santa Rosa-based Goji Farm USA. Together they are preparing for their first harvest of both goji berries and leaves.

They plan to fresh freeze the crop for use in some kind of beverage that would appeal to health-conscious consumers, including athletes.

“That’s our whole game: Performance beverage,” said Fischl, the company’s CEO.

The fruit of the goji plants, whose scientific name is Lycium barbarum, is touted for being high in both nutrients and antioxidants.

Most goji berries now come from China, where production has “skyrocketed” since 2005 as the fruit’s reputation has grown, according to the 2012 “Handbook on Plant Breeding.”

But U.S.-raised goji can be hard to find. Some farmers apparently have tried. A 2009 Los Angeles Times story reported of at least a dozen attempts to commercially grow the fruit in North America, with relatively little to show for it.

“I don’t think there’s large scale production yet,” said Wei Qiang Yang, an associate professor of berry crops for Oregon State University.

One drawback is the cost of harvesting the fruit, which now must be handpicked. However, Yang said, farmers here might find an economic advantage by selling organic goji for a premium price.

“If you grow certified organic,” he said, “it will have a very good market in the U.S.”

Jensen, who leads the county’s largest grapevine nursery, is seeking another benefit, to better utilize his existing greenhouses and work force.

He explained that Novavine’s greenhouses are used for about six months a year in order to produce its 6 million new grapevines. The rest of the year, the space can be used to give warmth and sunlight to the goji plants, which now are held in ?1- and 5-gallon containers.

“What we’re looking for is something to keep the facilities and our people working,” he said.

Fischl began Goji Farms about four years ago. In 2013 he purchased his first trees from a Utah nursery. The plants are believed to have come from stock that was brought to the country from Chinese laborers who built the transcontinental railroad nearly ?150 years ago.

But Fischl said he soon wanted to partner with someone who could better grow the plants. He first talked with Jensen a little more than a year ago and said he was someone with the ability and desire “to be a good farmer.”

Goji Farms began selling its tea in Whole Foods Market early this year, and later to Pacific Market and Community Market in Sonoma County.

The company’s main product, now made with goji berries mostly from China, is its organic Goji Phyto-Brew. The tea sells online for $17.88 a six pack of 16-ounce bottles, or about $5 a bottle when shipped, Fischl said.

The partners hope to expand to 50,000 goji plants next year. And they are developing beverages that could benefit from their locally produced berries.

Goji Farms will offer a harvest tour of its plantings and a tasting Oct. 16. Interested participants can RSVP at the bottom of the company homepage: gojifarmusa.com.

County Agricultural Commissioner Tony Linegar said he plans to join the tour and is excited by the prospects.

“I think it’s great to be exploring other crops that we can produce here,” Linegar said.