Lycopene: Seagate tomato farming – Fall 2019

Seagate has been farming tomatoes and converting them into lycopene since 1997. Lycopene has many benefits for prostate health, high antioxidant activity, and is an excellent super-vegetable to be taking on a regular basis. For those people who do not wish to eat tomatoes every day, taking one capsule is the equivalent of eating one Roma tomato.

The most difficult part about lycopene production is growing the tomatoes and having them survive the various things that would love to attack this crop.  Farming in the interior of northern Baja California has the advantages of generally good weather which gives us a year-round growing season. However, we are in a very hot, arid region where water is scarce, temperatures will get up to 120F during the summer, and we are always dealing with rabbits, moles, gophers and other pests trying to eat the new crops.

These fellows below are part of our active approach to controlling attacks.

The tomatoes are grown in a very remote region, far from any other farming operations.

This is now the Fall season. We also protect the tomatoes by sheltering the rows under plastic:

If all the necessary steps work out out right, we end up with ripening roma tomatoes.

You can see the drip irrigation line in the bottom left corner of the photo above. We use roma tomatoes because they survive this climate better than other varieties and have a lower water content, providing a much higher lycopene yield.  We have written many articles about our tomato and lycopene production over the years including:

Summer tomato farming – a second try

Converting tomatoes into Lycopene

Delicious Recipes That Feature Lycopene-Rich Foods

Seagate Lycopene comparison to Lyc-O-Mato®

What Is Lycopene? Are You Getting Enough Of It?

Take a pill or should I change my lifestyle

Seagate does not use any chemicals or alcohol to concentrate this lycopene. This is entirely a water-based extraction process.

Sometimes when I am not farming in Baja California, I go diving along its coasts. During the summer of 2017, I drove 8 hours south of San Diego to Bahia de Los Angeles. Since facilities there are rustic, I had to cart along tanks, gear and even emergency oxygen. In violation of most dive safety rules, I typically dive by myself. A an extra buddy diver for me is usually just one more person I have to worry about. This also gave me the opportunity to try out my new high pressure (3600 lbs 117 sq. ft. dive tanks). These tanks allow me an underwater time in excess of 3-4 hours without surfacing at a depth of 50 feet. On this particular day, the water was cold, murky, and had a very strong current. I was really very cold. Sometimes you just have to enjoy whatever the conditions and be thankful to be able to still be able to go diving. My first time diving this bay was in 1972 on board the R.V. Proteus, an oceanographic research vessel out of Monterey, California. On today’s dive, I was followed around for over 2 hours by this very curious angelfish. He stayed within 4-5 feet of me, probably wondering why I stayed down on this day under these marginal conditions for so long.