SACRAMENTO Inside a crowded hotel conference room, some of the state's experts on farming and pesticides gathered this week to talk about how to work with new proposals to reduce the ubiquitous use of fumigants on strawberry crops.

They debated superheating the soil with steam, using bugs, sun anything that will allow farmers to continue to produce the profitable crop.

Few places need that knowledge more than Ventura County, where strawberries were a $328.6 million industry in 2005.

Most say that in the short term, a future with less fumigants is bleak. The alternatives are few and a long way from being viable.

Because of fumigants' historical effectiveness, "there has been something of a research and development vacuum," said James Stapleton, an integrated pest management specialist at the UC Kearney Agricultural Center in Parlier in the central San Joaquin Valley.

"Everybody is worried," said Husein Ajwa, a plant scientist with UC Davis who spoke at the conference. "God help our Ventura County growers."

Fumigants have been a central part of the strawberry industry since their value was discovered in the 1950s. Fumigants kill everything in the soil before the seedlings are planted so they grow strong without fungi and pests. Without fumigants, farmers could see their strawberry yield fall by half.

But after being sued by environmental groups, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation announced last week that new restrictions would be placed on fumigants, greatly limiting their use in order to clean up the amount of air pollution that fumigants create. Emissions from fumigants lead to smog, which is linked to chronic lung diseases.

In Ventura County, farmers will have to bring pollutants from fumigants to below 1991 standards, when there was a fraction of strawberries being grown compared to today. DPR has said that as many as 10,000 acres of strawberries one-third of the county's crop may not be fumigated, which to many farmers means that their crops are as good as dead.

Hopes for a compromise

Many are hoping that some middle ground can be reached before the new regulations take effect at the start of the year.

The California Strawberry Commission is arguing that basing decisions on 1991 data is bad science. They argue that the ruling does not take into consideration that new technology has lowered the amount of emissions.

"There are no alternatives that work as well as fumigants," said Doug Shaw, a strawberry breeder in UC Davis' Department of Plant Science.

He should know. For 20 years, he's been doing research on growing berries without fumigants.

"We are making progress, but there is not an immediate solution that is going to be acceptable," he said.

He's experimented with using clear tarps to cover strawberry patches so the soil gets superheated and helps the plants grow strong. But weeds grow strong, too, driving up labor costs because of weeding.

He's cross-pollinated strains of plants so they are more resistant to the fungi that destroy them, but the strains don't produce as much fruit as fumigated ones.

Stapleton said another option is soaking the soil, covering it with tarps and letting the sun cook it, killing all pests before planting. That would work well in the Central Valley, where the sun is more intense. But in a coastal, often foggy place like Ventura County, that's not an option.

Oleg Daugovish, an adviser with the UC Cooperative Extension in Ventura, said he's submitted a research proposal to the Strawberry Commission to investigate using anaerobic methods to essentially choke the soil of oxygen before planting.

Others are looking into injecting steam into the soil to kill off the bad pathogens, and some are studying using natural toxins found in mustard plant to combat diseases.

But Ajwa said most of the alternatives are too expensive to be viable on a large scale, and they are still years off from being implemented.

UC Davis agricultural economist Rachael Goodhue predicted that for Ventura County to meet the new state-proposed regulations, there would have to be 1.6 percent fewer acres of strawberries, which would result in a 13 percent reduction in yield. However, she estimated that the price of berries would rise 9.1 percent.

Bill Reiman has been growing strawberries all his life. He has 350 acres of strawberries and 60 acres of raspberries on the fertile Oxnard Plain.

Vehicle pollution cited

Farmers are too often blamed for environmental problems, he said. He said that the new regulations could cut air pollution by 3 percent, compared to the amount of air pollution vehicles create about 30 percent of the total.

Two years ago, he tried growing 60 acres of organic strawberries because they can fetch a price half again as high as chemically treated berries. But the farm has to grow the berries organically for three years before they can be sold under the organic label.

While he's hopeful that the organic plot will turn a nice profit, he doesn't think that it's viable on a large scale. The organic market fluctuates too much to be reliable and the yields can be half that of chemically treated berries.

Reiman believes that if fumigants are reduced, farmers will be forced during growing to rely on pesticides, which don't produce emissions. That would mean more chemicals on the fruit itself.

If he had his way, he'd still be able to use fumigants as he always had.

"The miracle drug is not going to come," he said. "I'm optimistic that somebody in the regulations side is going to realize that they can put us out of business."