Ojai Pixie Growers

Ojai Pixie Growers is a cooperative of nearly 40 family farms in the Ojai Valley, a narrow east-west valley about 12 miles inland from Ventura. The Pixie tangerine was developed at UC Riverside and released in 1965, dismissed at the time as a backyard tree because it takes years to bear, alternates heavy and light crops, and ripens long after the Christmas tangerine season. But the variety found its true home in Ojai, where the microclimate produces Pixies that are sweet, seedless, and easy to peel.

The first trees in the valley were planted as an experiment by grower Frank Noyes, who realized the fruit developed exceptional flavor here. His neighbor Elmer Friend, a longtime Dancy tangerine grower, began selling Ojai Pixies through his roadside stand. In the late 1970s Elmer's son-in-law Tony Thacher, along with Jim Churchill, Bob Davis, and Mike Shore, each planted several hundred Pixie trees and began pooling their fruit to market it together.

Today the cooperative includes orchards ranging from a few dozen trees to several thousand, all family-run, all harvested individually when the fruit hits its peak. Pixies ripen late, from March through April, after most other tangerines are gone. They make up less than one percent of California's tangerine crop.