Media: Revista L’Agrària
Original title: El legado de Vicente Todolí: un huerto botánico de cítricos para la ciencia y los valencianos
Author: Vicent Llorens
Date: Marzo 2025
The legacy of Vicente Todolí: a botanical citrus orchard for science and the Valencian people
World-renowned as a museum director and artistic advisor, this Valencian from La Safor shows with this magnificent project, an intimate and personal work, that he is also passionate about citriculture, its study and dissemination, and an energetic guardian of the threatened landscape of the Huerta.
From the wooden viewpoint that rises above the thicket of the orchard, in the Bartolí area, the steep horizon of the Grossa, Ador and La Safor mountain ranges can be seen to the west. On this side, the mountains close off the plain that contains the whole of the Gandia market garden, open on the other side to the humid Mediterranean wind. Here, the rocky enclosure and the immediacy of the sea have created an ideal microclimate for the cultivation of orange trees, ‘similar to that of the Conca d’Oro in Palermo and the Costa dei Cyclopi in Catania’. And here, to his village and his orchard, Vicente Todolí returns whenever he can, one of those people capable of making these corners of the world so small; a world where, from Palmera itself or any other place, Okinawa, Milan or New York are just a stone’s throw away.
He returns because in Palmera he has his roots, sunk for generations in these orange groves, and an intimate project, his inheritance: a five-hectare orchard, the same size as the Boboli Garden in Florence, where the Medici also collected orange trees, which brings together half a thousand varieties of citrus fruits from all over the world. Todolí, whose dedication to cultural management and contemporary art has brought him international recognition, director of museums such as the Valencian Institute of Modern Art (IVAM), the Serralves Museum in Oporto and the Tate Modern in London, has transferred his artistic restlessness to this botanical collection. Reluctant to collect works of art, he is nonetheless keen to add new trees to this botanical orchard. Citrus fruits are also art,‘ he warns, ’because, like art, plants are a testimony to civilisation. Each of the varieties we grow in the orchard is associated with a culture, a place, a way of understanding the world”.
AGAINST LAND ABANDONMENT AND PREDATORY URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Since 2012, this personal legacy has taken the form of a foundation, the Todolí Citrus Fundació, an institution that grows year after year, without haste, in its aim to ‘fight against the abandonment of cultivated land, to protect this ancestral landscape, a way of life; to conserve, research and disseminate citrus diversity’. Todolí, who since then has devoted half a day to art and the other half to citriculture, explains where the idea came from: “I was thinking of growing citrus fruits of different varieties in a small orchard of three hectares that I bought with that intention and where my father had already grafted and planted some trees; but the project became more ambitious when I found out that there was a plan to urbanise every last corner of orchard that was left in the municipality. A thirty-metre wide road was going to run through here,‘ he points to the gate overlooking the old Palmera road, ’and the population was going to triple. So I set out to fight against this predatory urban planning and to acquire the plots that the neighbours wanted to sell me, starting with some plots that belonged to my brother. And so on, until today”.
In this fight against the destruction of the landscape, they have been testing their own varieties for some time, hybridisations that ‘nobody would think of doing’, thinking that maybe one day the experiment will bear fruit, never better said: to make these small plots profitable, thinking of the formula of ‘micro-production for the micro-market’, to combat neglect and abandonment through basic cooperativism.
Óscar Olivares Fuster, technical director of the foundation, reminds him that there is also another milestone in the gestation of the idea. It has to do with his friendship with the chef Ferran Adrià, with whom he shares past and present projects, a passion for gastronomy, and a way of speaking in a rapid-fire way, typical of enthusiastic, boiling brains. It was on a trip we both made to Perpignan,‘ Todolí admits, ’to visit some nurseries specialising in potted citrus fruits. I didn’t understand why it was necessary to go to France for this, and he challenged me to do it in Palmera and to become his supplier. Fes-ho tu” (do it yourself), he told me. And that’s how the idea of growing fifty historic varieties came about”.
It is not only Adrià, through Bullipedia, who has shown interest in disseminating the importance of citrus fruits in gastronomy. The Valencian chefs Quique Dacosta, who is planning to publish a monographic book, Ricard Camarena and Luis Valls, who offers a couple of menus in which he incorporates citrus fruits from the Bartolí, have also paid attention to the role of citrus fruits in cooking and have contributed to spreading the word about the foundation’s work. Perhaps for this reason, every year groups of chefs from England, Italy… ‘Almost never from Spain’, however.
CITRICULTURE FOR EVERYTHING
Antes de dejarnos con Óscar, su mano derecha en este proyecto, Todolí habla y habla como un agrónomo, como un botánico, un filósofo. Lo hace
Before leaving us with Óscar, his right-hand man in this project, Todolí talks and talks like an agronomist, a botanist, a philosopher. He does so passionately, without order, alluding to this and that: to the recovery of extinct orange trees and hybridisation tests; to the acquisition of exotic varieties and the bureaucratic difficulties in importing them; to the need to incorporate plants adapted to drought? Beyond the mere food use, he highlights his interest in the multiple applications of citrus fruits, from industry to gastronomy. He refers to the proven anti-tumour properties of the albedo of the Buddha’s hand. He suggests the existence of a plant intelligence, citing Stefano Mancuso and Emanuele Coccia. And he explains the use of ground lupin to counteract the alkalinity of the soil in Renaissance gardens. He also explains how in Japan they use the powder of scallop shells cooked at high temperatures and ground to prolong the greenness of sudachis. He talks about collaborations with the IVIA and other research centres and universities: studies on the biological activity of citron essential oils, on the sensory evolution of citrus caviar and on the application of ozone in agriculture, for example. He talks about organic citriculture, citing pests such as cotonet, the fly and Scirtothrips aurantii, ‘eixe fill de puta’, he curses, which has also appeared in Palmera, and the HLB tolerance of some Australian citrus seedlings and their potential hybridisation with local varieties to combat the disease. He even mentions the rare genetics of some orange trees, such as the bizarro, capable of bearing both typical and citron fruit.
He still has time to show us the botanical library, the collection of original engravings of some of the main treatises on citriculture, such as those by Risso and Poiteau, Ferrari and Volkamer, and a museum of citrus products, from Italy, Spain – the lesser ones, such as ‘the Trinaranjus they made here a thousand years ago and so on’ – and above all from Japan, ‘where they adore citrus fruits and where, as a token of gratitude, they don’t give you champagne or wine or sake, but a citrus fruit’. The variety of Japanese products that incorporate citrus fruits in their production is surprising. He also accompanies us to the gastronomic laboratory, where he shows us some paintings by Antoni Miralda, a series of seven citrus fruits photographed and printed on silk paper, like the one used in the past to wrap oranges; thin crumpled sheets, reopened and framed. The foundation’s connection with contemporary art is evident, and logical, and part of its patrimony is made up of works donated by such renowned artists as Carmen Calvo, Maurizio Cattelan, Attilio Maranzano, Cildo Meireles, Jorge Peris, among many others. Also in the laboratory, an artisan producer of gin, who uses the peel of four varieties of these citrus fruits to make it, is peeling lemons from Borneo and putting the peels in a dehydrator.
Todolí bids him and us farewell, but not before summarizing his purpose: “We want people to do with citrus fruits whatever they want; it’s not about us doing it. And to that end, all of this is at your disposal. We are open to all types of collaborations that help us create, share, and disseminate knowledge about citrus fruits in their many aspects: agricultural, environmental, industrial, historical, culinary… Whoever is interested, please come.” Anyone interested can use the classroom, the library, the laboratory, and the entire orchard. All you have to do is ring the bell.
THE VISIT
Todolí leaves, accompanied by a friend from the country who is helping him search for new plots to purchase, and Olivares guides us on a tour of the orchard, one of the largest private collections of citrus fruits in the world, constantly growing. This orchard is the center of operations for the foundation. It functions as a genetic bank and as a space for experimentation and learning.
The visit, attended by groups of diverse backgrounds, involves all five senses. It’s winter, and the air is perfumed with the blend of so many different fruits: bergamot, bitter mandarin, Australian desert lime… We hear the murmur of water from the fountains, the crowing of the rooster, and the call of the blackbird. And also, in the background, the muixeranga, announcing the reading of a municipal announcement over the PA system in the village. We contemplate the trees, which “are like canvases, where the fruits represent the works of art,” suggests Olivares. We taste the citrus caviar and wash our hands with a type of papeda that cleans like soap.
The diversity of species and varieties is enormous, and the technical director of the foundation emphasizes the importance of their historical evolution, their presence and adaptation to different regions of the world. On the website, a section brings together all of them organized by varietal group: citrons, mandarins, pummelos, lemons, limes, bitter and sweet oranges, pomelos, kumquats, papedas… Each one has its own file, which describes its history, characteristics, and uses.
Thus, from the beginning, Todolí also planned the structure of the garden, with terraces of varietal groups, 13 in total. There are four or five specimens of each variety. Each hedge, each row of trees, each plot reflects the founder’s artistic sensibility. Visits to this organic museum of living works—so living that in many cases they are pruned only out of necessity, due to the demands of the planting framework—begin on All Saints’ Day, November 1, and continue until the end of April, a period determined by the presence of fruit. Some Australian and Japanese varieties, including satsumas, already bear fruit in early autumn, but it’s not until November that the orchard begins to show its full splendor: first the mandarins, then the navels, the grapefruits and pummelos, the citrons, the lemons… The season closes well into spring with the white Valencia varieties, which, along with those that flower twice, such as some lemons and citrons, are the latest in fruit production.
AT THE DISPOSAL OF SCIENCE
During the tour of the orchard, Óscar Olivares echoes what Vicente Todolí explained. “Our goal is to make the collection freely available to the scientific community,” he asserts. He emphasizes that the foundation’s main objective is to “preserve, share, and disseminate citrus diversity,” and explains that to this end, they collaborate closely with the Valencian Institute of Agricultural Research (IVIA), through an agreement, on the cataloging and conservation of varieties and crop improvement. “We have a very close and active relationship with the IVIA Germplasm Bank,” he explains, “on the one hand, sharing varieties reciprocally, and on the other, collaborating in the development of classic hybrids.”
Olivares highlights the participation of the Todolí Citrus Foundation in an important international research project, in which the IVIA and the UPV are also collaborating, focused on the search for resistance and tolerance to HLB disease, the most serious threat facing citrus fruits worldwide. “Our presence responds precisely to the exclusivity of the germplasm we have, which allows us to test specific hybridizations and test possible resistance to the bacteria that cause it.” In this contribution to scientific research, this biologist mentions a study led by the UPV focused on determining how, over the course of an annual campaign, weather and other growing conditions determine the flowering of different varieties. “It’s a very interesting project, and this orchard is the perfect place to carry it out,” he explains, “since all the citrus varietal groups are represented here in the same place and under the same circumstances.”
THE OLD BITTER ORANGE TREE
“And this is pure agronomic archaeology!” exclaims Óscar upon arriving at an old bitter orange tree, one of those almost a hundred years old, grafted throughout its life with some now-extinct Valencia, clementine, and blood orange varieties. “The bitter orange tree would be the best rootstock if it weren’t for its sensitivity to tristeza, which is why it’s rarely used anymore.” It is a true work of art. Its stem is bare, its roots exposed, and the taproot amputated to prevent soil-borne fungi, which cause many diseases, from climbing up. This task of aerating the roots is called “descorcar” in Valencian, and there doesn’t seem to be an easy translation into Spanish. Óscar explains that descorcat ensures the longevity of the tree and allows new plants to sprout from the original stem. In this way, it is possible to recover old varieties that, beyond their heritage value, can be beneficial. In this case, for example, to make jam. Todolí has wanted at all costs to preserve the few trees, like this one, that remained alive in the terraces it has acquired.
The tour continues to the viewpoint overlooking the entire orchard and from which you can see the aviary designed by Carsten Höller, an artistic yet functional installation where goldfinches, serins, and other native songbird species from the wild are acclimatized for release. Here our visit ends, and Óscar concludes: “It is in the foundation’s deeds that all this is now the heritage of the Valencian people. For now, it is managed and supported by Vicente and the foundation’s own activities, through the sale of products, guided tours, the publication of specialized books, and donations through the Friends of the Foundation program. But, in the future, when he is no longer here, its safekeeping must belong to all Valencians.” And, of course, its enjoyment.
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