Greenhouses

On a coastal plain near Camarillo not far from a U.S. Navy base and an outlet mall, the future of California farming is taking shape. Rising out of verdant acres of strawberries and artichokes between Highway 101 and the Pacific Ocean in Ventura County are two mammoth, high-tech greenhouses. Climate change is a serious threat to California's $36-billion agricultural economy.

Re "Garden-Variety Vaccines May be Edible Alternative" [April 25]: I don't understand why scientists continue to engineer food plants to make edible vaccines. They've abandoned their original plan -- to provide the vaccines in a whole food like a tomato or banana -- because doses can't be controlled. Why don't they use nontoxic, nonfood plants instead? The danger remains too great that these potatoes, spinach, etc., will enter the food supply or be planted by curious farmers, hybridizing with food crops.

Farmers from the Jewish settlements of the Gaza Strip signed an agreement Friday to sell most of their greenhouses to a private international fund, which in turn will hand them over to the Palestinian Authority. The deal, reached just days before the Israeli evacuation of the 21 settlements in Gaza is to begin, is aimed at preserving the settlements' primary agricultural asset for Palestinian use.

Palestinian looters took irrigation hoses, pumps and plastic sheeting from dozens of greenhouses Tuesday, a month after Jewish American donors bought more than 3,000 of the structures from Israeli settlers and transferred them to the Palestinian Authority. Police commanders complained that they did not have enough manpower to protect the prized equipment in several abandoned settlements. In some instances, police joined the looters, witnesses said. "We need at least another 70 soldiers.

Re "Palestinians in Gaza Loot Greenhouse Equipment," Sept. 14 Jewish American donors contribute $14 million to enable greenhouses to remain so they could be used for thousands of jobs to benefit Palestinians. We who would want to help Palestinians will not succeed until Palestinians want to help themselves more than they want to hurt Israel. Even the synagogues that were torched by them could have been used for helpful purposes. We would want their religious leaders to teach them how they can help themselves to improve their lives.

ON the face of it, the Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Science is merely spectacular, one of perhaps 100 vaulting glasshouses open to the public across the country. But step inside after it opens Friday at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, and the munchkin-level potting sinks signal what makes it unique. This 16,000-square-foot conservatory is, as far as its founders know and as far as the director of the American Assn.

It is considered an oasis amid the urban sprawl of South-Central Los Angeles: The Garden Project, an acre of fruit trees, vegetables, climbing roses and a greenhouse at 79th Street and Towne Avenue. Two weeks ago, the greenhouse was vandalized, sending a wave of anger throughout the neighborhood where senior citizens and high school students worked side by side planting a community garden.

The space shuttle Columbia soared through a brilliant blue sky Friday with a crew of seven astronauts who are scheduled to set as many as 200 fires in orbit to observe how flames spread in weightlessness. "Enjoy your on-orbit spring break," launch control told the crew before liftoff. Thirty-three laboratory experiments are planned for the 16-day mission, all of them considered prerequisites for the future international space station.