Meet Our Blog Writer

Dr. Larry Pierce

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” was never a hard question to answer for Dr. Larry Pierce, our Director of Celery Research and Seed Operations. Both his father and grandfather were involved with agricultural research at the university level.Larry was deeply influenced by their work in training and assisting farmers and made the decision to follow in their footsteps at an early age.

With the help of his family, he opened a small roadside market near his home in Northern New York when he was still in grade school. By college, he had expanded his farm stand into a thriving wholesale and retail market and had become interested in vegetable varieties and production research. His local 4-H program helped him turn his research into functional projects that eventually caught the attention of the admissions committee for the world’s top-ranked agricultural institution at the time: Cornell University. After receiving his Bachelor of Science from Cornell,Larry went on to earn his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University, which also remains one of the top five agricultural institutions in the world.

For the past 25 years,Larry has put his considerable skill and knowledge to work improving the taste, color, texture, and quality of Duda Fresh’s celery. A world-renowned celery expert,& Larry ensures our varieties are the best on the market, which results in increased consumer interest and consumption of the vegetable. In his efforts to find the best tasting and highest quality varieties,Larry creates and evaluates thousands of new celery lines each year, of which 28 have received either patents or plant variety protection grants, an extremely rewarding feat.

Currently, nine more of his vegetable varieties and products are in the process of being patented. Like his father and grandfather before him, much of Larry’s time is spent traveling between farming locations providing support to farmers.

When he is not collaborating with farmers or gathering and recording data in our research greenhouses and state-of-the-art labs,Larry enjoys the equally creative and hands-on activities of woodworking and home improvement projects. He and his wife, Vicki, are faithful members of St. Ansgar’s Lutheran Church in Salinas, and Larrycredits his personal and professional success to the Lord. In addition to the approval of his most recent patents, he and his wife are looking forward to celebrating 29 years of wedded bliss later this year.