The public is invited to celebrate the legacy of pioneering farmer John Reid Wolfskill during the Aug. 26 Winters Horticultural Symposium, to be held at UC Davis’ Wolfskill orchard experiment station, once part of a Mexican land-grant ranch near Winters.

The symposium is presented by the Winters History Project.

The program will begin with a 10 a.m. tour of the university's historic and productive Wolfskill property at 4334 Putah Creek Road. Professor Ted De Jong, a pomologist and the station's director, will lead the tour, which organizers said also will take in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Clonal Germplasm Repository.

Lunch is planned at the Buckhorn Steak & Roadhouse in Winters, and an olive oil tasting will be led by Dan Flynn, director of the UC Davis Olive Center, which produces oil from the fruit of trees that John Wolfskill planted in the 1860s.

The symposium is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. at The Palms in the historic Winters Opera House, site of a UC Farmers Institute in 1897. That institute, in fact, inspired the 2009 symposium.

Speakers include historian Joann Larkey, discussing John Reid Wolfskill, who settled in the area in 1842 and planted the first commercial orchards and vineyards in the Sacramento Valley; and Karen Ross, president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers and a member of the state Board of Food and Agriculture, addressing the “Vision of California Agriculture in 2030.”

The program also includes area farmers and processors Russ Lester, Marty Mariani, Joe Martinez, Craig McNamara and Stan Tufts, whose grandfather was the first director of the Wolfskill station.

Other participants include Carolyn DeBuse, UC Cooperative Extension orchard systems farm adviser for Yolo and Solano counties; and, as moderator, Winters farmer Richard Rominger, former director of the state Department of Food and Agriculture and former deputy secretary of the USDA.

The day will conclude with a wine reception at the Winters Center for the Arts, where guests can view historic photos and artifacts.

The cost is $45 for the complete program (tour, lunch, symposium and wine reception) or $20 for the symposium and wine reception. Tickets are available online at  http://wintershorticulturalsymposium.eventbrite.com or may be reserved by mail sent in care of Woody Fridae, 112 Liwai Village Court, Winters, CA 95694 (with checks made payable to the Winters History Project).