Navel Orangeworm (NOW) continues to be a growing pest for almond, pistachio & walnut growers all over California. Last year was an especially difficult year, as there were growers that experienced significant crop loss who have historically not had issues with the pest before. Bob Klein with the Pistachio Research Board recently reported on a field trial they will be conducting utilizing sterile insect technology to minimize NOW populations in the orchard. Watch this video and read more about it in Pacific Nut Producer Magazine.
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At the recent Almond Board Conference in Sacramento, Bob Curtis shared a new tool growers have to control Aflatoxin levels in nut crops, other than just effective Navel Orangeworm management. Known as AF36, watch this brief interview with Bob, and read more about it in Pacific Nut Producer Magazine.
Tulare, Calif., (February 26, 2018) – The Kiwanis Club of Tulare will present its 58th Farmer of the Year award to Corky and Doug Anderson. The award luncheon will be held Tuesday, March 20, 2018 at 12:00 pm at the Heritage Complex in Tulare. Tickets are available for $25 in advance from Kiwanis Club members and various businesses in Tulare, tickets will be $30 at the door.
This year’s honorees are brothers, Corky and Doug Anderson. Corky and Doug were raised near Waukena, outside of Tulare where their father and grandfather were also farmers. At age 13, Corky and a cousin started hauling hay for local farms and by 14 his business was successful enough to put a payment down on a new car. Corky began doing specialty work in sugar beets, and then in cotton and grain. Doug also knew he was destined for the life a farmer, and wanted to be the third generation to farm their home place west of Tulare.
Corky moved to Orland for a time where he leased land and farmed row crops. He was a leader in the pistachio industry, creating a partnership in 1968 to form Pioneer Nursery, which specialized in selling pistachio rootstock they developed that was resistant to a devastating fungal disease called Verticillium wilt. The nursery was moved to Delano, and in 1982 Corky and his partner pioneered a new combination of rootstock naming it Pioneer Gold.
Corky has been a member of the Western Pistachio Association since its beginning in 1989, served as Vice-Chair and Secretary/Treasurer, and numerous committees. He has served on the California Pistachio Commission, and Marketing Chairman from 1984-1989. A tireless advocate for the industry on government relations, tariff and trade, marketing, public relations, board governance and leadership. He has been instrumental in fundraising for the Pistachio Political Action Committee, one of the most successful agricultural PACs.
Doug started farming full time in 1972, with his father Hank, who at the time had 3,000 acres of row crops in Lost Hills and 640 acres west of Tulare. Hank Anderson passed in 1980 and Doug took over the full operation, and brought his sister Debi and brother Corky into the picture in 1997 forming AMA Pistachio Farming and AMA Properties. Doug also co-founded Precision Ag Spraying. He served as a volunteer for the Waukena Fire Department for 10 years. He has volunteered for 20 years for the Hank Anderson Memorial Golf Tournament, which benefits local schools and hospitals.
In the 1990s Doug also acquired his real estate license, and established his own agency in 2005. He has been involved in APA, PGI, and WPA. In 2008 he along with other growers formed the Horizon Co-Op to market their pistachios. Doug is member of the downtown Tulare Association and a member of the Tulare Chamber of Commerce, Elks Lodge, and Roma Lodge. Doug also possesses a pilot’s license he acquired in 1976 and enjoys volunteering at the Farm Show from time to time and for his church.
Tickets are available at Farm Credit West, Garton Tractor and Machado Hay in Tulare. For information contact Celeste Moore, event chair at (559) 280-1481.
Davis, Calif., (February 23, 2018) – Hedgerows enhance wildlife abundance and diversity around farmland without contributing to food safety problems in field crops, according to a new study published by a team of University of California researchers. The UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and UC Davis study documented that field edge plantings around farms are generally too narrow relative to the surrounding landscape to be a source of rodents and foodborne pathogens.
“This study is particularly pertinent right now when FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is calling for farmers to co-manage wildlife and agriculture, instead of clear cutting wild habitat around their crops,” said co-author Rachael Long, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor in the Sacramento Valley. “Our paper provides support for this ruling, showing that the presence of hedgerows does increase wildlife diversity, but does not increase wildlife intrusion into the fields and, more importantly, does not increase the prevalence of animals carrying foodborne pathogens.”
This is good news for hedgerows, rows of shrubs, trees, grasses and flowers that are planted on field edges. The plants bordering crop fields provide habitat and floral resources for beneficial insects, such as bees and natural enemies, that help with pollination and biocontrol of pests in adjacent crops. Hedgerows also help enhance biodiversity – especially for insect-eating birds – help reduce wind and soil erosion, and protect water quality.
The two-year study in Sacramento Valley walnut orchards and processing tomato fields was led by Long and Roger Baldwin, UC Cooperative Extension vertebrate pest control specialist at UC Davis, former graduate student Laurel Sellers, the Western Center for Food Safety at UC Davis’s Michele Jay-Russell, Xunde Lib and Edward R. Atwill, and Richard M. Engeman of USDA National Wildlife Research Center.
The study, titled “Impact of field-edge habitat on mammalian wildlife abundance, distribution, and vectored foodborne pathogens in adjacent crops,” was published in the February 2018 Crop Protection (Sellers et al. 2018).
Elsevier is providing 50 days of free access to this article. Anyone clicking on the following link before March 31, 2018, will be taken directly to the article on ScienceDirect. No signup or registration or fees are required. Simply click and read at https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1WXU~xPFYej~4.
Winter migratory birds like to eat the lovely red berries of toyon.
This journal article supports a growing body of literature suggesting that plantings along the edge of fields do not substantially attract wildlife species that intrude on fields and transfer foodborne pathogens. For example, in a 2015 study, UC Davis researchers found more food pathogens when wildlife habitat was reduced on farms. This may be attributed to the vegetation filtering pathogens, a better breakdown of pathogens in diverse environments, and that removing vegetation may not deter wildlife from entering farm fields.
Relative to the larger crop acreage, hedgerows and similar field-edge habitats are generally too linear and small to serve as a significant source of rodents to damage nearby crops. However, cottontail rabbits favor hedgerows, and can sometimes cause damage to adjacent seedling crops.
“Overall, we found risk of crop loss or contamination of foodborne pathogens in crops bordered by hedgerows wasn’t significant in our study in the Sacramento Valley, although potential damage could vary by the sta ge and type of crop and wildlife species present,” Long said. She will be presenting this work at the 28th Vertebrate Pest Control Conference, which will be held in Rohnert Park Feb. 26 to March 1.
Hedgerows, the plants bordering this field of processing tomatoes, provide habitat and floral resources for beneficial insects that help pollinate crops and provide natural control of pests.
Sacramento, Calif., (February 22, 2018) – Interplanting existing prune orchards where established trees don’t fill their space is a long accepted practice to increase grower income while limiting costs compared to complete orchard removal and replanting. This is often done in older orchards either by interplanting down the existing tree row or changing the direction of the tree rows 45° and interplanting on the diagonal between two existing trees.
Cytospora Blight on Prune Tree
Research by Dr. Themis Michailides since 2016 has shown pruning wounds on young trees are especially vulnerable to infection by Cytospora, Botryosphaeria, and/or Lasiodiplodia fungi. These infections damage developing scaffolds, potentially limiting orchard productivity over time.
Growers should reconsider interplanting prunes – or at least how they treat interplanted trees — due to the risk of pruning wound infections. The primary source of the infections in interplanted trees are the mature trees in the orchard — often in decline themselves due to those same canker and wood rot diseases.
Pruning wound infections can be minimized by
1) pruning in late summer of spring with no rain in the forecast or
2) pruning during winter and spraying Topsin-M® or Topsin-M® + Rally® after pruning and before the next rain to protect the cuts from infection. Dr Michailides reports that Topsin-M® is especialy effective against Botryosphaeria. Adding Rally® could be helpful for resistance management.
With yield and net income limited by tree spacing that is too wide and/or tree health in some older blocks, growers must choose between interplanting and removal/replanting. While pruning wound infections can speed the rate of tree decline in interplanted orchards reducing grower returns.
By Franz Niederholzer, UCCE Farm Advisor, Colusa and Sutter/Yuba Counties.
Sacramento, Calif., (February 15, 2018) – Warm and sunny winter days are no cause for celebration among the farmers, ranchers and forest managers who rely on UC Agriculture and Natural Resources’ research-based information and expertise to make their work more profitable. Such is the feeling shared by UC Cooperative Extension advisor Dan Macon in his Foothill Agrarian blog. He began worrying more than a month ago about the spate of dry weather in the state.
“While I’m a worrier by nature, I think worrying about the weather is natural for anyone who relies on Mother Nature directly,” Macon wrote.
“He knows his subject and he writes well about it. I read every post, but his most recent piece about Old Man Reno, one of his farm dogs, really resonated with me. Read his blog every chance you get: it will make you feel better about life,” wrote Rose Hayden-Smith, the author of the UC Food Observer.
“There’s a lot of misunderstanding about alfalfa as a crop,” Michael said. “It does take water to grow it, as with anything, but you get multiple harvests of it every year.”
Videos two and three will be launched March 2 and April 6.
The UC Food Observer also recommended a blog produced by the CIWR’s Faith Kearns – The Confluence. She recently wrote about how California’s idea of “natural” beauty may have shifted during the drought.
Navel Orangeworm brought devastating levels of damage to many growers in the tree nut industry last year. At the annual Tree & Vine Expo, UC Farm Advisor Emily Symmes reviewed the cause of greater infestation in the 2017 season and what growers can do better moving into 2018. Watch this brief interview with Emily and read more on IPM in Emily’s upcoming Orchard Task list in the March issue of Pacific Nut Producer Magazine.
Modesto, Calif., (February 12, 2018) – As bloom season arrives, growers, pesticide applicators and beekeepers are reminded to utilize spray application best practices for the protection of bees. Below are important reminders.
Tips for beekeepers, growers and applicators:
Constant communication between the beekeeper, grower and applicator is crucial in ensuring the safety of bees during pesticide applications. Regardless of routine applications, hives may be repositioned without notice to nearby growers.
Prior to positioning hives for pollination, brokers/beekeepers are required to register their hive location(s) with the Fresno County Department of Agriculture. Optionally, a beekeeper may elect to receive notification that allows local growers and applicators to check for beehives within a one-mile radius of the orchard. Forms can be downloadedhere.
Before spraying pesticides that may be harmful to bees, growers/applicators must file a “Bee Clearance” request with the Fresno County Agricultural Commissioner’s office. The “Bee Clearance” request will be considered binding after the requested party receives a complete bee clearance response. Growers/applicators will be made aware of nearby hive locations and be provided with corresponding beekeeper contact information. Growers/applicators must notify beekeepers prior to pesticide applications. The “Bee Clearance” request form can be downloadedhere. Growers/applicators may also contact the Ag Commissioner’s office at 559-600-7510 for immediate assistance.
To be safe, growers/applicators should spay pesticides at night and as the label states to ensure chemical drying time prior to daylight/temperature when bees begin to forage. If this is not plausible, consider tarping the hives (with beekeeper’s permission) to keep bees inside until the chemical has dried.
If there is not enough bloom in your orchard or clean water to feed the number of bees present, make sure that the beekeeper feeds them so that they remain close to their hives. Bees will travel up to two miles if forced to find food. Nearby orchards, regardless of specie, will attract foraging bees.
Additionally, blooming weeds near or on the orchard floor will attract bees to forage. Growers/applicators should consider this prior to pesticide applications.
Lastly, growers/applicators should verify the contracted number of frames provided by beekeepers for a baseline strength of the hives upon arrival. This information is crucial to growers/applicators if contamination occurs.
For additional resources, visit the Almond Board of California’s “Honey Bee Best Management Practices for California Almonds” guidelines at www.almonds.com/pollination.
With almond bloom upon us, it’s time to think about our bloom and post-bloom sprays to manage brown rot and almond scab. Watch this video for some great tips and considerations from UC Farm Advisor Brent Holtz. Read more about it in the current issue of Pacific Nut Producer Magazine.
Oakland, Calif., (February 8, 2018) – Because periodic droughts will always be a part of life in California, the UC California Institute for Water Resources (CIWR) produced a series of videos to maintain drought awareness and planning, even in years when water is more abundant.
The videos are inspired by a collection of 19 drought tips produced by CIWR in collaboration with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources researchers during the drought of 2010-16. The tips cover a broad spectrum of California crops, from alfalfa to walnuts. Topics also include salt management, use of graywater in urban landscapes, and the use of shallow groundwater for crop production. Three topics – alfalfa, almonds and citrus – are featured in the three-episode CIWR video series.
The drought tips collection and the drought tip videos were sponsored by the California Department of Water Resources. Following is the schedule for the video releases:
Friday, Feb. 2: Drought strategies for alfalfa
UC Cooperative Extension alfalfa specialist Dan Putnam wrote the drought tip ‘Drought Strategies for Alfalfa,’ on which the first video in the series is based. The video is on the UCTV Sustainable California channel, http://www.uctv.tv/sustainable-cal/.
The CIWR drought tip series opens with Cannon Michael of Bowles Farming in Los Banos. The alfalfa grower works with UCCE specialist Dan Putnam. “There’s a lot of misunderstanding about alfalfa as a crop,” Michael said. “It does take water to grow it, as with anything, but you get multiple harvests of it every year.”
Friday, March 2: Drought management for California almonds
The second episode features almond producer Raj of Meena farms. He works with David Doll, UCCE advisor in Merced County. “One positive of this drought,” Meena said, “is that it has forced us all to be more efficient in how we use our water.”
Friday, April 6: Irrigating citrus with limited water
The series finale features Lisa Brenneis of Churchill-Brenneis Orchard in the Ojai Valley of Ventura County. She worked with UCCE advisor Ben Faber to install a new water-efficient irrigation system. “Irrigation is the only job we really have to do,” Brenneis said, “and we have to get it as right as we can.”
