California Ag Network

Tag: The California Department of Pesticide Regulation

  • Novel Strawberry IPM Tool Included in CA DPR Grant Funding

    The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) announced $1.78 million in Alliance Grants for five projects that aim to increase the speed and the scale at which safer, more sustainable pest management practices are adopted across the state. Each project will promote innovative Integrated Pest Management (IPM) systems and practices in agricultural, urban or wildland settings.

    “Alliance Grants directly support the department’s mission to foster methods and tools to reduce reliance on pesticides and their impact on human health and the environment,” said DPR Director Julie Henderson. “We are excited by the potential of these five projects and will continue to invest in projects that promote the development and use of safer, more sustainable pest management.”

    DPR’s Alliance Grants Program funds projects that promote IPM, an approach that uses the least-toxic, effective method to solve pest problems. Since 2007, DPR has awarded more than $7.8 million in Alliance Grants. The enhanced funds for the 2022 DPR Grants Programs cycle were allocated by the 2021-22 state budget and represent a more than five-fold increase in available funding opportunities compared to historical funding levels.

    Alliance Grants are awarded to groups of experts and partners, also referred to as Alliance Teams, who work collaboratively to accomplish the goals of a given project.

    Alliance projects funded for agricultural pest management:

    • Promoting IPM practices that incorporate natural-enemy habitat to control pest insects. This project’s Alliance Team will engage in outreach with producers and agricultural professionals through videos that feature producers and researchers, field days and webinars, which will include an online continuing education course for pesticide applicators. This project will be led by Jo Ann Baumgartner at Wild Farm Alliance, a local non-profit conservation group in Watsonville.
    • Promoting the adoption of UV-C light, a non-chemical control, by strawberry growers on California strawberry farms. This project’s Alliance Team will showcase UV-C light as an effective, non-chemical alternative to chemical pesticides for controlling mites, mildew and mold. This project will be led by Dr. John Lin at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

    Alliance projects funded for urban pest management:

    • Addressing management of Argentine ants, the most common nuisance ant for which pesticide treatments are applied in urban environments. The Alliance Team for this project is focused on the implementation and promotion of a low-impact IPM approach for pest management professionals that uses pheromone attractants during initial treatment visits and targeted chemical baiting for maintenance visits, to reduce reliance on repeated use of insecticide sprays. This project will be led by Dr. Dong-Hwan Choe at University of California, Riverside.
    • Home visits to provide IPM education and intervention to disadvantaged communities in South Los Angeles. To improve the health and well-being of South Los Angeles residents, this project’s Alliance Team will make home visits to each family that enrolls in the program. The team will assess housing conditions; provide IPM interventions, including caulking cracks and sealing large holes; and offer other IPM education on reducing pest infestations. This project will be led by Nancy Ibrahim at Esperanza Community Housing.

    Alliance projects funded for wildlands pest management:

    • Combining manual removal of invasive primrose with native plant restoration through a private property owner incentive program, and an AmeriCorps partnership that will provide education and outreach to the community. The Alliance Team for this project is focused on management of creeping water primrose, an invasive aquatic plant, that is usually controlled with chemical pesticides. This project’s combination of IPM methods will improve water quality, protect fish habitat and enhance flood protection and prevention, as well as create strong and sustainable natural vegetative wetland communities around the shores of Clear Lake, California. This project will be led by Angela De Palma-Dow at the Lake County Watershed Protection District.For details about past recipients of DPR’s Grants Programs, please visit our department’s Pest Management Grants webpage.

      ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF PESTICIDE REGULATION

      The California Department of Pesticide Regulation protects human health and the environment by fostering safer and sustainable pest management practices and operating a robust regulatory system to evaluate and register pesticides and monitor and regulate their sale and use across the state.

      DPR’s work includes conducting scientific evaluations of pesticides to assess and mitigate potential harm to human health and the environment prior to and following registration registering all pesticides prior to sale or use in California, monitoring for pesticides in the air and water, and enforcing pesticide laws and regulations in coordination with 55 County Agricultural Commissioners and their combined 400 field inspectors across the state’s 58 counties. DPR invests in innovative research, outreach, and education to encourage the development and adoption of integrated pest management tools and practices and conducts outreach to ensure pesticide workers, farmworkers and local communities have access to pesticide safety information.

  • CA to Hold Public Workshops on Statewide Pesticide Application Notification System

    The California Department of Pesticide Regulation will hold three public workshops on June 27, 28 and 29 to collect feedback to inform the next phase of design and development for the state’s pesticide application notification system.

    California will be the first state in the nation to develop a statewide system to provide the public more transparent and equitable access to information in advance of pesticide applications.

    The workshops will be hosted online via Zoom and facilitated by the UC Davis Center for Regional Change. Each workshop will follow the same format, including a brief overview of the proposed design for the statewide notification system and an opportunity for the public to provide input. The proposed system design has been informed by broad stakeholder feedback provided in public focus groups and webinars convened by DPR in 2021. The information collected during the workshops will further inform the design of the statewide notification system.

    The workshops will be held at the following times:

    Monday, June 27: 1-3 p.m.
    Tuesday, June 28: 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
    Wednesday, June 29: 6-8 p.m.

    Registration is not required to attend. Spanish interpretation will be provided at all workshops. A copy of materials presented during the workshops will be made available on DPR’s website following the workshops.

    DPR began developing the statewide notification system in mid-2021, after the state budget allocated $10 million to DPR for system development.

    DPR has partnered with four County Agricultural Commissioners to launch pilot projects to inform the department’s development of the statewide system. These county-led pilot projects have launched in communities within Riverside, Stanislaus and Ventura counties. The Santa Cruz community pilot will launch this summer. The UC Davis Center for Regional Change will conduct independent evaluations of the pilot programs.

    For more information and updates on statewide notification, please visit DPR’s website.

    ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF PESTICIDE REGULATION

    The California Department of Pesticide Regulation protects human health and the environment by fostering safer and sustainable pest management practices and operating a robust regulatory system to evaluate and register pesticides and monitor and regulate their sale and use across the state.

    DPR’s work includes conducting scientific evaluations of pesticides to assess and mitigate potential harm to human health and the environment prior to and following registration, registering all pesticides prior to sale or use in California, monitoring for pesticides in the air and water, and enforcing pesticide laws and regulations in coordination with 55 County Agricultural Commissioners and their combined 400 field inspectors across the state’s 58 counties. DPR invests in innovative research, outreach, and education to encourage the development and adoption of integrated pest management tools and practices and conducts outreach to ensure pesticide workers, farmworkers and local communities have access to pesticide safety information.

  • Mating Disruption Research to Combat Spotted Lanternfly Included in CDPR’s $3.75 Million Investment

    The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) today awarded $3.75 million to fund 10 research projects that explore Integrated Pest Management (IPM) tools for urban, non-agricultural and agricultural pest management. The 2021-2022 DPR Grants Programs funded by the state budget represent a 617% increase from the previous year’s funding to accelerate the transition to safer, more sustainable pest management.

    “The grant projects we are funding today are critical to developing and expanding innovative practices and biological, non-chemical and physical tools to manage pests in agriculture, urban and other non-agricultural communities,” said DPR Director Julie Henderson. “The research will support the state’s work to accelerate a systemwide transition to safer, more sustainable pest management and better protect human health and the environment.”

    DPR’s Research Grants Program funds projects that advance IPM, an approach that uses the least-toxic, effective method to solve pest problems. In the last decade, DPR has awarded $9,702,819 in research grants.

    Research projects funded for agricultural pest management:

    • Investigating a pesticide-free mating disruption approach using vibrational signals to control the spotted lanternfly, which presents particular risk to grapes, hops, apples and stone fruit, along with maple, poplar, walnut and willow trees. Spotted lanternfly is one of the most damaging invasive insects nationwide and has already caused significant harm to crops and landscapes across 11 states. This research will be led by Dr. Rodrigo Krugner at the United States Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service (USDA ARS).

    • Evaluating an IPM approach that will disrupt insect behavior by targeting and interfering with a pest’s biological processes and minimizing possible unintended effects to other organisms. The project will evaluate the use of this tool for controlling diamondback moth and western flower thrips that impact California vegetable crops such as lettuce. This research will be led by Dr. Daniel Hasegawa at USDA ARS.

    • Assessing a biocontrol system for the management of tadpole shrimp in rice. Tadpole shrimp usefully eat some early season weeds but can cause damage to rice later in their lifecycle. To preserve their role in controlling weeds but diminish the shrimp’s later impact on the rice harvest, predator mosquito fish will be introduced mid-season to control the shrimp’s population when necessary. This research will be led by Dr. Ian Grettenberger at UC Davis.

    • Testing two emerging IPM technologies for agricultural use, the automatic release of biocontrol organisms using flying drones, and precision spray application technology, which uses much less pesticide than applying pesticide sprays using current techniques. This research will be led by Dr. Ian Grettenberger at UC Davis.

    • Developing an IPM software decision-making tool for pistachio growers that helps reduce pesticide use by guiding more precise pesticide applications when chemical use is necessary. This IPM tool leverages smart technology to help growers transition from routine preventative spraying to more limited threshold-based chemical use. This research will be led by Dr. Themis Michailides at UC Davis.

    Research projects funded for urban and agriculture pest management:

      • Studying the use of a reduced-risk ”attract-and-kill” approach as an effective alternative to urban and agricultural pesticide spray programs for managing South American palm weevils, a pest that damages date palms in urban and agricultural environments. “Attract-and-kill” strategies use pheromones that attract the target pest to a small amount of pesticide that kills the insect, as opposed to spraying a large quantity of pesticide over an area to control pest populations. This research will be led by Dr. Mark Hoddle at UC Riverside.

      • Studying the impact and potential of using insect growth regulators that target Argentine ants for pest control in urban and agricultural environments. Insect growth regulators are new, safer pest management tools that pose a much lower risk of causing unintended damage to beneficial insects when compared to many traditional insecticides. This research will be led by Dr. Dong-Hwan Choe at UC Riverside.

    Research projects funded for urban and nonagricultural pest management:

    • Testing non-chemical entrapment methods for trapping, monitoring and eliminating bedbugs, a significant public health pest that disproportionately affects low-income Californians. This research will be led by Dr.Catherine Loudon at UC Irvine.

    • Creating a new set of guidelines for effectively identifying and managing biting mites, a common, but poorly understood indoor pest that is often misidentified and incorrectly managed. This research will be led Dr. Andrew Sutherland at UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UCANR).

    • Assessing a baiting system for detecting western drywood termites to reduce the number of unnecessary fumigation treatments in California homes, especially in Southern California where termites represent a significant pest problem. This system would indicate when active termite infestations have returned and if preventative treatment is needed, greatly decreasing the amount of high-risk pesticide use in homes. This research will be led by Dr. Dong-Hwan Choe at UC Riverside.

      For more information on past recipients of DPR’s Grants Program, please visit DPR’s Grants Program webpage.

      ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF PESTICIDE REGULATION

      The California Department of Pesticide Regulation protects human health and the environment by fostering safer and sustainable pest management practices and operating a robust regulatory system to evaluate and register pesticides and monitor and regulate their sale and use across the state.

      DPR’s work includes conducting scientific evaluations of pesticides to assess and mitigate potential harm to human health or the environment prior to and following registration, registering all pesticides prior to sale or use in California, monitoring for pesticides in the air and water, and enforcing pesticide laws and regulations in coordination with 55 County Agricultural Commissioners and their combined 400 field inspectors across the state’s 58 counties. DPR invests in innovative research, outreach, and education to encourage the development and adoption of integrated pest management tools and practices and conducts outreach to ensure pesticide workers, farmworkers and local communities have access to pesticide safety information. More information about DPR.

  • DPR Proposes Regulatory Restrictions on the Use of Neonicotinoids to Protect Bees

    In an effort to reduce risks to bees, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation filed an official notice of formal rulemaking as a first step in the regulatory process to limit how and when neonicotinoids can be used in agricultural settings.

    Neonicotinoids are a group of insecticides that are widely used as an alternative to chlorpyrifos, which DPR ended virtually all use of in 2020. At certain levels of exposure, neonicotinoids present risks to pollinators. DPR’s proposed regulations are based on extensive scientific studies and would create new requirements and restrictions for the use of neonicotinoid products containing any of four active ingredients: imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, clothianidin and dinotefuran. DPR estimates the regulations will impact 57 products currently registered in California and will reduce the amount of neonicotinoids applied across the state by approximately 45%.

    The regulations include tiered restrictions based on the chemical used, the type of crop and the time of year the neonicotinoid is applied in order to protect pollinator health. For example, applications to certain flowering plants that are attractive to bees would be prohibited when the plants are in bloom and when bees may be foraging. The regulations also set limits on applications of multiple neonicotinoids and what application methods may be used by growers. They also include an exemption for quarantine pests to provide the option, if necessary, to treat pests that can severely damage crops and food supply chains. The regulations address both risks to bees and ensures the protection of pollinators critical to growers and the agricultural sector.

    “DPR evaluates pesticides on an ongoing basis using the best available science and data to mitigate adverse impacts on ecosystems and the environment,” said DPR Director Julie Henderson. “Our neonicotinoid reevaluation led to the significant advance in pollinator protection reflected in our proposed regulation.”

    The department began re-evaluating imidacloprid and the related neonicotinoids, thiamethoxam, clothianidin and dinotefuran in 2009. DPR completed its scientific review in July 2018, publishing the California Neonicotinoid Risk Determination, and began development of control measures necessary to protect pollinator health. The department’s development of draft regulations included a pair of initial public webinars and a public comment period in 2020. The formal rulemaking process initiated by DPR today will include the opportunity for the public to submit written comments on the proposed regulations. For more information, see DPR’s Neonicotinoid Reevaluation webpage.

    “Our continuous evaluation of pesticides plays a critical role in accelerating a transition to safer, more sustainable pest management that protects the health of our communities, our pollinators and the environment as a whole,” said Henderson.

    As part of its regulatory mandate, DPR evaluates pesticide products for potential human health and environmental effects before they can be registered for legal sale and use in California. Prior to DPR review, pesticide products are evaluated and registered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA).  U.S. EPA’s and DPR’s registration review and required pesticide label instructions – including application instructions and personal protective equipment requirements – are designed to mitigate potential risks to human health and the environment.

    DPR’s registration process includes the review of extensive scientific studies on human health and environmental impacts, safety and efficacy. After pesticide products have gone through this process and are registered, DPR also carries out a continuous evaluation process for pesticides following registration to take into account evolving scientific understanding. This continuous evaluation process can include formal reevaluation of pesticides and mitigation measures, as in the case of the neonicotinoids that are the subject of the department’s proposed regulation, conducting exposure studies, conducting human health risk assessments, monitoring air and water for pesticides, and investigating information that indicates a pesticide may have caused an adverse effect on human health or the environment. Pesticides currently undergoing DPR’s re-evaluation process are listed on the department’s website and the results inform state-specific restrictions, mitigation measures or conditions for use.

    ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF PESTICIDE REGULATION

    The California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s mission is to protect human health and the environment by fostering safer and sustainable pest management practices and operating a robust regulatory system to monitor and regulate the sale and use of pesticides across the state.

    DPR’s work includes conducting scientific evaluation of pesticides to assess and mitigate potential harm to human health or the environment prior to and following registration, registering all pesticides prior to sale or use in California, monitoring for pesticides in the air and water, and enforcing pesticide laws and regulations in coordination with 55 County Agricultural Commissioners and their 400 field inspectors. DPR invests in innovative research to encourage the development and adoption of integrated pest management tools and practices and conducts outreach to ensure pesticide workers, farmworkers and local communities have access to pesticide safety information. More information about DPR can be found at www.cdpr.ca.gov.