As readers of this space already know, the utility of fall applied lime sulfur for controlling redberry mites in blackberries has been questioned.  Previous collaborative work has shown that 3-4 applications of Golden Pest Spray oil at a dilution of 1.2 – 2% volume to volume applied at the 50% green fruit stage in the spring is the most effective way to control this pest in blackberry.

This past year, the authors partnered to test the thesis that fall applied lime sulfur, with and without flowable sulfur, would not have an effect on total redberry mite infestation later on in the season.  The trial consisted of each treatment (no winter application, 15 gal/A lime sulfur applied twice, and 15 gal/A lime sulfur + 10 lb/A flowable sulfur applied twice) being replicated four times. In turn, each treatment replicate plot was composed of three side by side 250 foot long tunnels, with each tunnel covering three rows of blackberries (meaning each treatment replicate had nine rows of blackberries).

First application of 15 gal of lime sulfur and 15 gal of lime sulfur + 10 lbs wettable sulfur was made November 18, 2013 and the second application of the same was made January 17, 2014.   In the spring, two applications each were made of of wettable sulfur (12 lbs per acre) and Golden Pest Spray oil (1.5% to 2%).  All other crop and pest management procedures were made as necessary to the maintenance of the crop.

Starting June 29 and continuing weekly through the end of July for a total of six evaluations,   total number of marketable fruit and redberry mite fruit were counted in a four foot long section of each three tunnel replicate plot. Statistical evaluation was done as a percentage redberry mite infested fruit compared to total amount of fruit.

As the reader can see from the data presentation below, lime sulfur used either alone or lime sulfur applied with sulfur had no effect on redberry mite incidence in the field in this study.    While it is to be noted that this is a single trial run in a drought year, it nevertheless adds a good data set to the consideration of the question of the utility of fall sulfur applications for redberry mite.

None of the means of the percentages of redberry mite infested fruit differ significantly at the 5% level.

An online course highlighting how pesticide resistance develops among pests is now available on the UC IPM Web site. Created primarily for pest control advisors and other licensed pesticide applicators, this course describes the mechanisms of resistance in pathogens, insects, and weeds and discusses ways to manage resistance within the different disciplines.

The online course is divided into three narrated presentations followed by a final test for each section. This course has been approved for 2 continuing education units in the “Other” category from the Department of Pesticide Regulation.

This course is based on a series of workshops held in Davis, Fresno, and at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center during the spring of 2014 presented by Dr. Doug Gubler (Dept. of Plant Pathology, UC Davis.), Dr. Larry Godfrey (Dept. of Entomology and Nematology, UC Davis), Dr. Beth Grafton-Cardwell (Lindcove Research and Extension Center and UC Riverside), and Dr. Kassim All-Khatib (UC Statewide IPM Program).

I took the course with a colleague, and it was awesome.  Really glad to see it is now available online.

http://www.ipm.ucanr.edu/training/pesticide_resistance.html

Colleague Surendra Dara is holding his annual strawberry production research meeting this upcoming November 12 (Wednesday).  UCCE heavy hitters Steve Fennimore, Oleg Daugovish, Surendra Dara and myself will be joined by Strawberry Commission researcher Hillary Thomas and a representative from the Santa Barbara Agricultural Commissioner's office. 

Topics to covered will be discussions of fumigation alternatives, mites, lygus, vinegar flies and a demonstration of the smartphone app "IPMInfo".

Another major extension event put on by UCCE - don't miss it!

Just passed 1,000,000 visits to this blog last week.

I started this blog in 2008 as a way to enhance my extension work and better reach out to the strawberry and caneberry production community on the Central Coast. The regular Strawberry Commission Green Sheets were being sharply reduced, and extension newsletters would only come out every one or two months.  Even major industry problems would go unaddressed by any press for weeks and once something was written about them, not everybody could access the information since they were limited to mailing lists.  Beyond that, low possibility of doing the color photos so important for diagnostics and little facilitation for author and reader interaction really didn't help the usefulness of these media.

The industries I work for deserved far better, and by 2008 it was time to jump in and try something new. Seems like it worked.  

After one million visits and 240 posts, let me share a few thoughts on running a UCCE blog dedicated to berries:

Writing a blog is a good way to figure out how you think about a subject: When one writes for a demanding audience like all of you, getting an idea into an intelligible form means profoundly understanding your subject and so you do what it takes to get there.  Some of these posts you read take hours, even days, of time immersed in books, scientific literature and on the phone with knowledgeable people. It's worth it though, because this process has allowed us (yes, us) to answer some pretty difficult questions.

Writing constantly is a good way to become a better writer: Absolutely you become a better writer by spending so much time writing for an audience of your peers.  Thing is too for a blog you have to keep the writing tight and lean.  No one is going to spend an hour reading thoughts that could have been condensed down to something understood in far fewer words and far less time.

By the way, translating some of the more relevant pieces has not only made these available to Spanish speakers on the "Fresas y Moras" site, but I've gained a lot of language skills in the process. To give an example, I am probably at a PhD level in Spanish plant pathology for all the joint articles I've translated with colleague Steve Koike! 

Online publishing is a meritocracy: True that.  Bloggers gain readers by sheer quality of their work – not through family connections, big salaries or fancy titles at important sounding organizations.  Online readers don't give a hoot about any of those things - if you suck no is one is going to read your stuff and you are going to know it.  The days of packing off a report into the mail and not knowing (or caring) whether anybody reads it or not are over.

Curation and content: The job of a blogger isn't just to write articles, but it's also to collect and curate articles relevant to the subject.   You serve as a moderator, looking for quality articles and not letting the site get polluted with politically driven science or questionably researched material.   

In my case, I love to draw from the deep bench of quality scientists we have at the UC and UCCE; case in point is the recent article written by Margaret Lloyd and Tom Gordon from UC Davis on Verticillium and compost – deeply researched and vetted science presented by top scientists in a timely way to address what was perceived to be a major deal here.  

It's been a great experience for me to be writing this blog and the Spanish language one, and it seems from the amount of traffic these sites have been getting, you my readers are thinking along the same lines.  Thanks for all the reading and participation!