- Author: Ben Faber
People rise to the occasion all the time. Mike Shore was a good farmer who helped other farmers. If you had cherimoyas or sapotes or Meyer lemons from a small farm and didnt know how to pack and market them, he would jump in and do the work. He knew how to deal with small volume, unusual crops through his Shore Packing in Santa Paula. It was an art and pure connections. He was also a Pixie mandarin/tangerine grower and helped to build that varieties prominence. He will be missed.
Frederick Michael Shore, “Mike” passed away after a brief illness on July 1, 2021. in Ventura.
Farming was his occupation and travelling, hiking, woodworking, stone cutting, and gourd art were his avocation.
Mike was born in Ventura, July 20, 1938, to Frederick Alfred Shore and Wilda Kathleen Workman Shore. He was an alumnus of Thacher School and Claremont Men's College. Drafted into the Army in 1961, he spent 2 years serving with the Transportation Corps in La Rochelle, France, where he met and married his wife, Mary Frances Matlock. They celebrated 58 years of marriage.
Mike and the family farmed in Santa Paula and Ojai, and packed specialty fruit in Santa Paula. Always willing to try something new, he grew the orchards using both conventional and organic practices. Mike especially enjoyed selling fruit at the Ventura Certified Farmers Market and interacting with the customers. All the farming activities would not have been possible without the able help of the farm workers.
Shortly after moving to Santa Paula he joined the Young Farmers and Ranchers of Ventura County. That association led to him serving on several Farm related Boards and he was a founding member of the Ojai Valley Pixie Growers Association. Mike also served on the boards of the Santa Clara Valley School, Santa Paula Historical Society, and Santa Paula Art Museum. He was a member of Santa Paula Rotary Club and St. Sebastian Parish.
Most of his married life was lived in Santa Paula where he and Mary raised their four children. Retiring from full time farming in 2009, he spent 11 years as a part time resident of Mammoth Lakes, CA. There he actively participated in the Range of Light Group, Mono Lake Volunteers, Mammoth Chorus and Mammoth Lakes Repertory Theater. He greatly enjoyed being part of the cast in the “Fidler on the Roof” Mammoth production.
Whether he was at the beach or In the Sierra, he observed the birds, flora, fauna, pressed flowers and made bird lists. Many good times were had at the Courtright Lake cabin that was built for family and friends to enjoy and experience the beautiful California Sierra.
In all the stages of his life, he valued the friends and relatives that were with him on his life journey.
Mike is survived by his wife, Mary, children Mark (Diane), Ben, Kathleen (Morgan) Peter and Grandchildren Nicholas Shore, Nathaniel Shore, Malakai Lyons-Shore, Finley Lyons-Shore, Lucy Lyons- Shore.
His final weeks were spent in the Ventura County Medical Center where he was grateful for the fine care the doctors and nurses gave him.
- Author: Ben Faber
If you missed the recent UC/CAS/CAC grower meeting on cooling avocado trees or just want to review the enormous amount of information or just want to wander other grower's orchards, Here is the video of the presentations:
Mitigating Heat
- Author: Ben Faber
This article was first posted in July of 2020 when it wasn't clear what this leaf roller/leaf miner was going to do. In the last couple of weeks I have heard from two PCAs from Ventura saying that they are having to spray for it. So, it is back and it is probabl6y going to hang around for a while. It does not seem to feed on fruit. It causes damage to leaves but it doesn't seem to be significant on mature trees. On a newly planted tree, it can defoliate it, so it should not be neglected. Read the history below.
A new pest for avocado? Old pest? How much damage will it do? Don't know yet.
Tracy Ellis, the San Diego County Ag Commissioner Entomologist has partially identified what appeared to be two pest and a parasitoid, as only one pest and a beneficial that is doing it's duty going after the pest.
The insect determination has come back for both larvae (one a leaf miner and one a leaf roller) as the same insect! It has been determined to be C-rated gracillariid miner Caloptilia sp. (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) at this time. An image of the adult moth is not yet available.
Apparently, the larval stage transitions from a miner to a roller, in what's called hyper-metamorphosis. Starting as a miner and abandoning the mine to roll the leaf. CDFA scientist Marc Epstein is taking a closer look at this insect . Marc does not know if it is a local insect that adapted to avocados or is an import, as many in this family have not been studied or sequenced.
The leaf roller/folder has appeared down in San Diego and Santa Barbara. It's not clear whether it will be a pest of the fruit at this time.
The results for the parasite came back as Hymenoptera. That too needs greater study.
Above is a photo of both insect stages. They can be found together in the same habitat.
The damage from the leaf miner generally looks like this
And miner looks like this
The damage from the leafroller looks like this:
Larval leafroller with the parasite on it.
And the parasite , once it grows up from being a maggot, looks like this
It's still not clear what damage this might do. Maybe nothing significant. Maybe this is an aberration only for this year. Stay tuned.
- Author: Ben Faber
Scientists from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are working to understand how something can be equally effective as both a government-approved food additive and as a pesticide.
Methyl benzoate is a naturally occurring compound produced by plants. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration long ago approved methyl benzoate for human use; its fruity and floral aroma makes it a staple in perfumes and cosmetics and as a food additive. Nature employs it to attract pollinators.
While many insects find methyl benzoate appealing, Aijun Zhang, research chemist at the ARS Invasive Insect Biocontrol and Behavior Laboratory in Beltsville, MD, is investigating why some insects and non-insect pests find it revolting.
Zhang's research has focused on methyl benzoate's utility as a pesticide for human protection and crop protection. So far, Zhang has documented that the compound will kill or repel many insects in various stages of development, including mosquitoes, bed bugs, fire ants, ticks, flies, moths, and the brown marmorated stink bug. Perhaps most important, however, is its ability to repel and kill the spotted wing drosophila fly (SWD). “SWD is the most significant invasive insect pest of soft-skinned fruit crops in the USA,” Zhang said.
Since SWD was first detected in California a little over a decade ago, the fly has become a key pest in blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and cherries. These crops have a combined annual value of over $5.8 billion, and farmers lose about $718 million annually to SWD damage.
Berry with larva inside (A), close up of larvae (B), and close up of non-feeding pupal stage (C) (University of Maine).
Farmers fight SWD with synthetic insecticides, but at prices up to $1,200 per acre, that method is expensive. It is costly in other ways, too, Zhang said; the synthetic insecticide is harmful to the environment, contributes to pesticide resistance, and may be harmful to humans.
Because methyl benzoate is an environmentally friendly, bio-based compound, Zhang thinks it has great potential to be used by people for human protection as an alternative to synthetic pesticides. It also costs much less than synthetic pesticide treatments.
According to Zhang, methyl benzoate shares the same “chemical skeleton” as DEET, the gold standard in arthropod repellency, a detail that is leading future research efforts.
“Understanding the structure-activity relationship will allow researchers to modify the chemical structure of the methyl benzoate molecule to develop pesticides that are more efficient at controlling arthropod pests,” he said. — By Scott Elliott, USDA-ARS Office of Communications.
Spotted Wing Drosophila laying eggs in immature cherries (David Haviland)
- Author: Cheryl Reynolds
New online course on the management of
ground squirrels and pocket gophers now available
—Cheryl Reynolds, UC Statewide IPM Program
We're pleased to announce that a new online course on managing ground squirrels and pocket gophers has been added to UC IPM's growing library of online training courses. This course consists of eight video segments recorded by Dr. Roger Baldwin, a University of California Cooperative Extension Specialist in Human-Wildlife Conflict Resolution. Originally presented in June of 2020 as part of the UC Ag Experts Talk webinar series, the course covers pest identification, types of damage they cause, and the importance of their biology and ecology.
If you are a pest management professional or grower interested in vertebrate pest management, then check out this course! You'll learn about current control strategies such as habitat modification, baiting options, fumigation, and trapping. The course content is free to anyone who wishes to view it. For those requiring a certificate of completion and continuing education units (CEUs), the regular cost is $20, but we are offering a reduced price of $10 through October 31, 2021. To receive the discount, enter the code SquirrelGopher50 in the voucher box when making the payment.Managing Ground Squirrels and Pocket Gophers has been approved by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) for 1 CEU in the Other category and also by Certified Crop Advisor (CCA) for 0.5 unit of IPM credit.
If you are a DPR license or certificate holder with a last name beginning with letters M through Z, then this will be your year to renew. Now is a good time to check out the other UC IPM online training courses offered. All are 50% off the regular price through October 31st. DPR will be sending out renewal packets in August and strongly suggests returning them by October so that your license or certificate can be renewed before it expires.
UC IPM not only offers courses accredited by DPR, but many courses are also approved by the California Structural Pest Control Board (SPCB), Certified Crop Advisor (CCA), the Western Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture (WCISA), and the Arizona Department of Agriculture.