- Author: Ben Faber
Produce Exposed to Smoke
At times, air quality has been significantly impacted by the ongoing fires in the region. Local farms have played a very large and important role in food relief efforts immediately following the start of the fires and the mass evacuations. Many farmers and others in the community are concerned about how the air pollution might be impacting produce. While the University of California does not have data on the levels of these chemicals in produce that have been in contact with smoke and ash, we understand the need to share information with our community at this time.When assessing the safety of exposed produce, the difficulty is knowing what has been burning. If it is just vegetation smoke then it's probably safe to eat produce after rinsing off the ash (just the same as having a bonfire in your garden), although it might still taste/smell smoky.
If the air pollution has particulate matter from treated timber, tires, non-food grade oils, or anything plastic or chlorinated that burned it may include a mixture of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), dioxins, and metals. Exposure to fire retardant may have also occurred.
An unpublished literature review on the health impacts of PAHs from traffic-related air pollution on lettuce grown in urban agriculture found that:
- Some PAHs can be absorbed into plant tissue, and so cannot be simply washed off.
- The health risk from eating these PAHs is a small proportion of the health impact from breathing them, and it is far below the EPA's level of concern for lifetime cancer risk.
- It is possible that the health benefit of eating the vitamins and nutrients in green leafy vegetables might outweigh that negligible negative impact.
- There is not enough research available on the cumulative impacts of air pollution on produce to make any solid conclusions about the health impacts.
Produce Safety after Urban Wildfire study conducted following Oct 2017 fires in Sonoma County.
Fires & Food Safety flyer by USDA FSIS, 2/2013.
Food Safety after Fire by USDA FSIS, 8/2013.
Soil Testing
Some technical guidance tip sheets and power points that may be helpful can be found here:
- Soil Sampling, Risk Mapping & Exposure Prevention - Rob Bennaton
- Contaminants in Soils, Data Collection-Interpreting Test results and Minimizing Exposure by Cornell University
- Testing Laboratories in California
- UCCE Soils in Urban Agriculture
- Best Practices for Produce Safety After A Fire
- Produce Safety After a Fire Tool Kit
- Author: Ben Faber
If you didnt hear or you want to hear again
Here's your opportunity
CA Avocado Society/CA Avocado Commission/UCCE
August Seminar/Webinar Topic
Life without Glyphosate, Weed ID, and A Review of Microbial Amendments
Click here for the Seminar Recording
Click on the Presentations Title for the PowerPoints
Microbial Amendments
by: Ben Faber
Weed Management
by: Sonia Rios
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- Author: Ben Faber
Because it is easier to correct a problem before you plant the trees than it is to diagnose and treat dying ones, which will probably be ripped out. A sad start to a tree is not a good ending.
In general, soil analysis is a measure of the physical, biological and chemical environment that a tree is going to be growing in. Is there going to be an impeding layer? Is it a waterlogged area prone to asphyxiation? A heavy soil that is going to need berming? Is it going to be too steep to harvest? These are physical properties that stand out and need to be considered.
Biological properties are harder to assess, but looking for old root channels and how healthy the previous crop grew are good indications of good biological health. How are those weeds growing?
The chemical side is often viewed from the nutritional and the toxicity angles. Trees are able to store nutrients in their various organs and have aids like mycorrhizae to help them take up some nutrients. So it's best to actually test the tree to see what their nutrient status is. Leaf analysis becomes the guide.
We do soil chemical analysis in trees primarily to identify potential toxicities. And for avocado trees, the main toxicities are high pH, salinity, sodium and chloride. Especially pH, which they like between 6 and 7. If it is corrected before the tree goes in the ground, it's relatively easy and inexpensive to correct. Once the tree is the ground, it takes a long time and energy and often it's hard to correct it without the tree dying. Like a waste of time and energy. But hey, I got the trees coming and it's time to be bold and act!! Let's plant.
And usually about a year after the tree is in the ground, the leaves start turning yellow and the canopy starts thinning. The tree was loaded up with iron in the nursery and after being in the high pH ground, it could not get enough iron and iron chlorosis set in. Well get ready to spend the next few years correcting the pH without killing the tree with sulfur or spending the rest of the tree's life messing with iron chelates. It would have been easy to apply a sufficient amount of sulfur in the planting area before planting, waiting for the sulfur to lower the pH, then planting.
Salinity, chloride and sodium are also important for testing prior to planting. Normally we think of these as chemicals that move with rainwater and irrigation. But in years when we have no rain, that doesn't happen. The light sprinklings we have can just move these salts a few inches into the ground and when trees are planted the salts migrate into the root zone. Even when berms are built and soil is scrapped into a hill, it's the surface soil that is being scrapped where all the salts are.
This situation can be compounded where there have been raspberry tunnels or flower tunnels previously and there has been no rain touch the ground the whole time the ground was covered. Or, where there was a crop with a high level of nutrients being applied and there could be levels high enough to affect the salt sensitive avocado. If you know salts are high, the soil can be leached before the trees are planted.
The effect of salt on the young trees can be almost immediate, within a week after planting. It can be dramatic and shocking.
Measuring sodium, chloride and salinity should be ongoing throughout the production years of an avocado. The status of the sodium, chloride and salinity are a reflection of how irrigation water is being managed. Is it getting enough, frequently enough? Was there enough rain to start the irrigation season without leaching?
Yeah, soil needs to be tested on a frequent basis. But the cheapest test and the easiest correction is done before planting. Do it.
- Author: Ben Faber
Dr. Mark Hoddle will discuss the problems caused by invasive species in California. Invasion statistics of importance to California will be discussed along with relevant aspects of invasion biology that drive invasion pathways, establishment likelihood, and subsequent spread after establishment. One important management response is biological control and California is a world leader in this type of pest management. Problems caused by current high profile invaders (e.g., South American palm weevil), and biocontrol programs targeting destructive invasive pests (e.g., Asian citrus psyllid) will be discussed. Finally, a new twist on a classic approach will be presented, "Proactive Biocontrol." A proactive biocontrol program targeting spotted lanternfly, a pest not yet present in California, but one that is likely to establish and cause significant problems for the grape and nut industries will be discussed. One DPR CE unit (other) and one CCA CE unit (IPM) were requested.
Wednesday, Sept 9, 3-4 PM
UC Ag Experts Talk: What's in your Orchard: Protecting California from Invasive Species REGISTER HERE
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What Are the UC Ag Experts Talking About?
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- Author: Ben Faber
There are always new things to see in the field. Some things show up on occasion, but reliably, like citrus leafminer starts damaging new leaves in the fall. You start to see the leaf spots from Persea mite in the fall, even though they started their nesting/feeding activities in the late spring. Then some things show up irregularly. There's a fungus that hits citrus and other plant species – oleander, bottlebrush, holly, Natal plum, Brazilian pepper, eucalyptus – but mostly landscape species.
Sphaeropsis tumefaciens pops up here and there, this year and then not for several years. I've only seen it in Ojai, but Craig Kallsen in Kern Co. says that it's not uncommon in Bakersfield backyard citrus. It creates knobby growths, galls or tumors along branches. I've seen it on mandarin (‘Pixie'), lemon, Valencia and ‘Late Navel'. Whenever I see it, I immediately think of glyphosate damage.
A lot of times, you can see twisted leaf growth coming out of the galls. Classic herbicide phytotoxicity symptoms. But symptoms are just that, they don't tell you what caused that symptom to happen. In the several cases I've, seen only one out five has been an orchard that used herbicides. So it wasn't a reaction to glyphosate that caused the unusual growths.
These woody growths take several years to form. They don't show up just after an herbicide spray. It probably take a few years for them to show up. It's not until someone is pruning that they probably notice the galls.
In fact, it might be the pruning that is spreading the spores that causes the infection. Moisture helps spread the fungus. Another reason not to prune citrus during the rainy season.
While looking through the literature, I came across a reference to galls forming in avocado caused by Sphaeropsis – this in Mexico, http://www.avocadosource.com/WAC2/WAC2_p129.pdf. I have seen symptoms like that here
Also causing a whole fruit to form a gall. Truly a bizarre sight
But of course, this is my speculation, since these symptoms have not been tested foe their cause, as far as I know.
What causes the symptoms in Mexico might be different in California.
How to treat these galls in citrus? Cut them out if you can, but in many cases they are right in the middle of a structural branch. It is desirable to get it out of the orchard to prevent its spread. With the limited experience we have with this disease, it doesn't seem to impair yield at the levels of infection i have seen.