Salinas Valley Agriculture

Growers will need to implement best management practices that reduce nitrate leaching losses on the Central Coast to comply with Agricultural Discharge Order 4.0. The use of drip irrigation has allowed many growers to be efficient with both water and nitrogen fertilizer.

Minimizing suspended sediments in irrigation runoff is desirable for several reasons. For growers reusing tailwater for watering their crops, they must assure that the water has minimal food safety risks by testing it for generic E coli and/or treating it with chlorine.

Sample costs to produce and harvest the following commodities are now complete: Romaine hearts Film wrapped iceberg lettuce Broccoli bunched 14's Broccoli crown cut The cost studies are now posted on-line at the UC Davis Cost Studies website (https://coststudies.ucdavis.edu/en/ ).

Richard Smith, Joji Muramoto, Tim Hartz and Michael Cahn UCCE Emeritus Farm Advisor, Extension Specialist, Emeritus, Extension Specialist and Irrigation and Water Resources Farm Advisor. The winter of 2023 had the highest rainfall years in the last 25 years.

I have received a handful of calls this season with concerns about trash bugs, a catch all term for various soil invertebrates. These soil invertebrates include root maggots, springtails, bulb mites, and symphylans, all which will happily feed on decomposing plant debris, i.e., trash.