- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Since 1977, Lazaneo has been the UC Cooperative Extension advisor for San Diego County urban horticulture, a job aimed at educating the county’s residents about plant selection, pest control and other cultural practices that protect the environment and ensure safe and successful gardens and landscapes.
During childhood, Lazaneo tinkered in his family’s backyard gardens, first planting bean and popcorn seeds from the kitchen pantry.
“Amazingly, they grew and produced an edible crop,” Lazaneo said. “I was hooked.”
Lazaneo has faced physical challenges in his life and career. As a 17-year-old high school student experimenting with fireworks, he shook a jar of chemicals to tragic effect. An explosion took off his right hand at the wrist and most of his left hand. Lazaneo also was born with a degenerative eye disorder that resulted in lifelong deteriorating vision and blindness in 2002. However these disabilities did not bring him down.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in horticulture at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Lazaneo took a retail nursery sales position in San Jose.
“I discovered that the thing I enjoyed the most was educating customers about plants.” Lazaneo said.
He returned to college, earning a master’s degree in horticulture and a teaching credential in vocational agriculture at UC Davis. While looking for a permanent teaching job, a serendipitous contact led him to a temporary position with UC Cooperative Extension in Sacramento County, where administrators encouraged him to pursue a career with the organization. In 1977, he successfully applied for the urban horticulture position in San Diego County.
Around this time, an idea that took shape in the state of Washington was beginning to garner interest in California: Provide gardening enthusiasts with first-class training in horticultural methods in exchange for their commitment as a Master Gardener to share that information with others in the community. Lazaneo decided to offer the volunteer program in San Diego County, the second-most populous county in the state and a location which boasts a mild climate ideal for gardening year-round.
About 120 gardeners applied for Lazaneo’s first Master Gardener class in 1983, from which he selected 32 well-qualified individuals. The volunteers underwent 16 weeks of rigorous training with Lazaneo and other UC academics, including experts in integrated pest management, soil and water management, fruit tree, and vegetable culture. All members of the first class passed the final exam. San Diego’s newly certified Master Gardeners helped staff the UC Cooperative Extension booth at the county fair and answered phone inquiries from the public about plants and pests.
The application process has been competitive each time a new class of volunteer Master Gardeners was trained. Today, more than 220 active Master Gardeners staff well over 40 educational exhibits each year, and answer 5,000 phone and email inquiries annually. Another 55 Master Gardeners will complete the training program before Lazaneo retires.
In addition to working with homeowners, the San Diego Master Gardeners have maintained an active outreach program with schools interested in providing garden-based learning to their students. A group of Master Gardeners, with Lazaneo’s oversight and editing, created an elementary school curriculum, “Plant a Seed - Watch it Grow,” and offered to serve as consultants to schools that wished to develop gardens. On May 23 the School Gardens program was awarded a Certificate of Excellence by the San Diego Science Alliance.
“Our volunteers currently consult with more than 200 schools in the county each year,” Lazaneo said.
In the last few years, the Master Gardeners have also turned attention to community gardening. They have conducted workshops on how to start community gardens and worked with other gardening groups to change zoning regulations that will give county residents more community gardens.
Lazaneo also collaborated with the horticulture department at Cuyamaca Community College in El Cajon to study vegetable varieties that are best adapted to local growing conditions, including tomatoes and asparagus. He conducted a study in cooperation with Sunset Magazine evaluating floating row cover cloth for maximizing plant growth and deterring pest damage on vegetables.
“We used the quarter-acre community college plot for 12 years,” Lazaneo said. “When we harvested surplus tomatoes, we donated them to the food bank.”
Throughout his career, Lazaneo has written a gardening column for the San Diego Union-Tribune. He said he will continue writing during his retirement. He also plans to write answers to local residents’ most frequently asked questions to post for the San Diego Master Gardener website.
In addition to these activities, Lazaneo said he looks forward to having time for growing specialty plants in his home garden and for more reading, hiking and fishing.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Selma native was raised on a farm, where his family produced fruits and vegetables for sale at Highway 99 fruit stands. McKenry earned his degree in soil science with a biochemistry minor at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, in 1966, where his senior project targeted the microscopic soil-borne true round worms that would shape his career.
“Very few farmers knew much about nematodes at the time,” McKenry said. However, the pest was causing serious damage and yield loss, especially when crops were replanted into previously farmed land.
After serving as a vocational agriculture teacher in Yucaipa, a town east of San Bernardino, and conducting field trials with his students, McKenry was offered the opportunity to study nematodes at UC Riverside. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1972 and was soon appointed by UC Riverside to his nematology research position at Kearney.
McKenry said his research focus changed with the times. The first two decades, he studied the movement of fumigants and other pesticides in soil, and the timing and placement for nematode congregation under trees and vines. Equally important were his activities to develop newer methods to assure that California’s nursery stocks would remain nematode-free.
“As drip systems evolved, we encouraged farmers to pay more attention to the root flush in order to be more efficient with whatever treatments they used,” McKenry said.
Increasingly stringent regulations and bans on the use of certain fumigants began to turn nematologists’ attention to reduced rates using timing and placement as well as botanically derived alternatives to synthetic products. McKenry noted an unreported biological control process under way at Kearney where certain naturally occurring fungi and bacteria were lethal to nematodes.
“We’ve been working on that for 40 years,” McKenry said. “We’re still missing pieces, but the potential and limitations are better understood.”
During this period, McKenry also developed a portable drenching system that reduced off-gassing of soil fumigants and led the way for pre-plant delivery of degradable nematicides deep into soil.
The next 20 years was the period of rootstock exploration. Grape rootstocks that had been released in the 1960s were losing their resistance to nematodes in the 1980s. McKenry and his staff evaluated as many as 1,000 potential grape rootstocks from around the world. This was followed by evaluation of 100 peach and almond rootstocks and then thousands of potential walnut rootstocks.
More recently, McKenry identified the first effective nematode treatment that in very low doses could be sprayed onto leaves of trees and vines. This new chemistry was hidden away as an insecticide. Thousands of soil samples evaluated by McKenry and his research team at UC reported that if farmers followed a few guidelines, their yields could be boosted 10 percent to 20 percent.
In all, McKenry has written more than 250 research papers, half of them in pest management manuals, the other half peer-reviewed conference proceedings, book chapters and research journals.
Even though he will retire this summer, McKenry said he plans to continue with a few special projects.
“There is so much yet to be done,” he said.
He said he also looks forward to having more time to spend at his coastal home in Cayucos while continuing his worldwide travels.
Federal and state agencies, including the USDA Forest Service, CAL FIRE and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, joined forces with UC Cooperative Extension and quickly mobilized resources to control the pathogen in Redwood Valley and halt its spread to neighboring forests. Local landowners have also played a key role.
“We’ve been closely monitoring the disease for years and anticipating a scenario like Redwood Valley, so we were ready to take action and respond quickly,” Valachovic said.
The UCCE staff leads an extensive sudden oak death monitoring program on the North Coast, and one of their detection strategies involves "leaf-baiting" in streams. Using this technique, they “bait” Phytophthora ramorum, the non-native pathogen that causes sudden oak death, by placing susceptible leaves in strategic locations in North Coast streams. If the leaf baits become infected with SOD, the scientists know that the pathogen is present in the watershed without having to comb the landscape for symptoms.
After they detected the pathogen in Redwood Creek, UCCE acted quickly to pinpoint the source of the waterborne spores, scouring the watershed for the very inconspicuous symptoms of SOD with the help and permission of public and private landowners. By November 2010, the scientists had narrowed the location to Redwood Valley, where they found dead tanoaks and several other infected host plants.
Much of the on-the-ground effort has been completed by contractors and CAL FIRE handcrews, who have created 100-meter buffers around infected trees by removing California bay laurel (pepperwood) and tanoak, the two hosts that most readily support P. ramorum spore production and spread. Infected plant material has been trucked offsite and donated to the nearby DG Fairhaven Power Company, piled and burned, or lopped and scattered onsite.
Funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the USDA Forest Service and NRCS enabled the swift response in Redwood Valley. UCCE used ARRA funds, also known as federal stimulus funds, to hire four people to work on the project, lending stability to the effort.
Landowner support has been critical to the success of the project, according to Valachovic. More than 20 landowners in the valley have allowed monitoring and treatment activities on their properties, recognizing that their cooperation may keep the disease from spreading to other areas.
“We couldn’t just stand back and let the disease roll through the forests that we manage, and the landowners understood that,” said Dan Cohoon, who works for Eureka-based Able Forestry, which manages many of the private forestlands in the watershed.
Brandon LaPorte, manager of Cookson Ranch and one of the key landowner collaborators in Redwood Valley, has supported the project from the beginning. LaPorte explained, “We’ve learned a lot about the disease through this project, and we certainly don’t want it getting worse here on the ranch or spreading beyond the valley.”
The first phase of treatment is currently wrapping up, and UCCE is beginning to monitor project efficacy and watch for spread of the pathogen beyond project boundaries. The Yurok and Hoopa tribes will be paying close attention to this effort, as they are only a ridge away from the infestation.
Ron Reed, a Yurok tribal forester, commented, “Oaks are an important part of our culture and history, and we will do what we can to keep sudden oak death out of our forests.”
The Redwood Valley project highlights the value of stream monitoring as a detection tool for SOD, but it also demonstrates the ability of agencies and landowners to collaborate swiftly and effectively to protect the region’s forest resources. Maybe most important – regardless of the future course that sudden oak death takes in the North Coast – is what the project shows about the ability of proactive communities concerned about the health of their landscapes to come together, attract the support of state and national authorities, and work to make things better.
The community collaboration is being honored with the Two Chiefs’ Award. The award, which is given jointly by the NRCS and the Forest Service, highlights projects from across the country each year, recognizing exemplary partners who have worked collaboratively to support conservation and forest stewardship. Kathleen Merrigan, USDA deputy secretary, will present the award and Valachovic will accept the award on behalf of the federal, state, tribal and private partners involved the project at an event in Davis on Wednesday, May 16.
For more information about sudden oak death disease, visit the California Oak Mortality Task Force website at www.suddenoakdeath.org.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
The two community forums to explore solutions to nitrate in groundwater and the role of policy are being hosted by the UC California Institute for Water Resources and the CDFA Fertilizer Research and Education Program.
The UC Davis report “Addressing Nitrate in California’s Drinking Water,” delivered in March to the State Water Resources Control Board, concluded that more than 90 percent of human-generated nitrate contamination of groundwater in the Tulare Lake Basin and the Monterey County portion of the Salinas Valley has come from agricultural activity.
Plants need nitrogen to grow, but nutrients that are not used by the crop may move below the root zone. Nitrate, a byproduct of nitrogen, may infiltrate to groundwater.
“The report found that farmers have already begun employing numerous techniques to reduce the amount of nitrogen fertilizer available in the soil,” said Doug Parker, director of the UC California Institute for Water Resources and leader for the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources water strategic initiative. “At the forums, we will be discussing how those efforts are proceeding and exploring additional solutions to protect groundwater quality. We’ll be asking the agricultural community what additional research and education they need from UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.”
At the forums, UC Cooperative Extension specialists will describe methods of managing nitrogen on dairies and cropland. Members of the agricultural industry and representatives of statewide and regional programs will discuss the practical aspects of adopting nitrogen management practices. To wrap up the sessions, Parker will present a case study on the effects of policy on nutrient management in the Chesapeake Bay region in the Northeast and lead a discussion of the role of policy in nitrogen management in California.
The June 11 forum will be held at the California Farm Bureau Federation in Sacramento from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The June 18 forum will be held at the UC Cooperative Extension office in Tulare from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Both events are free and open to the public. To register or for more information about the events, please visit http://ucanr.edu/sites/managingagriculturalnitrogen.
- Contact: Pam Kan-Rice, (530) 754-3912, pskanrice@ucdavis.edu
- Contact: Richard De Moura, (530) 752-3589, rdemoura@ucdavis.edu
Each analysis is based upon hypothetical farm operations using practices common in the region. Input and reviews were provided by UC Cooperative Extension farm advisors, UC researchers, growers, farm accountants, pest control advisers, consultants and other agricultural associates.
The studies describe the assumptions used to identify current costs for the individual crops, material inputs, cash and non-cash overhead. A ranging analysis table shows profits over a range of prices and yields. Other tables show the monthly cash costs, the costs and returns per acre, hourly equipment costs, and the whole farm annual equipment, investment, and business overhead costs.
The new studies are as follows:
Sample Costs to Produce Strawberries, 2011, South Coast Region (Santa Maria Valley) by Surendra Dara, Karen M. Klonsky and Richard L. De Moura.
Sample Costs to Produce Strawberries, 2011, South Coast Region (Oxnard Plain) by Oleg Daugovish, Karen M. Klonsky and Richard L. De Moura.
Sample Costs to Produce Second Year Strawberries, 2011, Central Coast Region (Santa Cruz & Monterey Counties) by Mark P. Bolda, Laura Tourte, Karen M. Klonsky and Richard L. De Moura.
All cost of production studies are available for free download at http://coststudies.ucdavis.edu, at UC Cooperative Extension offices or by calling (530) 752-3589. For more information about the studies, contact Richard De Moura at rdemoura@ucdavis.edu in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Davis.