University of California researchers will receive more than $6 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2011 Specialty Crop Block Grant program, which is intended to enhance agricultural markets, address environmental concerns, protect plant health, provide farmers with scientifically tested production techniques and increase food safety.

The USDA awarded $55 million nationwide for the Specialty Crop Block Grant program, which provides grants to states to enhance the competitiveness of fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture and nursery crops.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture identified 72 projects in the state for funding, including 30 projects led by University of California agricultural researchers.

“Funding for specialty crop research is critical to California’s $37.5 billion agricultural industry because many of the crops grown in California are considered specialty crops,” said Barbara Allen-Diaz, UC vice president for agriculture and natural resources. “With these funds, UC scientists will be helping California farmers find new ways to protect their crops from pests and diseases, remain economically viable, and provide healthy food for an increasing number of people.”

Highlights include:

• The UC Davis Center for Produce Safety received a combined $1.4 million for food safety projects, many of which will develop strategies to reduce the risk of foodborne illness.
• Assessing temperature conditions to determine the potential for using wind machines as an alternative to sprinklers for frost protection in coastal vineyards­ with the ultimate goal of reduced water use ­is the goal of a $59,961 project led by UC Cooperative Extension viticulture advisor Mark Battany in San Luis Obispo County.
• The UC Agricultural Issues Center will be conducting an analysis of the effects of quality control standards and European Union trade policies on the California olive industry, to identify market opportunities as standards and policies change, funded for $135,883.
• The largest single award made to UC in this round was $495,750 to a statewide project that will assess the effects of reduced irrigation on strawberries, blueberries and blackberries -- including berry yield, nutritional content, flavor and consumer preference -- ­led by researchers with the UC small farm program.
• A project that will train small-scale, Latino, Hmong and Mien growers in Fresno, the Sacramento Valley, the Central Coast and Southern California regions to compete in new markets, led by the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, received $86,851.
• Developing improved integrated pest management strategies that could help ornamental nurseries protect against the light brown apple moth is the goal of a $255,598 project led by Steve Tjosvold, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor for Santa Cruz County.

“Many of these projects are collaborative efforts between farmers and scientists from UC campuses, UC Cooperative Extension advisors in counties, and other agencies and educational institutions,” Allen-Diaz said. “This array of expertise focused along the spectrum of specialty crops production will help keep California competitive in the global economy.”

For a complete list of California’s Specialty Crop Block Grants projects, please visit http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/grants.

The October–December 2011 issue of California Agriculture journal.

Cultivated on 1.1 million acres, alfalfa is the largest consumer of water among all crops in California, accounting for up to 27 percent of the state’s irrigation water use. Alfalfa is usually flood irrigated, often leading to overirrigation. Water is pumped in at the top of field rows and flows down to the end. If the flow is not turned off before it reaches the bottom, substantial runoff occurs.

The new system employs sensors to track the advance of water down a field, a model that predicts when water will reach the tail end of the field, and a cellular communications system that sends a cell phone alert to the irrigator to turn off the water. It was field-tested during two seasons on the UC Davis campus; the results — zero tail water drainage from the trial fields compared with thousands of liters of runoff from control fields — are reported in the October–December 2011 issue of the University of California’s California Agriculture journal.

“Under current practice, the alfalfa irrigator makes several trips to the field to determine when the wetting front has reached a certain distance from the bottom end of the check [irrigation channel] before turning off the irrigation,” writes lead author Rajat Saha, assistant engineer for MBK Engineers in Sacramento. “Even making several trips, the irrigator may miss the wetting front advance, which results in excessive tail water drainage.”

The system, developed by Saha and coauthors at UC Davis while Saha was a UC Davis graduate student, was successfully demonstrated to dozens of farmers last year at the Alfalfa Field Day. The components are relatively inexpensive: the sensors (three per check) cost about $25 each; the data logger and modem, which can be easily moved from one location to another to reduce the initial installation investment, about $500 and $200, respectively.

If the new system, which may be commercially available in early 2012, were used for the typical five irrigations per alfalfa season, “water savings could be about 35,000 to 60,000 liters per acre,” Saha reports.

The research article, and the entire October–December 2011 issue, can be downloaded at http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.org.

California Agriculture is the University of California’s peer-reviewed journal of research in agricultural, human and natural resources. For a free subscription, go to: http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.org, or write to calag@ucdavis.edu.

WRITERS/EDITORS: To request a hard copy of the journal, email crllopez@ucdavis.edu.

October 10, 2011

Private owners of California’s forests and rangelands value their land mostly for its natural amenities and as a financial investment, according to a new study published in the October–December 2011 issue of the University of California’s California Agriculture journal. About 42 percent of forest and rangeland is in private ownership.

“A variety of reasons were reported for owning land,” reports lead author Shasta Ferranto, Ph.D. candidate in UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management.

“To ‘live near natural beauty’ was the objective ranked by most landowners as important. Other popular reasons included ‘appreciation in land value,’ ‘escape from city crime and pollution,’ ‘financial investment’ and ‘live in a small community.’” The research article, and the entire October–December 2011 issue, can be viewed and downloaded at http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.org.

Thirty-four million acres of California’s forests and rangelands are privately owned. These lands represent 34 percent of the total land in the state and provide important ecosystem services such as pollination, wildlife habitat and carbon sequestration (removal of carbon from the atmosphere and storage in carbon sinks such as forests). However, little was known about the people who own and manage the land until this recent survey by UC Cooperative Extension and UC Berkeley scientists.

Many of the more than 600 forest and rangeland owners in 10 counties who completed the 17-page survey reported they had been approached to sell their land for development. Other findings include

• Owners of large properties (500 or more acres) were more likely to carry out or be interested in environmental improvements than owners of small properties.
• Only about one-third of landowners had participated in conservation programs; few had conservation easements.
• The majority of the landowners were primary residents.
• Only one-third reported earning income from their land.
• Asked about what reasons would influence a hypothetical future decision to sell their land, almost 20 percent reported they would never sell their land. Of the remaining 80 percent, just over half chose “it is too much work to maintain,” followed by “can’t afford to keep it” and other financial concerns.

“What will happen when privately owned forests and rangelands change ownership — either through generational transfer of land or sale — is unknown,” say the researchers. “California forest and rangeland owners are 62 years old on average, with a high proportion retired, and many more nearing retirement.” The survey results establish a baseline for understanding how the owners of a significant part of the state’s ecosystem services “might change over time, or with interventions of information, policy or financial resources.”

Also reported in the October-December 2011 issue of California Agriculture:

• A wireless communications system and wetting-front advance model have eliminated tail water drainage in alfalfa irrigation.
• Tree shelters and weed control have increased the growth and survival of natural blue oak seedlings and are more cost-effective than a previous approach to regenerate blue oaks stands by planting nursery-grown saplings.
• Hedgerows of native California shrubs and perennial grasses are enhancing beneficial insects on farms in California’s Central Valley.

California Agriculture is the University of California’s peer-reviewed journal of research in agricultural, human and natural resources. For a free subscription, sign up at http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.org, or write to calag@ucdavis.edu.

WRITERS/EDITORS: To request a hard copy of the journal, email crllopez@ucdavis.edu.

October 5, 2011

DAVIS — Integrated pest management (IPM) specialist Frank Zalom, professor and former vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and soon-to-be president of the 6000-member Entomological Society of America, is one of three Americans invited to speak at an international IPM workshop, Oct. 16-19, in Berlin, Germany.

Zalom, invited by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection of Germany, will speak on “Stimulating Use of Professional IPM Consultants in Agriculture, Benefits for Farmers and Society,” on Monday, Oct. 17.

The event is sponsored by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), which helps governments of the developed countries tackle the economic, social and governance challenges of a globalized economy. The OECD is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

At the OECD workshop, to be held in the Julius Kuhn Institute, Federal Research Center for Cultivated Plants, invitees will develop recommendations related to the workshop themes,  adoption and implementation of IPM in agriculture, contributing to the sustainable use of pesticides and to pesticide-risk reduction.

Wolfgang Zornback, chair of the OECD Working Group on Pesticides, German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, will welcome the group.

The speakers will include noted IPM specialists from Australia, Denmark, Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, The Netherlands and the UK. About 100 participants were either nominated by their governments or invited by the OECD. Half of the participants will include government representatives working on pesticide regulation, and half of the participants will include representatives from international/regional organizations: European Commission, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO), International Organization for Biological Control (IOBC), bio-pesticide industries, environmental and consumer organizations and academia.

Americans joining Zalom in Berlin will be Tom Green of the US/IPM Institute of North America in Madison, Wis., who will discuss  “IPM in U.S. Schools: Challenges, Opportunities and Implications for  IPM in Agriculture” and James VanKirk of the Southern Region IPM Center, North Carolina State University, who will address  “IPM Pest Information Platform for Extension and Education.”

The OECD workshop will conclude with a visit to the German chancellery.

Zalom will begin a four-year commitment to the Entomological Society of America (ESA) this fall when he will be inducted as vice president-elect at the organization’s 59th annual meeting set Nov. 13-16 in Reno. He will subsequently move up to vice president and president and then serve a year fulfilling the duties of past president. The UC Davis entomologist will become president at the end of the 2013 annual meeting and then will serve as president at the 2014 meeting in Portland, Ore.

Zalom has been heavily involved in research and leadership in integrated pest management (IPM) activities at the state, national and international levels. He directed the UC Statewide IPM Program for 16 years (1986 -2001) and is currently experiment station co-chair of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) National IPM Committee.

Zalom focuses his research on California specialty crops, including tree crops (almonds, olives, prunes, peaches), small fruits (grapes, strawberries, caneberries), and fruiting vegetables (tomatoes), as well as international IPM programs.

The IPM strategies and tactics Zalom has developed include monitoring procedures, thresholds, pest development and population models, biological controls and use of less toxic pesticides, which have become standard in practice and part of the UC IPM Guidelines for these crops.

In his three decades with the UC Davis Department of Entomology, Zalom has published almost 300 refereed journal articles and book chapters, and 340 technical and extension articles. The articles span a wide range of topics related to IPM, including  invasive species management, biological control, insect population dynamics, pesticide runoff mitigation, impacts and management of newer, soft insecticides, development of economic thresholds and sampling methods,  and determination of insect host feeding and oviposition preferences.

The Zalom lab has responded to six important pest invasions in the last decade, with research projects on glassy-winged sharpshooter, olive fruit fly, a new biotype of greenhouse whitefly, invasive saltcedar, light brown apple moth, and the spotted wing Drosophila.

Zalom is a fellow of ESA, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the California Academy of Sciences.

Highly honored for his work,  Zalom received the Entomological Foundation’s 2010 “Award for Excellence in IPM,” an award sponsored by Syngenta Crop Protection and given for “the most outstanding contributions to IPM.” In 2008 he was part of a team receiving an International IPM “Excellence Award” at the sixth International IPM Symposium. Also in 2008, Zalom was part of the seven-member UC Almond Pest Management Alliance IPM Team that received the Entomological Foundation’s "Award for Excellence in IPM.” The Pacific Branch of the ESA awarded Zalom its greatest honor, the C. W. Woodworth Award, in 2011.