- Author: Cheryl Reynolds
The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) runs the most extensive Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program in the nation and is hard at work ensuring that the fruit and vegetables we purchase and consume are free from illegal pesticide residues. Just last month, DPR detected residues of a pesticide not registered for use on grapes and fined the grower $10,000 for using a pesticide in violation of the label and for packing and attempting to sell the tainted produce.
Cases like this are rare in California but remind growers how important it is to apply pesticides correctly by following all pesticide label directions. Understanding and...
- Author: Steve Orloff
- Author: Daniel H Putnam
Two years ago, we were surprised to see significant crop injury in a grower's Roundup Ready (RR) alfalfa field in the high elevations of Intermountain California. This was surprising because all of our previous research on RR alfalfa had shown virtually no crop injury to alfalfa compared with conventional herbicides. Was this actually herbicide injury or something else? This led to a scientific 'whodunnit' quest to find out what caused this problem.
Roundup Ready (RR) alfalfa is a popular weed management strategy for Western alfalfa producers. Aside from issues related to exporting a RR alfalfa crop to some countries, most growers seem pleased with the technology. The advantages are excellent...
- Author: Lisa Blecker and Sarah Risorto, UC IPM Pesticide Safety Education Program
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) recently published the revised Agricultural Worker Protection Standard (WPS). The WPS is meant to increase protections for agricultural fieldworkers and pesticide handlers from pesticide exposure when working in farms, forests, nurseries and greenhouses. The changes will definitely affect California agriculture, and soon-- as early as January 2017 in some cases.
What major regulatory changes are in store for us and when will they happen?
Several changes are required to be in place by January 2, 2017. These include:
- All 417,000 fieldworkers in California must attend annual pesticide safety training.
- Records of all...
- Author: Daniel H Putnam
- Author: Peter H. Robinson
During our current severe drought any technique that saves water excites us more than a dog in a sausage factory.
Thus the comments by some claiming substantial water savings by growing forage hydroponically as a livestock feed has attracted substantial interest.
Most recently in early September 2016, there was a national NPR radio broadcast about a California rancher who uses a hydroponic growth technique to sprout barley to create forage to feed to sheep. [See: ‘With Water in Short Supply, One California Farmer Grows Feed Indoors” broadcast August 2016 by Ezra David Romero (
- Author: David Robert Haviland
- Author: Peter B Goodell
- Author: Larry Godfrey
- Author: Jeffery A. Dahlberg
Sugarcane aphid has historically only been known as a pest of sugarcane. However, in 2013 farmers in Texas and Louisiana reported that this pest was now causing economic losses in grain sorghum and that traditional broad-spectrum insecticides were not providing control. By 2014 similar reports were received from at least 11 southern states from Texas to Florida, and by 2016 this pest has now moved west to California.
Sugarcane aphid can easily be distinguished from other aphid species due to their yellow color with black feet, tips of antennae and cornicles (tailpipes) that point upward from the rear of the insect....