- Author: Jeffrey P. Mitchell
January 20, 2022
Undergraduate student, Jennifer Valdez-Herrera, took home the first prize award in this year's student poster competition of the California Weed Science Society that was held January 19th - 21st at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Sacramento, CA. Her poster titled, Potential of roller-crimper technology for weed suppression in annual crops, reported on the first four years of a study that has been conducted on the Fresno State campus under a center pivot irrigation system. The rolled cover crops are followed by strip-tillage planted silage corn. Five mixes, rye, an ultra high diversity mix from Green Cover Seed in Bladen, NE, a multiplex mix from Lockwood Seed and Grain in Chowchilla, CA, a faba bean and Phacelia combination, and a three-way mix of rye, peas, and purple vetch are replicated three times in about 300 foot strips throughout the field. A copy of Valdez-Herrera's poster is provided below and a short 56-second video showing the current stage of growth of the 2021 - 2022 cover crops may be seen at
- Author: Jeffrey P. Mitchell
January 20, 2022
Year 5 of a major cover crop roller crimper study is underway on the Fresno State campus in the school's center pivot field under the monitoring supervision of Dr. Anil Shrestha and his undergraduate student research assistant, Jennifer Valdez-Herrera and graduate student, Robert Wilmott. The project repeats five cover crop mix treatments (rye, an ultra high diversity mix provided by Green Cover Seed of Bladen, NE, a Multiplex mix of Lockwood Seed and Grain in Chowchilla, CA, a two-species mix of faba bean and Phacelia, and a three-way mix of rye, peas, and purple vetch. A short, 49-second video showing Valdez-Herrera and Wilmott and the stage of growth of the cover crops on January 20, 2022 can be viewed at the You Tube link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E42GAg5Fzs
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- Author: Jeffrey P. Mitchell
January 19, 2022
On a foggy morning at the Santa Ana Ranch of Phil Foster's Pinnacle Organically Grown Produce farm nearHollister, CA, he along with fellowCIG Project farmer, Tom Willey, met with JohnPetrosso, the Sales Engineer forMazzei Injector Company to plan a study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness ofMazzei's air injection equipment as a possible means for increasing oxygen availability for soilmicrorganisms and thereby get higher vegetable crop yields. The air injection technique has had positive results in a variety of earlier studies with vegetables, but has not taken off as a mainstream practice of vegetable farmers to date. Foster and Willey are particularly keen to see if air injection might overcome some of the yield declines that they've been seeing in recent years as Phil's farm has tried to rely on less and less soil disturbance with tillage implements. The project has been in the planning stages for several months and is now shaping up in terms of more detailed field implementation. The study crop in 2022 at Foster's farm will be peppers. Three articles describing previous work on the air injection technique as well as a short video with Petrosso's predictions for what will be seen in the 2022 pepper crop are available below and at th You Tube link
2001 Using Air in SDI to Increase Yields in Bell Peppers International Irrigation Show
2001-Vegetables West Adding Air Adds Yield
2005-02-17 Two-phase Flow of Water & Air During Aerated Subsurface Drip Irrigation SU & MIDMORE JOH
- Author: Jeffrey P. Mitchell
CASI's Mitchell helps with KVPR interview on climate change
January 16, 2022
CASI's very own Jeff Mitchell, along with UC ANR colleagues Mae Culumber, George Zhuang, Karl Lund, and Bob Hutmacher, helped with information on their research that is related to climate change in an interview with KVPR reporter, Kerry Klein, at the UC West Side field station on January 14th 2022. The segment was part of the Valley Report on KVPR and was titled, “Climate change resilience begins with water say these UC ag researchers.” An audio recording and a copy of the report written by Klein are available at https://www.kvpr.org/environment/2022-01-14/climate-change-resilience-begins-with-water-say-these-uc-ag-researchers
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- Author: Jeffrey P. Mitchell
January 19, 2022
On a foggy morning at the Santa Ana Ranch CIG Project farmer, Tom Willey, met with John Petrosso, the Sales Engineer for Mazzei Injector Company to plan a study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of Mazzei's air injection equipment as a possible means for increasing oxygen availability for soil microrganisms and thereby get higher vegetable crop yields. The air injection technique has had positive results in a variety of earlier studies with vegetables, but has not taken off as a mainstream practice of vegetable farmers to date. Foster and Willey are particularly keen to see if air injection might overcome some of the yield declines that they've been seeing in recent years as Phil's farm has tried to rely on less and less soil disturbance with tillage implements. The project has been in the planning stages for several months and is now shaping up in terms of more detailed field implementation. The study crop in 2022 at Foster's farm will be peppers. Three articles describing previous work on the air injection technique as well as a short video withPetrosso's prediction for what will be seen in 2022 are available below. The 56-second video is also available at
2001 Using Air in SDI to Increase Yields in Bell Peppers International Irrigation Show
2001-Vegetables West Adding Air Adds Yield
2005-02-17 Two-phase Flow of Water & Air During Aerated Subsurface Drip Irrigation SU & MIDMORE JOH