- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
![Alejandro Del Pozo-Valdivia, UC Cooperative Extension entomology advisor in Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties, in an iceberg lettuce field in Chualar, Calif.](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/Green/blogfiles/60329small.jpg)
When Alejandro Del Pozo-Valdivia started his new job as UC Cooperative Extension entomology advisor in the Salinas Valley last year, he immediately faced an urgent problem in organic lettuce production.
Pest control advisers were finding lettuce aphids in plants that were supposed to be resistant.
Because lettuce aphids crawl deep within the heart of the lettuce head, and because organic growers do not have many options for chemical pest control, the industry relies on patented lettuce varieties that have been conventionally bred to be unpalatable to the pest.
“With other types of aphids, they stay on...
- Author: Janet Byron
![In soils infested with the Fusarium fungus, 'Caesar' lettuce was highly disease resistant.](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/Green/blogfiles/10187small.jpg)
In a comprehensive study published in the January-March 2012 issue of the University of California’s California Agriculture journal, researchers evaluated the myriad factors that contribute to crop damage from Fusarium wilt, and conclude that an integrated management approach is most effective.
“Management of Fusarium wilt requires an integrated approach that includes crop rotation to reduce soil inoculum levels and the use of resistant cultivars during the warmest planting windows,” wrote UC Davis plant pathology professor Thomas Gordon and co-authors.
Lettuce is...