- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Five students from Central America and the Caribbean who recently graduated from Reedley College with associate's degrees in agriculture business are undertaking a four-week internship at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center.
The students are part of Reedley College's Scholarships for Education and Economic Development (SEED) program, a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Agency for International Development and Georgetown University's Center for Intercultural Education and Development.
After their four-week research stint at Kearney ends, the students will be traveling back to their homes to share the knowledge and skills they acquired during their two years in America to produce a positive impact in their communities and countries.
The five scholars working at Kearney are:
- Kenia Ruiz, 22, of Santa Ana, El Salvador
- Lucas Bartolón, 25, of San Marcos, Guatemala
- Pierre Marescot, 26, of Cayes, Haiti
- Gricelda Sánchez, 21, of Managua, Nicaragua
- Gabriela Nicolas López, 23, of Santa María, Honduras
Ruiz and Bartolón are working in the lab of plant pathologist Themis Michailides. Marescot, Sanchez and Lopez are assisting with a variety of projects with KARE researchers and staff.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
McKenry was born in Selma and raised on a farm where his family produced fruits and vegetables for sale at Highway 99 fruit stands. He 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, Calif., 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 underway 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.
Over the last two decades, McKenry’s nematological expertise provided industry awareness of three grape rootstocks, RS-9, RS-3 and 10-17A; three fruit/nut rootstocks including Krymsk 1, specifically useful for dwarf plum trees; HBOK-1 and Hansen 536, for peach and almond orchards, plus a new walnut rootstock named VX211. In addition to durable nematode resistance with these rootstocks, some may be planted without soil fumigation. If some fumigation was necessary, he demonstrated how a portable boiler could provide adequate steam to give first-year nematode relief.
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 home in Cayucos while continuing his worldwide travels.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The solar array at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center has been completed. Robert Ray, superintendent of the physical plant, said it will be integrated into the PG&E grid within a month and begin generating electricity for the F. Gordon Mitchell Post Harvest Laboratory, the sensory laboratory and a plant and sample handling lab. Below are photos of the construction process. Infrastructure has already been installed underground to expand the array when funds become available.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
During his 15 years at Kearney, Jensen identified recent agricultural science graduates and hired them as staff research associates to work with him in the field and in his lab. He trained them on the most recent plant science research techniques, imparting skills for future careers as farm advisors.
UC Cooperative Extension advisors that worked with Jensen include George Leavitt, retired UCCE advisor in Madera County, viticulture; Harry Andris, retired UCCE advisor in Fresno County, tree crops; Bob Beede, UCCE advisor in Kings County, tree crops; Larry Bettiga, UCCE advisor in Monterey County, viticulture; Rhonda Smith, UCCE advisor in Sonoma County, viticulture; and Mary Bianchi, UCCE advisor in San Luis Obispo County, horticulture.
“Jensen was soft-spoken, had a good sense of humor and honest to a fault,” said Fred Swanson, the former director of Kearney. “He was an outstanding researcher, an accomplished photographer and has made a greater impact than anyone I’ve known by investing himself in other people.”
Jenson was raised on a farm in Weedpatch, Kern County. He earned a bachelor’s degree in soil science at UC Berkeley in 1942, then served for three years in the U.S. Army. He later earned a master’s degree in horticulture from UC Davis.
In 1947, Jensen was hired as an assistant farm advisor by UC Cooperative Extension in Tulare County at a salary of $3,600 per year. In 1972 he was promoted to viticulture specialist at Kearney.
As both a farm advisor and specialist, he worked to develop and obtain registration for commercial products to benefit the state’s grape growers, such as plant growth regulators and many other critical agricultural chemicals. Jensen’s detailed research on gibberellic acid applications helped identify optimal rates and timing that had eluded previous UC researchers. His work on bloom time applications have become an industry standard. Jensen also did the initial work on ethephon, a plant growth regulator used to enhance and improve fruit color. Jensen developed the use of ethephon to enhance raisin maturity, which almost eliminated the loss of raisin crops from early rains.
Jensen researched cultivar selection, vine spacing, trellising and integrated pest management. An early promoter of IPM practices, his contributions were instrumental in production of the UC Grape Pest Management Manual. He was the author or co-author of more than 250 publications and his scientific work is referenced in textbooks, journals and other viticulture publications. Jensen was a longtime editor of the scientific journal American Enology and Viticulture and was a world authority on table grape production.
Jensen retired from UC Cooperative Extension in 1987, but continued to conduct research and extension work for decades as an emeritus viticulture specialist and private viticulture consultant. In honor of his life-long body of work, Jensen received the Merit Award from the American Society for Enology and Viticulture in 2001. He was recognized for his contributions to California’s table grape industry at the 6th International Table Grape Symposium in 2010.
Jensen is survived by his wife of 27 years, Thelma Lile Essex, two daughters, three step-children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. April 28 at Quail Park Retirement Village, 5420 W. Cypress Ave., Visalia, Calif.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A group of world IPM leaders presented UC Cooperative Extension integrated pest management advisor Walt Bentley with its Lifetime Achievement Award at the 7th International IPM Symposium March 27 in Memphis, Tenn. Bentley also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Applied IPM Ecologists in February.
Professionals and academics in the field of integrated pest management convene the international symposium annually to bring together the scientists and people who practice IPM every day in agriculture, natural areas and community settings to collaborate and develop collective strategies. Some of the modern IPM challenges the group addresses are herbicide resistance, bed bugs and invasive species. For more than 20 years, these experts in pest management have selected champions in their field to receive awards of excellence.
Bentley began his UC career in 1977 as a UC IPM entomologist focusing on pest problems in almonds, grapes and stone fruit. Since that time, he has been committed to three major goals as part of the UC Statewide IPM Program:
- Coordinate with others
- Do research that meets the needs of farmers
- Develop relevant outreach
Bentley and a team of UC Cooperative Extension advisors and specialists and collaborating farmers developed IPM approaches and alternative control strategies that successfully reduce the use of the highest risk insecticides (carbamates and organophosphates) in California by 80 to 90 percent in almonds, table grapes and tree fruit. This reduction helps the environment and the producers.