- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Namesake of the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center’s postharvest center, F. Gordon Mitchell, died in February. He was 88.
Mr. Mitchell began his distinguished career with the University of California Cooperative Extension immediately following graduation from college in 1949. He was the viticulture advisor in San Joaquin County for eight years before taking a position as statewide pomology specialist at UC Davis in 1957.
During his career, Mr. Mitchell’s work resulted in an industry-wide change to rapid cooling methods, the improvement in fruit packing efficiency, and greater understanding among farmers about the requirements of produce during the postharvest time period. He worked primarily on plums, peaches, nectarines, cherries, pears, strawberries, applies and kiwifruit, however, during his 42-year career conducted research on virtually all pomological commodities.
Mr. Mitchell retired in 1991. When Dinuba farmer/packer LeRoy Giannini contributed funds to build the new postharvest laboratory at Kearney, he suggested naming the building after Mr. Mitchell. On Feb. 8, 1993, the facility was christened the F. Gordon Mitchell Postharvest center.
Emeritus UC Cooperative Extension specialist Jim Thompson of the UC Davis Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering said Mr. Mitchell worked tirelessly with the California agriculture industry to improve the market for the state’s fresh fruits and tree nuts.
“He developed the early concepts and standards for handling California Granny Smith and Fuji apples, kiwifruit, and pistachio nuts,” Thompson said. “When the tree fruit industry had questions about postharvest issues, their first phone call was to Gordon."
UC Cooperative Extension postharvest horticulturist Mary Lu Arpaia, who is based at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, counts Mr. Mitchell as a mentor and guidepost for her career.
“Sometimes the best things in life that happen to you are unplanned,” Arpaia said about taking a job in the UC Davis postharvest lab when she was a graduate student. “That job was with Gordon and that was serendipity. When I think back on that one event I know it was one of the most important events in my graduate career and subsequent adventures in life.”
Arpaia said Mr. Mitchell’s work with his colleagues with forced air cooling and packaging established him to be a leader, “albeit a soft spoken one,” in the field of postharvest handling.
Mr. Mitchell was a Davis resident for 55 years. The family obituary described him as a gentle and devoted soul who took great pride in his faith, family and career. Mr. Mitchell is survived by his sister, two sons, a daughter and six grandchildren.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
In recognition of a productive career advancing integrated pest management programs in California and for tireless support of IPM practitioners, UC IPM entomologist Walt Bentley received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Applied IPM Ecologists.
The award was presented at the association's annual meeting, Feb. 6 in Oxnard, Calif., by his IPM colleague Pete Goodell, a nemotologist who is, like Bentley, based at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier, Calif. Goodell is the current president of the Association of Applied IPM Ecologists.
Goodell said a hallmark of Bentley's work has been his ability to connect and empathize with his clientele, an outgrowth of his childhood on a small family farm near Linden, Calif. He began his career with UC Cooperative Extension in 1977 as an entomology farm advisor in Kern County and transferred to his position at Kearney in 1994.
"His projects over the years have addressed real problems of real people," Goodell said. "He spent many hours on farm calls and at the front counter, answering questions, seeking information on the problem and, if required, formulating a plan to seek a solution."
Bentley was part of many research and extension teams formed with campus and county academics to solve local problems, from potato tubermoth to mealy bugs to worm pests in tree fruits and nuts. Bentley focused on the biology of the pest and the weak link in its life cycle where management could employed: chemical, cultural or biological.
Goodell said that Bentley valued outputs and outcomes. He published more than 400 articles in diverse outlets, including the local press, trade magazines, newsletters, ANR publications, UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines, book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center has a presence at what is billed the world's largest agricultural exposition, the World Ag Expo in Tulare, Calif., Feb. 14-16, 2012.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center scientists have found that production costs can be cut dramatically by growing “dwarf” trees that minimize the need for ladder access. However, the limiting factor for peaches has been the lack of acceptable dwarfing rootstocks for the best peach varieties.
In 1987, UC and USDA scientists began a landmark rootstock evaluation project. More than 100 varieties that were either collected or bred by USDA plant breeder David Ramming were planted at Kearney. Five trees each of O'Henry peach and Santa Rosa plum were grafted on the rootstocks and extensively evaluated over the next seven years.
For peach, eight selections showed good potential as dwarfing or semi-dwarfing rootstocks and were propagated for further evaluation. In 2004, two of these were patented as the slightly dwarfing rootstock, “Controller 9,” and the very dwarfing rootstock, “Controller 5.”
At UC Davis, now retired researcher Fred Bliss bred rootstocks using Harrow Blood and Okinawa as parents. UC Davis pomologist Ted De Jong has taken over the program, which patented and released three new rootstocks: Controller 7, Controller 8 and Controller 9.5. A fourth, Controller 6, will be released soon.
The research blocks with Controller 6, 7, 8, and 9.5 at Kearney are continuing to be monitored for production performance and sustained productivity. So far, their performance looks positive but, because of funding cuts, the long-term outlook for maintaining the plots is questionable, De Jong said. UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Kevin Day is conducting trials of “controller” rootstocks in conjunction with growers to help them determine which ones best fit their farming operations.
De Jong said there is significant interest in Controller 9 because it has been available the longest. Trees on Controller 9 are only slightly reduced in size but require significantly less pruning than trees on the standard rootstock, Nemaguard. There is also substantial interest in Controller 6 by growers who are more aggressive in their interest in smaller trees. Controller 6 causes a substantial reduction in tree size without reducing fruit size.
“I think that Controller 7 may be an optimal choice for many growers because it offers modest size-control and trees on it have had excellent production characteristics and is not such a large leap to a smaller tree,” De Jong said. “However there has been limited interest in it thus far.”
Controller 5 likely makes trees too small for commercial California peach production and trees on it tend to produce smaller fruit. However, it has good potential for home gardeners who have limited space, prefer not to prune much and aren’t very concerned about fruit size.
De Jong, Day, UC Davis pomology specialist Scott Johnson and numerous students have conducted extensive research concerning the dwarfing mechanism involved in these rootstocks and published more than 10 scientific articles on different aspects of the research. These articles and more information about the California Rootstock Breeding Program are available on the UC Fruit Report website.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Soil solarization involves covering a field with clear plastic mulch to trap solar radiation in moist soil. During the hot summer months, the soil temperature can rise to levels that can kill soilborne diseases, nematodes and weed seeds. This system has proven especially useful to small-scale, limited-resource and organic growers who produce specialty crops in warm climates.
Last summer’s research, coordinated by Kearney-based integrated pest management plant pathologist Jim Stapleton, was part of a bi-national, multi-institution collaborative effort led by UC Davis biological and agricultural engineering professor Jean VanderGheynst. The research was funded with a grant from the Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund, which supports agricultural research in Israel and the U.S. that is mutually beneficial.
Environmental science students at Fresno Pacific University, under the supervision of professor and project collaborator Ruth Dahlquist, were enlisted to carry out some of the research on micro plots at Kearney. They subjected black mustard seed to a solarization regimen that mimicked typical farming conditions to study the effects of the treatment on the seeds and the physical and biological properties of the soil.
Two of the Fresno Pacific students were honored by the California Weed Science Society at its annual meeting in January for posters they developed based on their research findings. DeeAnn Kroeker earned first place in the student poster contest for her analysis of the effects of volatiles produced during solarization of compost-amended soil on black mustard seed inactivation. Kate Hernandez was awarded third place for her poster about the field effects of solarization and compost treatment on inactivation of black mustard seed.
The research at Kearney continues during the summer of 2012.
The Israeli counterpart of the solarization research is focused on the impact of a different type of compost and solarization on fungal plant pathogens in the soil.
