This spring if you are looking for options to obtain your continuing education units (CEUs) and not sure where to get them, why not check out the online options that the UC Statewide IPM Program (UC IPM) has to offer. For license and certificate holders from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) with last names beginning with the letters A through L, 2020 will be the year to renew.

UC IPM currently offers 16 online courses for DPR credit. Many of the courses are also accredited by the California Structural Pest Control Board (SPCB), Certified Crop Advisor (CCA), Western Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture (WCISA), or Arizona Department of Agriculture.

If you are looking for CEUs in the Laws and Regulations category, check out these courses:

• Proper Pesticide Use to Avoid Illegal Residues (2.0 Pesticide Laws & Regs)
• Proper Selection, Use, and Removal of Personal Protective Equipment (1.5 Pesticide Laws & Regs)
• Providing IPM in Schools and Child Care Settings(1.0 Other and 0.5 Pesticide Laws & Regs)

Some of our courses do require a fee and are being offered at an early-bird price through October 31^st.  These courses can be purchased individually, or they can be purchased as a 4-course bundle for a special price of $85—a total discount of $20 versus purchasing each course separately.

In addition to offering online courses, UC IPM also hosts a monthly webinar series sponsored by

the Citrus Research Board. The UC Ag Experts webinar series is designed for growers and pest control advisers. It includes presentations on various pest management and horticultural topics, primarily for citrus and avocados. The next webinar will be held on April 8^th from 3 PM until 4 PM with Dr. Elizabeth Grafton-Cardwell, UC Riverside Department of Entomology and Extension Specialist, speaking about citricola scale. This webinar has been approved for one hour of Other CEUs from DPR and 1 hour of IPM units from CCA. Registration is currently open. View past webinars on the YouTube UC Ag Expert Talk Playlist. CEUs are only available for attending the live webinar.

DPR always encourages license and certificate holders to avoid the last-minute rush and renew early to ensure your license will be renewed by January 1^st. Take advantage of UC IPM's online courses and webinar series to get a jump start on your renewal today!

Diamondback moth adults have been actively flying across the Salinas Valley these winter months, based on our area-wide monitoring program. There were a couple of locations where we recorded 'zero' captures during January. It looks like low temperatures in the Valley just slowed down this moth development. At this point, it will be difficult to propose that there was an overwintering generation this past winter. Specially in the Castroville area, where there has never been a 'zero' capture from our two traps. Having an overwintering generation would have represented 'zero' captures from all or most of our pheromone traps across the Valley.

We continue the effort to validate automated pheromone traps. In partnership with AgCeleration and TrapView, we are testing in the field a new prototype (Fig. 1). So far, there is no significant difference on the weekly captures between this new automated trap when compared to a typical cardboard pheromone trap. These automated traps provide real-time information on the number of diamondback moth males captured in a daily based. This type of information could ultimately help to understand the trends of the adults moving across the farmscape, strengthening an IPM program in cole crops.

Fig. 1. Automated pheromone trap for diamondback moth

Daily captures of diamondback moth male adults indicate that the highest populations are currently located in the Castroville area. On average, we have captured 12 males per day since February 11th (Fig. 2.). Most of the fluctuation on number of captured adults might have been mediated by air temperatures. The current trend shows that adult captures are going down. It is likely that large populations of this pest were able to go through a generation in the Castroville area using crop, weed host plants, and crop residues. It is important to recognize that:

1) Castroville area continues to be a hot spot with the largest diamondback moth population across the Salinas Valley.

2) Promptly scouting of blocks with cole crops will help to early detect the presence of economically relevant numbers of caterpillars.

3) Manage weeds, specially at the surrounding areas of established blocks, will reduce the overall population.

4) Promptly elimination of cole crop residues from previous plantings will reduce the overall population.

5) Rotate the use of insecticides will reduce the possibility to develop insecticide resistance.

6) Use of adjuvants/stickers will reduce the possibility of washing away any insecticide spray onto waxy cole crop leaves.

Fig. 2. Diamondback moth males daily captures from automated pheromone traps (blue line) and average daily temperatures (orange bars)

If you would like to learn more about the current status of diamondback moth in the Salinas Valley, please contact Alejandro Del-Pozo at adelpozo@ucanr.edu or call 831-759-7359.

The California Plant and Soil Conference will be held in Fresno CA at the DoubleTree Hotel and Convention Center on February 4-5, 2020.  This is a very comprehensive conference with talks from speakers invited from industry, government agencies, and universities. Topics this year will include cover crop management, nitrogen management, organic amendments, pest management, water quality regulations, pesticide mitigation in runoff and more.  Both CCA and DPR educational hours are available. For more information please visit the California Chapter of Agronomy Society of America or to see the full agenda go to calasa.ucdavis.edu/Agenda/

This year we will cover a wide range of topics related to water and nutrient management, including food safety, pesticide toxicity, organic nitrogen management, drip germination, weather-based irrigation scheduling, as well as ground water management in the Salinas Valley.   Please come and participate and enjoy a free lunch!  As always, registration is free.

Monterey County Agricultural Center

1432 Abbott Street, Salinas, CA

Tuesday, February 18

7:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

7:45         Registration (free)

8:00          Best management practices for mitigating pesticides in run-off

Bryn Phillips, Toxicologist, UCD Granite Canyon Laboratory

8:30          Does evapotranspiration (ET) work?

Michael Cahn, Irrigation and Water Resources Advisor, UC Cooperative Extension

9:00         Effect of drip germination on topical N fertilizer applications 

Richard Smith and Michael Cahn, UC Cooperative Extension

9:30         Using weather-based irrigation scheduling for optimizing cauliflower production

Lee Johnson, Senior Research Scientist, NASA Ames Research Center-CSUMB

10:00       Break

10:30        A minus R: Implications and challenges for Central Coast farming.

Michael Cahn, Irrigation and Water Resources Advisor, UC Cooperative Extension

11:00        Treatment of reservoir and tail water for protecting food safety

Channah Rock, Associate Professor, University of Arizona

11:30        Organic fertilization of vegetables

Richard Smith, Vegetable and Weed Science Advisor, UC Cooperative Extension

12:00       Update on Salinas Valley ground water management

               Gary Petersen, General Manager, Salinas Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency

12:30       Pizza Lunch

CCA & DPR continuing education credits have been requested

    For more information, contact Lennis Arriaga @ 831-759-7353, email: larriaga@ucanr.edu

The University of California prohibits discrimination or harassment of any person in any of its programs or activities. (Complete nondiscrimination policy statement can be found at http://ucanr.org/sites/anrstaff/files/107734.doc). Inquiries regarding the University's equal employment opportunity policies may be directed to Affirmative Action Contact and Title IX Officer, University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources, 2801 2nd Street, Davis, CA 95618, (530) 750-1397; titleixdiscrimination@ucanr.edu.