- Author: Paramveer Singh
- Editor: Michael D Cahn
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has introduced the new Advanced Clean Fleet (ACF) Regulation, with a mission to expedite the transition to zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) across the state. This regulation affects vehicles with a gross weight rating (GWR) greater than 8,500 pounds which includes some commonly used pickup trucks such as Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Sierra 2500, Ford F-250 Ram 2500 and other models of similar or greater weight. There are some vehicles that are exempt from this regulation such as historical vehicles, dedicated snow removal vehicles, two-engine vehicles, and heavy cranes. This article tries to give a simple and brief overview of the regulation with exemptions and extensions.
Who is Affected: The ACF Regulation applies to growers with either $50 million or more in gross annual revenue or owning, operating, or controlling 50 or more vehicles over 8,500 lbs. Hence, many growing operations in the region will fall under the regulation which classifies such growers as “High Priority Fleet”. Growers who fall under this category will need to start complying with the regulation in the upcoming year. Additionally, entities that are engaged in drayage (freight hauling) operations at seaports and railyards, as well as fleets owned by State, Local, and Federal government agencies are also affected by this regulation.
Compliance Requirements for the Growers:
a) The first part of the regulation is submitting a compliance report which includes information about the ownership and of each vehicle in the fleet. The first compliance report needs to be submitted through the Truck Regulation Upload, Compliance, and Reporting System (TRUCRS) by February 1, 2024, and subsequently it should be uploaded each year until 2045. The report should contain information about
- Fleet ownership details
- Details about each vehicle in the fleet such as VIN, make, model, weight, etc.
- Selection of ZEV transition option (discussed below).
b) The second part of compliance is choosing a pathway to transition to zero-emission fleets. There are two possible pathways:
- Model Year Schedule Option:
- Starting January 2024, any new vehicles with a gross weight over 8,500 lbs. (eg. Ford F-250, Ram 2500) must be a ZEV.
- However, if the new gasoline/diesel-powered were ordered for purchase before October 1, 2023, can be added to the fleet.
- Further, existing gasoline/diesel vehicles must be removed from the fleet when mileage exceeds 800,000 miles or when it exceeds a lifespan of 18 years.
- ZEV Milestones Option:
This option allows fleet owners to gradually introduce ZEVs into their fleets between 2025 and 2042, depending on the type of vehicle and its usage. Under this option, the entire fleet is categorized into three vehicle groups:
- Group 1: Includes box trucks such as refrigerated vans and trucks, vans, buses with two axles, yard tractors, light-duty package delivery vehicles (means a vehicle with a gross weight equal to or less than 8,500 lbs. with equal to or greater than 100 cubic feet of cargo-carrying volume).
- Group 2: Includes work trucks, day cab tractors (on-road tractor without a berth designed for resting or sleeping), pickup trucks, buses with three axles.
- Group 3: Sleeper cab tractors (a tractor with a berth designed for resting or sleeping at the back of the cab) and specialty vehicles.
Each group of vehicles must transition to ZEV by the dates and milestones indicated in the table below.
Here's the table that shows ZEV Fleet Milestones that a grower must achieve by group and year.
Here is an example calculation for a fleet for the calendar year 2030: Let's say a fleet has 100 Group 1 vehicles, 50 Group 2 vehicles, and 30 Group 3 vehicles. By 2030, the fleet must have 25% ZEVs for Group 1, 25% for Group 2, and 10% for Group 3 (from the above table). Number of ZEVs required would be as follows:
Group 1: 100 vehicles x 25% = 25 ZEVs
Group 2: 50 vehicles x 25% = 12.5 ZEVs
Group 3: 30 vehicles x 10% = 3 ZEVs
So, the total ZEV Fleet Milestone for that year is 40.5 ZEVs, which rounds up to 41 ZEVs needed.
A crucial point to keep in mind is that the ZEVs do not need to be in a particular group (1,2,3). It is the total number ZEVs purchased that CARB is going to consider for compliance. As long as the ZEVs added have a gross vehicle weight rating of greater than 8,500 lbs., it can count towards compliance regardless of the three groups. Thus, a fleet owner can use any combination of ZEVs from the three groups to comply. For more information, please visit Advanced Clean Fleets Regulation Zev Milestone Option
b) Exemptions and Extensions: Presently the number of models of ZEVs that are suitable for on-farm use is limited and the supply of these types of vehicles has not ramped up yet. Also, it would take time and significant investment before there is a substantial charging infrastructure in place to support a fleet of ZEV. Fortunately, there are exemptions and extensions for specific circumstances. For example, if you have an old vehicle that is rarely used (less than 1,000 miles a year), you might not have to get rid of it. And if you can't find an electric replacement for your aging vehicle, you can ask for permission to buy a similar non-ZEV. If setting up charging stations is going to delay the transition to ZEV, you can also ask for more time. The same goes for delays in purchasing new electric vehicles due to circumstances beyond your control, such as a shortfall in supply. If you can't find an electric replacement, you might be able to buy regular gasoline or diesel engine vehicle.
To apply for exemptions or extensions, growers must email the supporting documents as evidence for the exemption or extension to TRUCRS@arb.ca.gov.
Here's an example situation where one could apply for an extension due to a delay in the electric vehicle delivery. If you ordered a ZEV at least one year before the compliance date, but the delivery of the vehicle was delayed, you can keep using your old vehicle until the new ZEV arrives by qualifying for an extension. The fleet owner must email following information to TRUCRS@arb.ca.gov during the annual reporting period:
- VIN of the combustion engine vehicle for which the extension is being requested.
- A written, signed, and dated legally binding purchase document that provides information about the owner's commitment to purchase the ZEV, date of the purchase, and that the purchase is for immediate delivery to the owner.
c) Enforcement and Penalties
- Penalties may be imposed on individuals or entities failing to comply with the Advanced clean fleet requirements, including submitting false information.
- Penalties also apply for missing reporting deadlines, beginning January 1, 2025.
- CARB agents have the right to verify compliance records through inspections.
Concluding Remarks
The ACF Regulation marks a substantial shift towards zero-emission vehicles in California. For growers, staying in the loop, submitting compliance reports on time, and figuring out the best path for your fleet is key. Following these rules isn't just about compliance; it's a step towards a greener, more sustainable future for the Salinas Valley and beyond. Growers with hauling operations or High Priority Fleets need to be aware of the compliance requirements and available options.
Navigating this new regulation can be a bit of a puzzle. At first glance, it seems strict and challenging, especially for growers being asked to electrify commonly used pickup trucks starting next year. However, there's a silver lining – plenty of exemptions and extensions exist for growers to meet the electric vehicle replacement requirements over a longer period than is indicated in the timetable. Still, it's no walk in the park; it'll demand a chunk of your time and effort, thanks to the paperwork, monitoring, and reporting that comes with it.
The primary goal of this article is to connect with growers, sparking a conversation about this regulation. We want to field your questions, uncover the main obstacles you might face in compliance, and, just like UCCE did with the Ag Order on Water Restrictions, convey these challenges and feedback to the regulatory authorities Our goal is to ensure your voice is recognized in this ever-changing landscape, reassuring you that, as always, UCCE is here to provide any help or assistance you may need.
- Author: Michael D Cahn
- Author: Aparna Gazula
Thursday December 7, 2023
9:00 am - 11:00 am
Workshop will be presented on Zoom
Apply for California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) grant funding – Healthy Soils Program (HSP) and/or State Water efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP). Receive up to $200,000 in grant funding to improve soil health of your farm or increase irrigation and energy efficiency through two CDFA incentive grant programs. Grants can pay for cover crops, and soil amendment applications, as well as irrigation system improvements, variable frequency drives (VFD) for pumps, and solar arrays to offset energy costs associated with pumping.
During the workshop we will:
- Provide a comprehensive review of HSP and SWEEP grant programs
- Show you how to assemble a strong grant proposal
When: Thursday, December 7, 2023, 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Where: Via Zoom, link will be emailed to registered participants
Registration:
Register for the workshop and workshop resources: https://ucanr.edu/hsp-sweepworkshop
OR send an email to either:
Bailey Smith-Helman, bsmithhelman@ucanr.edu
Aparna Gazula, agazula@ucanr.edu
Questions: Contact bsmithhelman@ucanr.edu | 831-239-9465 or others as listed above.
Grant info.: Online applications. More details at https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/oefi/
Free One-On-One Technical Assistance to Apply for Grant Funds Need help in developing and/or submitting your project proposal? Schedule your free one-on-one Technical Assistance session, contact Bailey Smith-Helman, or others as listed above, for additional information. |
- Author: Michael D Cahn
Habrá traducción al Español!
Where: This is an online virtual event
Monday November 27, 1-3 pm Session 1 Understanding nitrogen and soil organic matter
Monday, December 4, 1-3 pm Session 2 Compost, fertilizers and cover crops
Monday December 11 , 1-3 pm Session 3 Water, synchronizing demand and supply
Monday December 18, 1-3 pm Open house, Grower panel
Note: Limited to 80 participants -- Must enroll in all 3 classes (Session 1-3)
Cost $25 No one will be turned away due to lack of funds. Please email Rob Straser with questions (rkstraser@ucanr.edu).
Earn 6 hours of CDFA-INMTP continuing education credits (formerly CURES CE Credits)
Earn 6 hours CCA credits
About this workshop
In this 3-part series, participants will learn how to estimate nitrogen release from diverse organic sources and translate that knowledge to nitrogen fertilization plans and regulatory reporting requirements. In session 2 and 4, participants will be able to work on and receive feedback on their own nitrogen budgets. Over the first 3 sessions, we will cover the most common sources of nitrogen and complete a nitrogen budget.
Who should enroll?
Growers, CCAs, PCAs and other agricultural professionals who are interested in learning about nitrogen management in organic production are encouraged to enroll.
November 27, 2023, 1-3 pm Part 1: Understanding nitrogen: the nutrient, the role of microbes and the relevance of soil organic matter
Presenters: Daniel Geisseler, Radomir Schmidt and Margaret Lloyd
We will begin with an overview of the sources, transformations and fates of sources of organic nitrogen in soil. Foundational to this, we'll cover the role and dynamics of microbes in nitrogen management, and how that impacts management decisions. Lastly, we'll discuss using nitrogen budgets to understand the sources and proportions of available nitrogen to meet crop demand.
December 4, 2023 1-3 pm Part 2: Estimating nitrogen release from organic amendments and contributions from cover crops
Presenters: Patricia Lazicki and Margaret Lloyd
This session will focus on estimating nitrogen release from compost, organic fertilizers and cover crops. In addition, participants will be invited to apply the training to their own operations and receive feedback on the budget calculations during this session.
December 11, 2023 1-3 pm Part 3: Putting it all together: Completing a nitrogen budget, synchronizing nitrogen release with nitrogen demand, and using soil tests
Presenters: Daniel Geisseler, Joji Muramoto, Michael Cahn and Margaret Lloyd
In this session, we will address specific aspects of organic soil fertility management in vegetables. Discussions will include nitrogen in irrigation water, managing water for nitrogen optimization, crop nitrogen demand and strategies to supply demand, as well as using and interpreting soil testing. Specific references will be made to strategies for complying with forthcoming regulations. We will conclude with a discussion on new frontiers in plant's nitrogen acquisition science.
December 18, 2023, 1-3 pm part 4: Open house (Grower Panel)
In this session we will have 1-2 growers share their experience managing nitrogen on their farms. Then, we will open it up to questions, share experiences and discuss the nitrogen budget file. Attendees will be encouraged to bring their own data to receive feedback.
About the Presenters
Daniel Geisseler is an associate Cooperative Extension Specialist in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at UC Davis. Daniel's research and outreach focuses on nutrient turnover and plant nutrition in agricultural systems. He is interested in the effects that different management practices have on nutrient use in California crops and how nutrient use efficiency can be improved, particularly with nitrogen. |
|
Patricia Lazicki is the Vegetable Crops Advisor for Yolo, Solano, and Sacramento Counties, working mainly in tomatoes. Her research interests include soil health, and nutrient management and fertility in organic annual cropping systems. |
|
Margaret Lloyd is the Organic Agriculture and Small Farms Advisor for Yolo, Solano and Sacramento Counties. She runs an active research and outreach program focused on nutrient management and pest management for organic vegetable farms. |
|
Joji Muramoto (joji@ucsc.edu) is an assistant Cooperative Extension organic production specialist at UC Santa Cruz. His research and extension focus on nitrogen and soilborne disease management in organic cropping systems across the state. |
|
Radomir Schmidt is a program manager at the Working Lands Innovation Center at the UC Davis Institute of the Environment. As a soil microbiologist, Radomir conducts research on the effects of specific farming practices (organic amendment application, enhanced rock weathering, cover cropping, no-till systems) on carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas fluxes in soils, and on the the roles of microbial communities in soil health improvement and maintenance. |
|
Michael Cahn (mdcahn@ucanr.edu) is an irrigation and water resources Farm Advisor for UC Cooperative Extension in Monterey County. His research and extension program focuses on irrigation efficiency, nutrient use of crops, and protecting water quality. He led the development of CropManage, an online decision support tool for irrigation and nutrient management. |
/table>
- Author: Kirsten Ann Pearsons
“In the coastal areas where spotted wilt is a serious problem ... there is much to be learned concerning the seasonal migrations and local host succession of the thrips”
At first, this looks like a quote from 2020 or 2022 made in reference to the recent outbreaks of Impaciens necrotic spot virus (INSV), a thrips-transmitted disease currently affecting lettuce. But the quote is actually pulled from a UC publication titled Thrips of economic importance in California, authored by Professor Stanley Bailey in 1938.
The lettuce industry here in the Salinas Valley has been hit hard by INSV the past few years, and understanding the biology of the thrips that vectors the virus could be critical for management. But as Bailey noted almost 100 years ago, fully understanding the biology of western flower thrips has been elusive for decades.
In Thrips of economic importance in California, Bailey also noted that thrips in coastal areas tend to spend their summers at higher altitudes, but as native hosts dry up, they can concentrate on nearby crops. I wondered if such a migration could help explain the increase in thrips and INSV pressure the past few falls. With advances in thrips collection methods (i.e., sticky cards) and changes in cropping patterns, I was curious -- could we could observe the migration that Bailey described nearly 100 years ago?
Methods: With help from John Massa (Comgro) and a team from Braga Fresh (Eric Morgan, Katie Chiapuzio, and Jaylen Calabro), I set up a loose transect of 10 sticky card traps at about 4' off the ground (Figure 1). The transect spanned 0.38 miles (610 m) and an elevation change of 325 ft (99 m).
The first traps were deployed on June 5th and the last traps were collected on October 25th. We swapped out cards every two weeks for a total of 10 sets of cards. Some cows used two of the lower traps as scratching posts, so we were limited to 8 traps for most of the trial.
Sticky cards were taken back to the lab to count any thrips that fit the general description of Western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis: less than 2 mm long, overall yellow to brown body color. Some larger, black thrips were occasionally found on traps and were excluded from overall counts.
Hypothesis: Thrips migrate down from the hills in late summer and early fall, increasing the thrips pressure in the valley which could increase the risk of spreading INSV.
Expected Results: If thrips counts are high in the hills in summer, but drop as populations rise in the valley, then this would be good support for Bailey's note and my hypothesis (Figure 2A). Alternatively, if thrips populations in the hills are consistent across time (Figure 2B), or if their population fluctuations match what is going on in the valley (Figure 2C), then it is unlikely that a mass migration is occurring.
Results: The transect results are summarized in figure 3. In panel A, the average thrips per week is plotted over time, with cards grouped by location (top of the hill, middle of the hill, or towards the bottom). The bottom traps were mostly surrounded by dried grass, while the top and middle traps were generally near chaparral plants that stayed green and flowering throughout the summer and into the fall. You can see an increase in thrips captures from June into July, followed by a dip in early august, and two more peaks in mid-August and early October (following that three-day heatwave). Compared to the valley counts (red line), the number of thrips captured on the hill was much higher, an average of 13 times higher than in the Valley. Adjusting the scale of the Valley-level trap counts (Figure 3B), we can see the Valley traps somewhat followed a similar pattern - thrips populations peaked in early June, had a few weeks of low counts in early August, then peaked again in mid-August and early October. With some variation, adult thrips captures in the hills followed a similar pattern to those captured nearby in the Valley.
Preliminary Conclusions: Contrary to my hypothesis, this small study does not provide evidence that thrips migrate en masse from the hills into the Salinas Valley. The hills maintained some green vegetation and flowers throughout the year, so thrips may not be driven to the Valley like Bailey described. Instead, the hills supported high thrips population throughout the summer and into the fall, which may have acted more like a continuous source of thrips into the valley. This could have interesting effects on INSV epidemiology, depending on whether the host plants in the hills can acquire INSV.
We of course cannot rely on a single transect in one year to conclude that thrips never migrate en mass into the Valley. This year we had an atypical, cool, wet spring that may have changed if or how thrips migrate. Perhaps migration only occurs in years with a drier, warmer spring. We also cannot discount the fact that the thrips we counted may not all be Western flower thrips; the identification characteristics we used (less than 2 mm long, overall yellow to brown body color) are not diagnostic of Western flower thrips. The next steps in this study would be to set up additional transects next year and live collection of thrips off of vegetation. By setting up additional transects (and getting them set up earlier in the season), we could determine if this preliminary transect was an anomaly, or if thrips are not behaving the way that Bailey described in 1938. Live collection of thrips is necessary to determine what proportion of thrips in the hills are Western flower thrips that can vector INSV. Either way, we are one step closer to understanding the seasonal migrations and local host succession of thrips, which could help us in our fight against INSV.
Much thanks to John Massa, Eric Morgan, Katie Chiapuzio, Jaylen Calabro, Jasmine Rodriguez, Luis Ramirez-Espinoza, and Carlos Rodriguez Lopez!