By law, fieldworkers and pesticide handlers must be trained in basic pesticide safety and personal protection, but who trains their trainers? Pesticide Safety Education Coordinator Lisa Blecker will be giving Train the Trainer workshops in 2014 in various locations around the state. The purpose of these workshops is to teach and certify individuals to provide pesticide safety training to fieldworkers and pesticide handlers. Participants learn pesticide basics, laws and regulations that pertain to worker safety, required elements they must include in a pesticide safety training, and effective teaching methods for adult learners. During the course of the workshops, participants might find themselves selecting and wearing appropriate PPE for a given pesticide application or working in a group to demonstrate to other classmates the safe way to open pesticide containers. Past participants say they like the format and find the group discussions and activities effective for learning how to best provide safety training to others.

In 2014, trainings will be held in the following locations: Modesto, Woodland, Salinas and Bakersfield. Registration for the 2014 trainings opened on December 9, 2013. For details about the dates, locations, and languages offered (Spanish or English), visit the UC Statewide IPM Events and Workshops page.

UC IPM’s new Pest Alert helps you identify Bagrada bug, an invasive stink bug spreading through western Arizona and southern California causing severe crop, nursery, and landscape losses. In agriculture, Bagrada bug is a pest of cole crops and other mustard family plants. In home gardens it feeds on these same vegetables and on ornamental plants such as sweet alyssum and candytuft.

Bagrada bugs use their needlelike mouthparts to pierce and feed on plants and their seeds. Damage includes leaf spotting, wilting, stunting, multiple branches or crowns, and death of the whole plant.

The Pest Alert was produced by UCCE advisors Eric Natwick and Surendra Dara, John Palumbo from the University of Arizona, and the UC IPM team.

Preliminary agricultural management information is also available.

Citrus leafminer, Phyllocnistis citrella, is yet another invasive insect recently found attacking lemon trees in Salinas. It was first detected in Imperial County in 2000. As per 2012 Monterey County crop report, lemon acreage is 1,239 with the total value of $15.2 million. This miner larva makes serpentine mines (as it leaves frass) on the citrus leaves (photo 1) and prefers young foliage. As the name suggests, it mostly attacks citrus such as oranges, mandarins, lemons, limes, grapefruit, kumquat and calamondin. Mature larva (Photo 2) moves close to the edge of the leaves, folds the leaf margin (Photo 3) and pupates (Photo 4). Adults are short lived (2 weeks maximum). Upon emergence from pupae, female attracts male by emitting sex pheromone, mates and lays eggs on the underside, midvein of the young leaves.  

Damage from citrus leafminer is not considered serious. Mature trees have plenty of foliage to cope with substantial levels of infestation but severe infestation on young trees may retard growth. Chemical management for citrus leafminer is not often necessary because naturally occurring biological control agents such as parasitic wasps suppress leafminer infestation. Pheromone traps are commercially available to monitor their populations.  

Further reading:

For garden and landscape folks: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74137.html

For commercial citrus growers: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r107303211.html

University of California Cooperative Extension—Monterey County

2013 Plant Disease Seminar

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon

**County of Monterey Agricultural Center— Conference Room**

1432 Abbott Street, Salinas, California

8:00 – 8:30          Registration for morning session (no charge).

8:30 – 9:00            2013 plant disease developments in coastal California

                              Steven Koike. UC Cooperative Extension, Monterey

9:00 – 9:30          Update on Verticillium wilt of lettuce and other crops

                              Krishna Subbarao. University of California, Davis

9:30 – 10:00          Emerging Produce Safety Issues: Human Parasites and Viruses

                              Trevor Suslow. University of California, Davis

10:00 – 10:30      Break: Sponsored by CAPCA, Monterey Bay Chapter

10:30 – 11:00        Protecting leafy greens from contamination by filth flies

                              Alec Gerry. University of California, Riverside

11:00 – 11:30       Grapevine virus diseases: Implications of red blotch virus

                              Larry Bettiga. UC Cooperative Extension, Monterey        

11:30 – 12:00       Spinach downy mildew: research on disease development

                              Steve Klosterman. USDA-ARS, Salinas

Continuing education credits are requested. Call ahead (at least 24 hrs.) for special needs arrangements; efforts will be made to accommodate full participation. For more information, contact Steven Koike (831-759-7350; 1432 Abbott Street, Salinas, CA 93901) or visit our website at http://cemonterey.ucdavis.edu.

An afternoon session, held in this same conference room, will be hosted by CAPCA, Monterey Bay Chapter.