What Are the UC Ag Experts Talking About?

 For 2023

What is involved in the webinars?

A series of usually 1-hour long webinars, designed for growers and pest management professionals, highlighting various pest management and horticultural topics for citrus, avocados, and other subtropical crops. Master Gardeners can benefit from participating, but the pest management methods presented, especially the pesticides, are not to be followed without a clear understanding of their legal use by homeowners.

During each session, a UC Expert on the subject makes a presentation and entertains write-in questions via chat during and/or after the presentation. As we develop this program, we may expand to other crops.  

What are the topics and how do I register?

Register for webinars using the links above.

Vegetable IPM in the Sacramento Valley by Dr. Amber Vinchesi-Vahl (February 22, 2023)

• Dr. Amber Vinchesi-Vahl will discuss IPM on vegetables in the Sacramento Valley, with a focus on tomatoes. One DPR CE unit (other) and one CCA CE unit (IPM) are pending.

Insects in the Vineyard by Dr. Cindy Kron (April 19, 2023)

• Dr. Cindy Kron will discuss the importance of proper insect identification in IPM and discuss many insects that are beneficial in vineyards. She will also discuss economic thresholds for pests that cause damage and vector diseases and include a pest to be on the lookout for: spotted lanternfly. One DPR CE unit (other) and one CCA CE unit (IPM) are pending.

Flatheaded Borer Concerns in California Walnuts by Dr. Jhalendra Rijal (May 31, 2023)

• Dr. Jhalendra Rijal will discuss flatheaded borer and how it is an old pest but has become a new problem in California walnuts. One DPR CE unit (other) and one CCA CE unit (IPM) are pending.

Are there Continuing Education units?

When the subject discusses pest or disease management, continuing education units (CEU) will be requested from DPR (1 unit per session) and when relevant also Certified Crop Advisor (CCA) continuing education units will be requested. To qualify for the CEU make sure to

• register separately with your own email address and log in from your own device
• participate in the entire hour session
• complete and pass a final test with 70% or higher; if not passed, the test can be retaken

If you are connecting by smartphone and need CEUs, be sure that you are using the zoom app (Android, iPhone) so that you have access to the presentation and we can track your presence in the webinar.

Certificates of completion will be emailed within one week to those who meet those requirements above.

The webinars are recorded and linked from this web site for future study. However, continuing education units are awarded only to the participants who attend the live version of the webinar.

Make a gift to support UC Ag Experts webinars

Your gift furthers UC's Integrated Pest Management's mission to help California residents, growers, land managers, and other professional pest managers prevent and solve pest problems with minimal impact on people and the environment by developing and promoting the use of integrated and ecologically sound pest management programs. Make a gift and use the Comment field to specify that your gift is for UC Ag Experts Talk webinars.

Who is involved in the UC Ag Experts webinars?

This webinar series is brought to you by Ben Faber (UC ANR Ventura Advisor) and Dr. Beth Grafton-Cardwell (Emeritus Entomology UCCE Specialist) with the technical support of Petr Kosina (UC IPM Content Development Supervisor) and Cheryl Reynolds (UC IPM Interactive Learning Developer). 

New online course on diagnosing herbicide injury now available

—Petr Kosina, UC Statewide IPM Program

A brand-new online course on Diagnosing Herbicide Injury focusing on how an herbicide injury situation can arise, what information can help diagnose symptoms during field investigations, and what tools are available to you, is now available from the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management program (UC IPM).

When unexplained damage is noticed on a crop or other non-weed plant, herbicides are often a primary suspect. That is no surprise because herbicides are very powerful and effective tools used to control weedy plants in a wide variety of locations. However, symptoms of many other plant stresses, such as diseases and nutrient deficiencies or toxicities, can closely resemble the injury symptoms caused by herbicides. Economic implications of herbicide damage can vary–in some cases visible injury may have very little direct economic effect while in others, even slight herbicide symptoms can affect the marketability of affected plants. In addition, the presence of an unregistered herbicide on non-target crops can result in illegal residues which could have both safety and legal consequences.

The new online course was developed by Dr. Brad Hanson and Dr. Kassim Al-Khatib from the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, and UC IPM instructional designers. If you are a grower, pest control adviser, or pesticide applicator, then this course is a great opportunity to learn about how to approach crop injury investigation when herbicide is suspected cause. You will learn how herbicides injure plants, how long herbicide symptoms may last and factors that may influence the time that herbicide injury symptoms are visible, possible scenarios of herbicide exposure based on uniform and variable injury patterns observed in the field, how to prepare samples for the laboratory analysis and more. 

The course content is free to anyone who wishes to view it. For those requiring a certificate of completion and continuing education units (CEUs), the regular cost is $30, but we are offering a reduced price of $15 through October 31, 2021. Diagnosing Herbicide Injury course has been approved by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) for 1.5 continuing education units (CEU) of Other, Certified Crop Advisor (CCA) for 1.5 units (IPM), and the Arizona Department of Agriculture for 1.0 Credit.

If you are a DPR license or certificate holder with a last name beginning with letters M through Z, then this will be your year to renew. Now is a good time to check out the other UC IPM online training courses offered. All are 50% off the regular price through October 31^st. DPR strongly suggests returning renewal packets back to them by October so that your license or certificate can be renewed before it expires. Many of our courses are accredited by DPR for continuing education hours and also by the California Structural Pest Control Board (SPCB), Certified Crop Advisor (CCA), the Western Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture (WCISA), and the Arizona Department of Agriculture.

For more information, please contact
Petr Kosina, with UC IPM, at pkosina@ucanr.edu

UC IPM online courses:

New Fuller rose beetle course and early-bird pricing

—Cheryl Reynolds, UC Statewide IPM Program

Summer is here, and we're halfway through 2019 already! Why not get jump on finishing up your continuing education units by taking online courses from the UC Statewide IPM Program (UC IPM). If you are a license or certificate holder from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), and your last name begins with the letters M through Z, you should be receiving your renewal packet in August.

We're excited to announce some changes.

• In January, we switched all of our online courses to a new learning system located at https://campus.extension.org/. This new system has extensive technical support, is easier to navigate, and is more stable than the old one. Note that the extension platform offers courses from all across the country, including several providers from California. Look for the UC IPM logo to be sure you are taking one of our courses.
• We are pleased to announce that a brand-new online course on the Fuller rose beetle was added to our citrus integrated pest management IPM series. Dr. Beth Grafton-Cardwell, a citrus IPM specialist and research entomologist, and Dr. Joseph Morse, emeritus professor of entomology, developed the course. The course describes the life cycle, natural enemies, and management of Fuller rose beetle and explains why it is important for countries that export citrus. Fuller Rose Beetle has been approved by (DPR) for 1 hour of credit in the Other category and by Certified Crop Advisor (CCA) for 0.5 hour of IPM credit.
• Many of our courses are now credited not only by DPR for continuing education hours, but also by the California Structural Pest Control Board (SPCB), Certified Crop Advisor (CCA), Western Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture (WCISA), and also by Arizona Department of Agriculture.

DPR encourages license and certificate holders to avoid the end-of-the-year rush and submit renewal applications by November 1 to ensure license renewal by January 1, 2020. Submitting your renewal early avoids late fees and gives you time to address any issues that may arise such as not having enough hours to successfully renew.

Another incentive to get a jump on completing your needed continuing education units (CEUs) with UC IPM's online courses is that we are offering an early-bird price for four of our most wanted courses until November 1^st.

• Proper Pesticide Use to Avoid Illegal Residues (2 hours Laws and Regulations; early bird price $40, full price $80)
• Proper Selection, Use, and Removal of Personal Protective Equipment (1.5 hours Laws and Regulations; early bird price $30, full price $60)
• Pesticide Resistance (2 hours Other; early bird price $20, full price $40)
• Pesticide Application Equipment and Calibration (1.5 hours Other; early bird price $15, full price $30)

You can find all of our twenty-one courses listed on the UC IPM website at http://ipm.ucanr.edu/training/.