The environmental conditions under which parental plants are grown can affect the progeny population in many ways. Extreme abiotic environmental conditions such as high temperatures, water stress, nutrient deficiency and herbicide application not only will affect the attributes of the parental plants (e.g. biomass and seed production) but also likely to transcend the next generation characteristics (e.g. progeny germination rate and vigor). As plants are sessile organism, progenies will most likely grow in the same environment as their parents. The mechanism of parental effect is very important for the successful establishment of the next generation especially in annual plant species, were parents and progenies do not exist at the same...

Over the years of Kerb use in lettuce (more like decades) there has been a lot of work on application methods. Our transplanted lettuce in southern California is usually grown on drip and when possible, we like to apply all things through it. Our fields are surrounded by four cities and folks there just don't seem to enjoy sprayer rigs that much.

At the UC Hansen Research & Extension Center (clay loam soil) we applied Kerb at 2.5 and 5 pints/A rate either via drip or bed spray. The herbicide was applied with second irrigation after transplanting of ‘Inferno' romaine (great name for green lettuce). The irrigation continued after Kerb application to assure moisture movement from drip tape past the plant...

With the rainfall we've been having every month in Southern California, there are a lot of weeds out there. For those who work in wildland management where rain is the only source of irrigation, in Southern California the growing season started in October. With the continued rains in November, December and January our hills and valleys are green with a bouquet of weeds. Last year the season began in mid-January.

As I write this, there are grasses and mustards that are in well into flower and immature fruits are starting to appear on these...

Diamondback moth (DBM) is a persistent pest in the Salinas-Castroville area. We were able to find late instar caterpillars in several spots along Blackie road on Tuesday, January 22^nd. Basically, these caterpillars were feeding on brassica weeds, located along the side of the road (Fig. 1). This is an example of how insects exploit weeds as alternative hosts when there is a lack of a preferred and abundant host plant in the landscape. DBM will continue feeding on these weeds, while increasing their numbers. These DBM adults, originated from weeds, have the potential to infest any commercial cole crop during the upcoming weeks and months. Based on our observations, most of these caterpillars were close to pupate. Within the...