A good opportunity for someone with weed & pesticide experience...

California Department of Fish and Wildlife
SENIOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST (SPECIALIST)

$6,182.00 - $7,690.00

Job Description and Duties

Under the general supervision of the Environmental Program Manager, Lands Program, the Senior Environmental Scientist is the lead scientist responsible for coordination of the DFW's Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program. The Senior ES Specialist works independently, conducts complex, environmental assessments of fish and wildlife pest management problems, conducts extremely complex and difficult scientific investigations on pest management options and provides IPM...

Last winter, many growers and PCAs contacted me because they were having trouble or were largely unable to control Italian ryegrass (Lolium perenne ssp. multiflorum) in their cereal fields.  This grass species (see Photo) is widely spread throughout the Sacramento Valley in orchard and field crops and it can be particularly problematic in winter cereals, as it can reduce yields by 80%, by competing for water and nutrients.  

Italian ryegrass is a really tough weed and the application timing is extremely important. Osprey, Simplicity and Axial are usually effective. However, all these herbicides will not work if applied when the ryegrass population in your field...

Last week, Bruce Maxwell (Professor of Agroecology/Applied Plant Ecology in the Dept. of Land Resources and Environmental Science at Montana State University) visited UC Davis. He gave a seminar entitled Bringing Ecology to Management. Here's a link to view his seminar: http://ucanr.edu/sites/wric3/files/291597.mp4

Thanks to Mohsen Mesgaran for organizing Bruce's visit.

In March of this year I traveled to Chimoio, Mozambique to provide an Integrated Pest Management training to a group of farmers through the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer program. On my first day at the farm, we toured the farm and discussed their worst pest issues. One of the farmers brought a red flowering weed to show me, which he said it caused major issues in corn and was very difficult to control.

We continued on our way and it became clear that the biggest pest issue they were facing was the fall armyworm, an invasive species that spread to Mozambique in 2017 and can decimate a corn field. Since chemical inputs aren't always economically feasible for low-input systems like the one I was working in, I was interested learning about...