- Author: Brad Hanson
Earlier this month, I attended the 2011 Plant and Soil Conference which was held in Fresno this year. This annual meeting put on by the California Chapter of the American Society of Agronomy (http://calasa.ucdavis.edu/ ) usually has several sessions during the two-day program designed to update Certified Crop Advisors, Pest Control Advisors, and other professional agronomists on current research and regulatory issues. One of the speakers in the Environmental Quality Session, Pam Wofford from CDPR, spoke about reducing emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) from pesticides by switching formulations. I thought I’d touch on that issue today.
There are a number of definitions of...
- Author: Brad Hanson
During the last few years, one of my core research areas has included several projects related to preplant soil fumigation in collaboration with a number of UC, USDA-ARS, and industry researchers. I touched on soil fumigants a bit a few weeks ago shortly after methyl iodide was registered by DPR (link to previos post). Today I thought I’d touch upon research results related to minimizing emissions of two of the most widely used methyl bromide alternatives, 1,3-dichloropropene and chloropicrin.
Soil fumigation is used prior to planting a number of high value crops in California. One of the most widely used soil fumigants, methyl bromide,...
- Author: Brad Hanson
Happy New Year!
Today I thought I'd attach a poster presentation from the recent 38th Annual Almond Industry Conference. The attached poster has some information on an ongoing research project in which we are testing thermal disinfestation as an alternative to soil fumigation for management of almond replant disease.
This is not especially a weed research project but has become an interesting area of research because of the high economic and environmental costs of soil fumigation. In second and later generation, trees can be affected by a variety of soil pests including fungal and bacterial pathogens, parasitic nematodes, and other yet-to-be-identified pests that can reduce orchard establishment and early...
- Author: Brad Hanson
Last week (December 1, 2010), the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) registered the soil fumigant Midas for use in the state following months (years) of controversy and protests. I’ve been meaning to talk a bit about soil fumigation in this blog and I’ll try to address the general issues in a future post. For today, I’ll focus on methyl iodide since it is a "hot topic".
Midas, marketed in the US by Arysta LifeScience, is a combination of methyl iodide...
- Author: Brad Hanson
Over the last few years, several of my UC Davis, CSU-Fresno, and USDA-ARS collaborators and I have been involved in research related to using steam heat to thermally disinfest soil as an alternative to methyl bromide fumigation. The basic premise of the work is to heat soil to 70C (158F) for about 30 minutes to kill many soil borne pathogens including parasitic nematodes, fungal and bacterial pathogens, and weed propagules (seed and vegetative parts).
It is pretty clear that heat is effective for pest control; however, efficiency (time and fuel) is the biggest sticking point for this to be a viable alternative for a substantial number of growers. Below is a brief...