From
Sandipa Gautam in the Central Valley

Hello everyone,

Please find first California red scale memo for 2024 season. CRS degree days for four counties, Kern, Tulare, Fresno, and Madera are updated on the LREC website. Please visit link for biweekly DD updates using the CIMIS station data https://lrec.ucanr.edu/Citrus_IPM/Degree_Days/.

Management choices for CRS – Mating disruption (CheckMate CRS), Biological control Aphytis melinus release; insecticides (Check UCIPM guidelines) 

How can we better manage CRS – three key points to remember

• Spray applications are most effective when populations consist of immatures and are synchronized. Spray as crawlers of the first or second generation are emerging. Expect first generation crawlers in 1-3 weeks depending on your location.  
• Monitor for CRS
• Pheromone cards for monitoring males, weekly or per flight.
• Leaf/twig sampling – sample the edge, interior or top of the tree. Determine if the scale is live or dead by rubbing your thumb.
• Use high gpa (750-1000) and drive <1.5 mph for a thorough coverage, except for Movento – apply at 250 GPA.

Attached is the first CRS memo of 2024 season with links to field trials conducted on CRS in the last decade.

Have a great season!

The rain on Saturday (about 0.6" total by my gauge), did present a setback for area strawberry growers.  Not too much, but still damage has been evident, it is worth noting that that for many varieties grown on the Central Coast water accumulation over 0.5" inches means damage for mature fruit.

I happened across the damage pictured below on my wanderings through the fields last week, and it occurred to me it might be interesting to investigate why we get this cracking of the mature fruit.  I tended to think fruit would crack because, confronted with more water than necessary from the rain, the plant to which the fruit is attached is forced to pull up more water than usual, inflating it faster than it can bear and leading to cracks.

This former thinking of mine is totally wrong.  As outlined in the super informative work published in the paper linked below, the story of fruit cracking in strawberry is rather all about osmosis, which as most of you know is the process by which water passes from a solution of a lower concentration of dissolved materials into one of a higher concentration of dissolved materials.  Meaning that rain, being essentially pure water with almost nothing dissolved in it, landing on a mature strawberry fruit loaded with solutes (mostly sugars), is going to get pulled pretty effectively by osmosis into the fruit, swelling the areas under the raindrops beyond the capacity to stretch and form cracks. Carrying this logic of osmotic potential forward also explains why less mature fruit, with their lower concentrations of solute (sugars), tend to avoid damage in rainstorms.

Very nice thing to learn about today. Full article here:

Water Soaking in Berries: Triggers, Factors and Mechanisms

In the human world, we recognize Mother's Day as a special day to celebrate all mothers. It's a day that Anna Jarvis of Grafton, West Va., established on May 10, 1909 with a worship service at St. Andrew's Methodist Church, Grafton.

Lady beetles, aka ladybugs, are mothers, too. The female lays a batch of eggs, from 10 to 50, at one time, and can lay about 1000 eggs in her lifetime, scientists say.

Beneficial insects! Yes, but in their larval form they eat even more.

Mature lady beetles will feed on 20 to 25 aphids per day, but their late-stage larvae will consume 10 times that number, making them far more effective predators, according to Whitney Cranshaw, a professor and Extension entomologist with Colorado State University (now emeritus), in a July 2018 article in Phys.Org.

A salute to lady beetles and their larvae on Mother's Day! 

Nutrition Policy Institute, in collaboration with the Dolores Huerta Foundation, Cultiva La Salud, and Stanford Pediatrics, released three infographics with information on school meal programs. The cartoon-style one-pagers were developed after a PhotoVoice project suggested the need for culturally and linguistically relevant materials about school nutrition programs for Spanish-speaking families in California's San Joaquin Valley. The infographics emphasize federal nutrition requirements for school meals, factors influencing school meal offerings, and the role families and youth can play in advocating for changes.

• “What's on the menu?” promotes the benefits to student health and learning from school meals, including an overview of their nutritional components. It is available in Spanish, “¿Qué hay en el Menú de la?”, and complementary English and Spanish videos.
• “What goes into making school meals?” highlights the logistics and other factors that influence how schools provide meals. It is available in Spanish, “¿Qué se Necesita para Preparar las Comidas Escolares?” and complementary English and Spanish videos.
• “Make Your Voice Heard!” highlights avenues for parent and community involvement in advocating for policies and practices related to school meals at local, state, and federal levels. It is available in Spanish, “¡Alza tu Voz!

Parents, youth, school district officials, food service directors in the San Joaquin Valley, and other partners helped to co-create the infographics with designers at Tremendousness. The project partnership includes NPI's senior policy advisor Christina Hecht and policy director Ken Hecht. Initial investigation and infographic content development were funded by the Stanford University Office of Community Engagement, with video development and extended dissemination funded by the Thompson Family Foundation.