- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Nguyen named UCCE food safety and organic production advisor
Cuong Nguyen joined UC Cooperative Extension on Nov. 1 as an assistant food safety and organic production area advisor for Imperial and Riverside counties.
“Organic produce has a shorter shelf life and is more susceptible to outbreaks, recalls and foodborne illness due to the lack of chemical sanitizers and fungicides,” Nguyen said. “Therefore, my future research agenda will continue the focus on improving the quality and safety of organic produce commodities by developing alternatives to chemical fumigations/fungicides, as well as organic pest management without the use of chemical sanitizer or pesticide.”
While earning his Ph.D. in food science at UC Davis, Nguyen developed two novel sanitizing platforms for surface decontamination and liquid systems disinfection. The two systems involve the newly discovered synergistic disinfection effect between natural antimicrobials and UV-A light treatment or ultrasound treatment.
“I am also interested in rapid detection methods using bacteriophage targeting foodborne microbes, and microscopic detection of bacterial microcolonies for early screening and prevention of foodborne outbreaks,” he said.
Nguyen earned a master's degree at Tokyo University of Agriculture in Japan, where he studied sensory and food safety quality of meat, and a bachelor's degree in agriculture at Nong Lam University in Vietnam, where he studied postharvest technologies for food and vegetable commodities. He is fluent in English, Japanese and Vietnamese.
Nguyen is based in Holtville and can be reached at (442) 265-7700 and cgnguyen@ucanr.edu.
Wang named UCCE plant pathology advisor
Yu-Chen Wang joined UC Cooperative Extension Oct. 3 as a plant pathology advisor for Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties.
“Vegetable and berry are the major crops I work on currently,” said Wang, who will be working with a wide range of crops and different cropping systems on the Central Coast. “So far, I have been contacted by a wide range of growers – including (those who grow) lettuce, broccoli, pepper, celery, bean, apple, strawberry and blackberry – about their disease problems. I am passionate about providing insight to help the community on their disease problems.”
“The lettuce industry here is suffering from impatiens necrotic spot virus (INSV) vectored by Western flower thrip along with soilborne diseases,” she said. Lettuce growers in the Salinas Valley lost an estimated $50 million to $100 million last year and a lettuce supply shortage occurred. Working alongside fellow advisors, UC specialists and industry partners, Wang will be seeking long-term solutions for the industry.
Prior to becoming a UCCE advisor, Wang worked at AVRDC-World Vegetable Center, for a vegetable seed company, and at UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center on research and development.
Wang, a native of Taipei, Taiwan, earned her B.S. and M.S. in horticultural and crop science at National Taiwan University. She earned a second M.S. in plant protection from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
“The idea of farmers feeding the world and awareness of crop loss by pests motivated me to pursue a career in agriculture and plant protection,” she said. “During my M.S. at Cal Poly, I worked closely with the California strawberry growers on industry-oriented research. I look forward to extending my study to vegetable and berry crops and serving the farming community.”
Wang is based in Watsonville and can be reached at yckwang@ucanr.edu and (831) 201-9689.
Hooper named UCCE urban community resiliency advisor
Ashley Hooper joined UC ANR on Sept. 1 as the UC Cooperative Extension urban community resiliency advisor in Los Angeles County, a brand-new position. In her role, Hooper is tasked with working with communities who have historically been disadvantaged due to inequitable systems and/or policies.
In collaboration with the community, Hooper will lead efforts focused on building resilience and adaptive capacity. This could look like increasing the community's access to capital, green space, transportation, nutritious food or education.
She already has leveraged data, collected by different organizations, to conduct a content analysis of needs assessments across dimensions of community resilience, such as access to parks and healthcare. Then, as next steps, she will prioritize interviews and field observations.
During her master's program, Hooper worked as a research assistant for the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, where she led interviews with community members facing or trying to counter various inequities like limited access to broadband, housing and health care. For her Ph.D. dissertation, she focused on identifying barriers to and opportunities for resilient food systems in Los Angeles County.
After attending the California Economic Summit in October, Hooper shared her excitement for the prospect of using the arts in building community resilience.
“I went to a creative-economy working group session, and I was reminded of how much the arts and cultural community has to offer in the process of building adaptive capacity in communities,” she said.
Hooper earned a Ph.D. in urban and environmental planning and policy from UC Irvine. She earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in water resources with a concentration in policy and management from the University of New Mexico.
Hooper is based out of the UCCE office in Los Angeles County and can be reached at asmhoope@ucanr.edu.
Rachel Lee joined UC ANR on Nov. 1 as director of publishing. She oversees the team producing books, journals and other publications that showcase and support the work of UC ANR.
Lee brings years of publishing experience. Prior to joining UC ANR, Lee was publications manager for three years at eScholarship Publishing, an open-access publishing platform managed by UC's California Digital Library. She moved from the United Kingdom to the Bay Area in 2000 to work for UC Press as a marketing communications writer.
In 2006, she went to work for Oxford-based REL Consulting as a library relations manager, then returned to UC Press in 2007 for 12 years, first as a library relations manager, later as journals manager.
She earned a B.A. in history and politics at Oxford Polytechnic in Oxford, UK. She can converse in French, German and basic Italian and Dutch.
Lee is based at the UC ANR building in Davis and can be reached at (530) 750-1352 and anrlee@ucanr.edu.
McDaniel joins CalFresh Healthy Living, UC
Audrey McDaniel joined UC ANR on Oct. 27 as an administrative officer with the CalFresh Healthy Living, UC program. She coordinates administrative and human resources services for the statewide CFHL, UC program.
McDaniel will support CFHL, UC hiring activity in coordination with local programmatic departments, Human Resources, Business Operations and the CFHL, UC State Office. This position is 100% funded by CFHL, UC as a pilot position.
Her work experience ranges from working in corporate environments to tech and tech startup spaces helping entrepreneurs and executives build and grow their businesses by proactively finding ways to support, improve and/or develop their systems.
McDaniel's previous employers include Zynga, 20th Century Fox, Disney, Troika Media Group, Care.com, and smaller startups like HomeHero. She has also worked as a creative director for Harvey Health, focusing on integrative medicine, working side by side with naturopathic doctors.
McDaniel is located in the UC ANR Second Street building in Davis in office 153A and can be reached at amcdaniel@ucanr.edu or (530) 390-9753.
Tribble joins UC IPM as writer/editor
Emma Tribble joined UC ANR on Oct. 13 as the new writer/editor for the Office of Pesticide Information and Coordination (OPIC) within the Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program. She also will serve as a writer/editor for the Western IPM Center.
Tribble recently graduated from UC Davis with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and minor in English. She published “Exploring the Effects of a Neglected Area” – about improving students' curiosity and engagement in science – in the Journal of College Science Teaching and is a co-author on a manuscript published in the Canadian Journal of Chemistry.
Tribble is located in the UC ANR Second Street building in Davis in office 127 and can be reached at ektribble@ucanr.edu.
Escondido designates Oct. 21 as ‘Dr. Oli G. Bachie Day'
The City of Escondido recently honored Oli Bachie, UCCE agronomy and weed management advisor for Imperial, Riverside and San Diego counties and county director for San Diego and Imperial counties, for his service. On behalf of the city council, Escondido Mayor Paul McNamara proclaimed Oct. 21, 2022, “Dr. Oli G. Bachie Day.”
The proclamation notes Bachie has conducted research-based technical and educational services, including crop productivity, sustainability and alternative resource efficient crops. He has researched the best resources and pest management practices as well as the economic benefits for environmental and ecological compatibility. He has provided business assistance through grower and farm industry needs assessments in the City of Escondido and the Southern California Region.
He also has volunteered his time as a mentor to startup businesses and entrepreneurs during the inaugural San Diego AgTech Startup Hackathon weekend created by the City of Escondido in partnership with Fresh Brewed Tech.
It concludes: “Dr. Oli G. Bachie's vision to explore the future of agriculture and agtech has been a true asset for the City of Escondido.”
Bachie is working with the city to develop an agtech incubator to support entrepreneurs and encourage innovation.
Fennimore to deliver keynote at international conference
Steve Fennimore, UC Cooperative Extension weed specialist and professor of extension in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences, will be a keynote speaker at the International Weed Science Congress scheduled on Dec. 4-9 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Fennimore's research is focused on weed management in vegetables, flowers and strawberries. He spends most of his time working in coastal production areas between Watsonville and Oxnard. His program combines chemical and nonchemical methods, for both organic and conventional systems with the objective of containing or reducing weed management costs. Recently, his research has focused on development of automated weeding systems to mitigate the severe labor shortages in California, and development of field-scale steam applicators to reduce the need for chemical fumigation in sensitive sites and near urban areas.
His talk, which is scheduled for Monday, Dec. 5, at 1:30 p.m., is titled “Advances in Weed Robotics for Site Specific Weed Management.”
“To be a keynote speaker at the IWSC is a big deal in the weed science world,” said Gale Perez, public education specialist for the UC Weed Research & Information Center.
- Author: Bob Johnson
- Posted by: Gale Perez
From the weekly newspaper for California Agriculture, Ag Alert • Dec. 2, 2020 • California Farm Bureau Federation
Advisors seek practical use of steam in weed control
By Bob Johnson
Steam-treating a shallow band of soil within the seed line before planting may offer, when combined with advanced cultivators, an economical weed control option for organic farmers and conventional growers looking to reduce herbicide use.
University of California specialists said their research in Salinas Valley vegetable fields this year showed the technique can significantly reduce weed pressure and hand-weeding time, and even produce larger and more vigorous lettuce plants.
"We're reducing the hand-weeding time," UC Cooperative Extension weed specialist Steve Fennimore said. "The plants were larger, significantly larger."
Fennimore, who has been studying steam as a way to control weeds and soil diseases since strawberry growers first faced the loss of the fumigant methyl bromide, presented his latest research during the UC Online 2020 Pest Management Series in early November.
Steam works as well as fumigation in reducing weeds and soil-borne disease pressure, he said, but previous efforts have shown that treating the entire bed can be too expensive and time-consuming to be practical in most situations.
"With banded steam, you treat less of the bed," Fennimore said. "Our target would be to heat the soil to about 150 degrees Fahrenheit; but you would only need to steam 2 or 3 inches deep. Then you could seed lettuce in the seed line and cultivate outside of it."
Fennimore and UC graduate research fellow Nelly Guerra tested steam this year in three Salinas Valley trials—two on lettuce and the third on spinach—as they compared weed pressure after steam-treating the seed line with and without hydrogen peroxide, an organically approved compound that helps spread the heat.
The researchers said banded steam showed similar efficacy in the second lettuce trial, reducing nightshade and shepherd's purse by 75% to 90%, and significantly reducing little mallow when the hydrogen peroxide was added to the steam.
The steam treatment reduced hand-weeding time by 20% to 40%, and reduced lettuce-drop damage by 54% to 67%, they said.
Another set of Salinas Valley vegetable trials showed the promise of GPS-controlled, autonomous weeders that cultivate without a driver, outside and within the seed line.
"This project comes down to labor," said Elizabeth Mosqueda, weed science professor at California State University, Monterey Bay. "It takes a lot of manpower to remove weeds from one lettuce field. How can we decrease labor costs in leafy green production? The other part of this is the number of herbicides available; the last formulation for lettuce was introduced in 2014."
Mosqueda tested two autonomous weeders in Salinas-area commercial lettuce fields: the relatively small DINO weeder from France and the larger Farmwise Titan robotic weeder.
"Both of these companies want to get to the point that one operator can be in the field with multiple machines," Mosqueda said. "But autonomous weeders can already weed between and within rows at the same time."
The time saved by using the autonomous weeders that cultivate within the rows varied with the amount of weed pressure in the three fields where they were tested, she said: Field one had exceptionally light weed pressure, and the autonomous cultivators did not save hand-weeding time. But in field two, with higher weed pressure, hand-weeding time was reduced from 11.1 hours per acre to 9.4 hours. The greatest reduction in hand-weeding time, from 16.9 hours to 9.9 hours, came in the most heavily infested third field.
"Our autonomous weeders controlled about 85% of the weeds, compared to 40% with a standard cultivator," Mosqueda said. "The uncultivated seed line is the area of concern. Weeds between the plants are typically removed by hand."
Although advanced cultivators may be the answer to more effective control of weeds after they emerge, Fennimore said steam could become a more economical method of preventing emergence.
"How do you get pre-emergent weed control that is compliant with organic regulations?" he asked. "Steam is the oldest method of soil disinfestation. The guys in Denmark have shown it can be an economical method of weed control."
Treating just a shallow, narrow band of soil within the seed line makes steam more affordable, but Fennimore said he hopes to go even further in reducing the time, fuel and money needed to use steam.
"Spot steaming is something I would like to try," he said. "You could do a 4-inch square and plant a vegetable in the spot. You would need precision equipment. We want it to be the cheapest; we want to go faster and use less fuel."
The steady growth of organics in strawberries has taken Fennimore back to the question of how to treat the soil before planting the crop.
"The hand-weeding costs in organic strawberries have gone up a lot; it's up to $3,700 an acre," he said.
Fennimore did a series of steam trials at a strawberry nursery in the mountain region near the Oregon border, and in commercial fields in the Watsonville-Salinas area.
He said steam with or without mustard meal was as effective as fumigation with chloropicrin in ridding soil of Verticillium wilt pathogens, and yields were comparable to fumigated plots.
One promising insight coming from the trials, he said, is it looks as though steam and mustard meal have a synergistic effect when used together.
"The steam looks like it releases biofumigant compounds from the mustard meal," Fennimore said.
(Bob Johnson is a reporter in Sacramento. He may be contacted at bjohn11135@gmail.com.)
Original source: California Farm Bureau Federation's Ag Alert newsletter
/h2>- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Randhawa to oversee UCCE in Fresno, Madera, Kings and Tulare counties
Karmjot Randhawa joined ANR on Sept. 6, 2019, as the UC Cooperative Extension director for Fresno, Madera, Kings and Tulare counties.
In this newly created staff position, Randhawa is responsible for the coordination and overall operations of Cooperative Extension programs in Fresno, Madera, Kings and Tulare counties. Unlike traditional county director positions, Randhawa will have no academic research responsibilities so she can focus on overseeing the educational and applied research programs and providing direction and leadership to the academic and support staff within the county extension programs.
Prior to joining ANR, the Central Valley native was the research translation operations manager at George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication.
“I look forward to increasing the visibility of UCCE by communicating the positive impacts realized by the people who live in the San Joaquin Valley and benefit from the research activities and contributions of these units,” Randhawa said.
Randhawa received her B.S. and M.S. in research psychology at California State University, Fresno and received her MBA from Johns Hopkins University. She is currently completing the Climate Change and Health Certification Program at Yale University.
Karmjot is based in Fresno and can be reached at (559) 241-7514 and kgrandhawa@ucanr.edu.
Zhou named UCCE assistant specialist for small farms
Qi Zhou joined ANR on Sept. 3, 2019, as a UCCE assistant specialist for small farms in Santa Clara County. She will work closely with project directors at UCCE Santa Clara to lead research and extension and extension work related to food safety practices on small farms, beginning farmer education and Asian vegetable production.
Prior to joining ANR, Zhou conducted research on peach fruit production at Clemson University. At Huazhong Agricultural University, Zhou designed and conducted an experiment that identified the differences between flood-tolerant and flood-susceptible Poplar seedlings. Zhou has published several scientific manuscripts and abstracts and given extension presentations.
Zhou earned a Ph.D. in plant and environmental sciences with a minor in statistics from Clemson University, South Carolina, a master's degree in horticulture and forestry from Huazhong Agricultural University, China, and a bachelor's degree in horticulture from Hunan Agricultural University, China. In addition to English, Zhou is fluent in Mandarin.
Zhou is based in San Jose and can be reached at (408) 282-3109 and qiizhou@ucanr.edu.
Aram named UCCE specialty crops advisor
Kamyar Aram joined ANR on Aug. 5, 2019, as the UC Cooperative Extension specialty crops advisor serving Contra Costa and Alameda counties.
Prior to joining ANR, Aram was a postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis working on research and outreach for the management of vectored grapevine virus diseases, emphasizing diagnostics, the use of disease-screened plant materials and area-wide management approaches. He also has several years of work experience in commercial viticulture and winemaking in New York, Chile and California. His doctoral research focused on the life cycle of the Sudden Oak Death pathogen in aquatic environments, and as a staff research assistant at UC Davis, his research focused on diagnostics and outreach for this forest and landscape disease. For his master's thesis, he studied the use of compost as a source for nitrogen and in suppression of soilborne diseases in vegetable production, gaining experience with field production at Cornell's vegetable research farm.
Aram earned a Ph.D. in plant pathology from UC Davis and an M.S. in horticulture (vegetable crops) from Cornell University. He received B.S. and B.A. degrees from the Ohio State University in plant biology and Latin. In addition to English, he speaks Spanish, Italian, French and Farsi.
Aram is based in Concord and can be reached at (925) 608-6692 and kamaram@ucanr.edu.
Khan named UCCE water and watershed sciences specialist
Safeeq Khan joined ANR on Oct. 1, 2019, as a UC Cooperative Extension assistant water and watershed sciences specialist. His research broadly focuses on understanding the interaction between climate and ecosystems to inform land and water management. He uses data-driven numerical models as a research tool to aid in the understanding of watershed systems. As a CE specialist, Khan will focus on developing and carrying out collaborative, multifaceted research and extension related to mountain hydrology and their linkage with downstream water uses statewide, with special attention to the Sierra Nevada-Central Valley watersheds.
Prior to joining UC ANR, Khan was a professional researcher and adjunct professor in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Merced for five years. Khan brings over 10 years of research, education and extension experience. He has published more than 35 peer-reviewed journal papers and book chapters, successfully secured several externally funded projects, and presented his work to a diverse range of audiences through digital and print media, workshops and conferences. He has worked very closely with state and federal agencies, local landowners and nonprofit organizations, both in California and elsewhere. He has led several projects related to watershed management, from investigating the impact of non-native tree species and groundwater overdraft on streamflow in Hawaii to mapping hydrological vulnerabilities to climate change in the Pacific Northwest. More recently, his research has been focused on evaluating climate change and watershed restoration impacts on water and forest health and developing stakeholder-driven adaptive decision support tools. He serves as an associate editor for the journal Hydrological Processes. Khan is also a co-director of UC Merced's first Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS) grant that focuses on connected wildland-storage-cropland subsystems in California.
Khan earned a Ph.D. in natural resources and environmental management from University of Hawaii at Manoa. He also holds a master's degree in agricultural systems and management from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India and a bachelor's degree in agricultural engineering from CSA University of Agriculture and Technology Kanpur, India. In addition to English, he is fluent in Hindi and Urdu.
Khan is based at UC Merced and can be reached at (209) 386-3623 and msafeeq@ucanr.edu. Follow him on Twitter @safeeqkhan.
Farrar elected chair-elect for National IPM Coordinating Committee
Jim Farrar has been elected chair-elect for National Integrated Pest Management Coordinating Committee, which is under the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities' ESCOP/ECOP committee system. He will be chair-elect, chair, and past-chair for the next three years.
Farrar will serve with committee chair Danesha Seth Carley of the Southern IPM Center and Ann Hazelrigg of University of Vermont Extension, who moves into the past-chair position.
The National IPM Coordinating Committee is a committee of the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP) and the Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy (ESCOP) and is a subcommittee of the ESCOP Science and Technology Committee. The committee facilitates coordination and collaboration nationally among and between IPM research and extension at the land-grant universities, and between the land-grants and federal agencies involved in IPM.
Fennimore receives Fulbright award
The U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced that Steven Fennimore, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award to work in agriculture in Uruguay. Fennimore will conduct research and teaching at the INIA Las Brujas horticultural field station as part of a project to develop sustainable weed management systems in specialty crops.
Fennimore, director of the statewide Vegetable Research and Information Center, focuses on weed management in vegetable crops and small fruits, as well as weed seed biology and physiology, and seed bank ecology.
Based in Salinas, Fennimore conducts a research and extension program focused on weed management in vegetables, flowers and strawberries, particularly in coastal production areas in California. His program combines chemical and nonchemical methods, for both organic and conventional systems, with the objective of minimizing weed management costs. He also focuses on automated weeding systems to mitigate the severe labor shortages in California, and use of field-scale steam applicators to reduce the need for chemical fumigation in sensitive sites and near urban areas.
Fennimore is one of over 800 U.S. citizens who will teach, conduct research, and/or provide expertise abroad for the 2019–2020 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as record of service and demonstrated leadership in their respective fields.
- Author: Ann King Filmer
- Re-posted by: Gale Perez
Fennimore is a faculty member in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, and a statewide Cooperative Extension Specialist with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources. His expertise is weed management in vegetable crops and small fruits, as well as weed seed biology and physiology, and seed bank ecology. He is director of the statewide Vegetable Research and Information Center, housed at UC Davis.
Based in Salinas, California, Fennimore conducts a research and extension program focused on weed management in vegetables, flowers and strawberries, particularly in coastal production areas in California. His program combines chemical and nonchemical methods, for both organic and conventional systems, with the objective of minimizing weed management costs. He also focuses on automated weeding systems to mitigate the severe labor shortages in California, and use of field-scale steam applicators to reduce the need for chemical fumigation in sensitive sites and near urban areas.
Dr. Fennimore is one of over 800 U.S. citizens who will teach, conduct research, and/or provide expertise abroad for the 2019–2020 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as record of service and demonstrated leadership in their respective fields.
About the Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government's flagship international educational exchange program and is designed to build lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The Fulbright Program is funded through an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the Program, which operates in over 160 countries worldwide.
Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given more than 390,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and professionals of all backgrounds and fields the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
Fulbrighters address critical global challenges in all disciplines, while building relationships, knowledge, and leadership in support of the long-term interests of the United States. Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in many fields, including 59 who have been awarded the Nobel Prize, 84 who have received Pulitzer Prizes, and 37 who have served as a head of state or government.
For further information about the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State, please visit http://eca.state.gov/fulbright or contact the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Press Office by telephone 202-632-6452 or e-mail ECA-Press@state.gov.
Contacts
- Steve Fennimore, Department of Plant Sciences, UC Davis; safennimore@ucdavis.edu ; (Note: Fennimore is leaving for Uruguay on October 13, 2019)
- Ann Filmer, Communications, Department of Plant Sciences, UC Davis; afilmer@ucdavis.edu
Additional news related to Fennimore's research:
- Automated Weeders are Attracting More Interest: Steve Fennimore Explains. September 2019.
- Weed Management in Specialty Crop Production. VIDEO. July 2019.
(Article by Ann Filmer, Plant Sciences, UC Davis, and by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. October 3, 2019.)
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The strawberry industry ended a long good-bye to methyl bromide in 2016. The fumigant had been used for decades to kill a wide range of soil-borne pathogens, weed seeds and insects, permitting the California strawberry industry to flourish. Scientists determined it was an ozone-depleting chemical in 1991, but its phase-out was delayed for years because of lack of equally effective alternatives.
Strawberry farmers now use a combination of approaches, including fumigation with other chemicals, soil oxygen deprivation, biofumigants, and beneficial microbes that improve soil biology. A greater arsenal is needed.
“Growers have three or four chemical alternatives, some are used alone and others in various combinations,” said UC Cooperative Extension advisor Surendra Dara. “Now, certain minerals, beneficial microbes and biostimulants are becoming available to enhance plant's natural defenses and improve strawberry growth, yield and health in an era without methyl bromide.”
Dara conducts research and advises strawberry and vegetable growers in the Central Coast counties of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. Each year he holds a field day that attracts nearly 200 farmers, pest control advisers and representatives of allied industries to Manzanita Berry Farms outside Santa Maria. The agenda for the May 9 event included preliminary results of trials studying a number of commercially available and soon-to-be available biological and synthetic amendments to improve strawberry plant health, berry quality and yield.
Dara was ill, so Manzanita Farm owner Dave Peck reviewed the handout prepared by Dara for the field day. Manzanita Farms is one of two sites where Dara is testing products in replicated plots. Other studies are conducted in strawberries grown at the Shafter Research Station, a privately managed agricultural research facility in Kern County.
Several products resulted in increased marketable yield of strawberries during the February 2018 to April 2018 study period. See the preliminary results here. Data collection will continue through the end of the strawberry season.
“A challenge was that many people did not have complete faith in biologicals a few years ago,” Dara said. “By conducting multiple studies year after year, we are able to generate critical data that is useful for the farmers as well as companies that produce biologicals. By using different application strategies and rates, and a combination of techniques - as appropriate for their situations - farmers can engage in sustainable strawberry production.”