- Author: Randall Oliver
A new video outlining best practices in monitoring and sampling for invasive shothole borers (ISHB) is now available on the University of California Integrated Pest Management YouTube channel. View it at https://youtu.be/1LKKJe3NgTY
Invasive shothole borers are tiny beetles that pose a major threat to Southern California's urban forests. Managing these pests and preventing their spread requires early identification and ongoing monitoring. This video describes how to monitor for the beetles and how to take and submit tissue and beetle samples for identification. Learn more at www.ishb.org.
This video was produced by the University of California Cooperative Extension and the University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program
Content: Beatriz Nobua-Behrmann, John Kabashima, Curtis Ewing, Albre Brown, Akif Eskalen, Randall Oliver
Narrated by: Cheryl Reynolds
Videographer/Editor: Randall Oliver
Photos: Monica Dimson, Curtis Ewing, Akif Eskalen, John Kabashima, Randall Oliver
- Author: Andy Lyons
I recently attended a really useful ANR training from the office of Program Planning and Evaluation (PPE) on needs assessment. Incorporating needs assessments into research and extension makes a lot of sense for many reasons. We all want to address issues and problems that are significant and pressing, and develop programs that are effective. A needs assessment can help flush out the challenges in our areas, prioritize needs, and build relationships with key stakeholders. As stewards of public resources, we also want our programs to be as efficient as possible. ANR expects all program staff to do needs assessments as part of program development, and the PPE has put together a great set of training and resources.
How GIS can be useful in a Needs Assessment
During the workshop, it was also exciting to hear how GIS can be a useful tool in many stages of a needs assessment. For example:
Sampling
A needs assessment often requires talking to people in the program area, which can be daunting because we work with a lot of people. GIS maps can sometimes provide a sampling frame, in other words a master list of all the potential people one might want to talk to. For example Margaret Lloyd, Small Farms Advisor for Sacramento and Yolo Counties, described how a Google Map of strawberry farm stalls in Sacramento County was the starting point for a needs assessment tour of strawberry growers. In other cases, you may get a spreadsheet of growers' addresses in a county. These can be turned to points on a map with GIS using a process called geocoding. This can be particularly helpful to an Advisor who is new to an area.
If there are more stakeholders than one can personally contact (often the case), taking a sub-sample may be a practical necessity. A simple random sample is easy to do, but a GIS also allows spatial sampling. This could be useful, for example, if you want to ensure an even geographic distribution across the county, or a distribution across other units, such as watersheds, municipalities, school districts, etc. Even if sampling is more opportunistic (e.g., meeting attendees), a map can show the distribution of the people you talked to, so you can tell if any areas were over or under represented.
Visualizing Results
Maps from a GIS can be an effective way to communicate the results of a needs assessment. Whether a simple map in a report, or an interactive web map, maps can show a lot of information at once by manipulating the size, shape, and color of symbols. Geographic patterns jump out in a way you don't get in a table or regression coefficients.
Data Fusion
With a little more work, the data you collect can be enriched with other useful datasets, such as census or environmental data. Imagine for example displaying the results of an email survey in a map form, overlaid for example with a map layer showing food security, or climate vulnerability. This type of fusion is helpful not only for understanding the nitty-gritty of the challenge, but also opportunities for extension and collaboration.
Building a Foundation for Innovation
Incorporating GIS in a needs assessment may be a little more work for those who aren't familiar with the technology (but see the services offered by IGIS below), however this investment can pave the way for all sorts of additional outreach and analysis. Putting your baseline data in a GIS simplifies ongoing monitoring and tracking, so you can see if your efforts are working. It also enables further technical analyses, such as testing spatially explicit models of a process, which can help you publish your work. On the non-technical side, getting your data into GIS formats dramatically simplifies the process of developing innovative communication tools down the road, such as story maps or web GIS.
IGIS Services
- Posted By: Chris M. Webb
- Written by: Mary Bianchi
We’d like to challenge you to take the following quiz. Take a minute to place a check mark next to all the practices you regularly employ in your operation. Go ahead – we won’t be collecting them!
Part 1
Yes/ No I know what the nitrogen requirements (lbs actual N/acre/year or /tree/year) are for my crops
Yes/ No I know what the nitrogen levels are in soil amendments I use in my operation (compost, manure, crop residues, etc.)
Yes/ No I have lab analysis of my well/irrigation water.
Yes/ No I monitor tissue levels of nitrogen in my crops to help with fertilizer decisions.
Yes/ No I have put together a nutrient budget that considers all sources of nitrogen for the crops I produce.
Part 2
Yes/ No When I do apply nitrogen, applications are timed according to crop requirements.
Yes/ No I use fertigation to apply nitrogen.
Yes/ No Applications of nitrogen are split into smaller doses to improve efficiency of uptake.
Yes/ No I use cover crops that help manage nitrogen availability.
Yes/ No I manage irrigations to avoid nutrient loss below the rootzone of the crop.
If you marked yes to these as regular activities, you’ve just taken steps in showing how your production decisions can protect water quality. The combined activities noted in Part 1 constitute a Management Practice that protects water quality by developing a nutrient budget to help apply only the appropriate amounts of fertilizer. Activities in Part 2 may alone or in combination constitute Management Practices that help ensure fertilizers are applied efficiently.
Every grower uses ‘management practices’, many of which are meant to generate the best possible product for market. Depending on who you’re talking with, the term ‘management practice’ can be something your Farm Advisor recommends (i.e., pruning to control tree height), your produce buyer suggests (protect avocados in bins from sun scald), or the term can have regulatory connotations.
You’ve all probably heard the term Best Management Practices. Best Management Practice (BMP) is defined in the Federal Clean Water Act of 1987, as “a practice or combination of practices that is determined by a state to be the most effective means of preventing or reducing the amount of pollution generated by nonpoint sources to a level compatible with water quality goals.” The term “best” is subject to interpretation and point of view. In recognition of this, the Coastal Zone Reauthorization Amendment (2000) substituted the terms Management Measures and Management Practices.
How can you tell if any individual activity constitutes a Management Practice that meets the needs of a regulatory program to protect water quality? Ask yourself this question: Can the activity stand alone and result in water quality benefits? Just knowing the nitrogen requirements of your crop doesn’t result in any water quality benefits – developing and using a nitrogen budget for your crop can. A nitrogen budget that takes into account the nutrients applied in amendments, irrigation water, and fertilizers in meeting the requirements of your crop does have the potential to protect water quality from nitrogen pollution from your operation.
Some Management Practices can have water quality benefits as a stand alone activity. Cover crops are recognized as a Management Practice that can help manage both sediment and nutrients to reduce the potential of pollution when used appropriately.
Water quality protection is being asked of all industries in California. You have the opportunity to take credit for all of the activities you already do, like the ones listed above, that protect your local water bodies and/or groundwater from nonpoint source pollution from your operation. Look for additional articles in the coming issues to help you in this effort.
For additional background information on water quality legislation, and nonpoint source pollution from agriculture you can download the following free publications from the University of California’s Farm Water Quality Program:
Water Pollution Control Legislation
Nonpoint Sources of Pollution from Irrigated Agriculture
- Author: Mark Bolda
The following is the summary of results of a recent pesticide efficacy trial to control spotted wing drosophila (SWD) in raspberries. All materials in the test are registered for caneberries and have a one day pre-harvest interval.
Treatments:
Chemical |
Treatment Rate per acre |
Water Carrier Rate per acre |
Mustang rotated with Malathion |
4 fl oz rotated with 64 oz |
179 gallons |
Malathion |
64 fl oz |
179 gallons |
Entrust |
2 oz |
179 gallons |
Pyganic |
64 fl oz |
179 gallons |
Untreated Control |
- |
- |
First mix of materials was made with the addition of 32 oz/A LI700 acidificant.
First application was made on August 19, 2009 with gasoline powered backpack sprayers in 1173 sq ft plots inside of tunnels. Second application of malathion was made to the first treatment begun with Mustang on August 24. The gallonage of water carrier was very much sufficient to achieve full coverage of the approximately six foot high raspberry hedgerow.
Sampling for SWD was done as per the “sweep net method” in which a not to be resampled 20 foot section of hedgerow is agitated with a stick and flies collected by insect net. This method avoids tearing and soiling of the net, breaking canes and laterals, while collecting a good portion of the flies residing in the hedgerow. Most samples resulted in male SWD (distinguishable by the single large spot on the back of each wing) being a large proportion of the sample, in most cases at least half, so the assumption is that the other half were female SWD. While the chart below uses total numbers of vinegar flies collected, males and what were assumed to be females (but could in fact be regular vinegar flies since they were not sexed) were counted separately for later reference if necessary.
Treatment |
Preapplication |
Post 1 day |
Post 5 days |
Post 10 days |
Post 14 days |
Mustang rot with Malathion |
75.67 a |
10.67 c |
5.00 b |
1.00 b |
11.00 a |
Entrust |
69.00 a |
38.33 c |
77.33 a |
44.67 a |
39.33 ab |
Untreated control |
68.33 a |
142.33 a |
130.67 a |
46.33 a |
128.67 a |
Pyganic |
65.00 a |
76.33 b |
86.67 a |
63.33 a |
80.00 ab |
Malathion |
45.00 a |
11.67 c |
14.33 b |
1.33 b |
7.33 b |
Means followed by the same letter do not significantly differ (P=0.05, Student-Newman Keuls)
The organically registered Pyganic and Entrust have efficacy over the short term, but the conventional materials show efficacy out to two weeks post application and offer a good solution to a serious outbreak of large numbers of SWD.
Additionally, three registered horticultural oils, Azadirect, Organicide and Ecotrol were tested in non-replicated fashion in the same area as the trial above. None offered any control of significance, however.
The collaborating grower applied Diazinon 50W to raspberries of discontinued harvest at the maximum rate of 2 lbs per acre to devastating result. While having similar levels of flies than the untreated check in the study before application, there were very few flies left after with many samples coming up zero, and this continued to be the case a week after.
There are several important topics to discuss concerning the results of these chemical efficacy trials.
Resistance: With such outstanding results as those above, it is easy to decide that one will go with one of the cheaper chemistries and continue until the flies are all gone. While this sentiment is understandable, it is imperative that pesticide users rotate the chemicals they are applying. Since one is pitting the chemical against what is quite likely several million flies per acre and the subsequent genetic diversity such a large number offers, the likelihood of the pest population becoming resistant and not controllable after continued use of the same chemical application after application is very high. History with other pests tells us that it can take only a few years to reach complete resistance. Rotate.
Effects on Non-target Species: Malathion and Mustang are broad spectrum pesticides, meaning along with killing flies they will kill most beneficial insects such as predators and parasitoids. While for the time being, these chemicals are providing a solution to a critical acute situation, over the long term other solutions integrating other methods (more in continuing posts, enhanced sanitation comes to mind first and foremost) will have to be sought. Although one may tend to think that the high numbers of SWD indicate that there is very little biological control going on, remember that SWD is only recently established here so it may take several years for native predator and parasite populations to adjust to this new and large source of food. The high densities of this fly in one place are just begging for disease outbreaks. One expert with experience with insect invasions in California predicts with a high level of confidence that the large numbers of SWD currently experienced will be much lower in two to three years because of natural control.
Raspberry and blackberry growers who use bees for pollination must be aware of what pesticides will do to foraging bees. Malathion and Mustang are unquestionably toxic to bees, Entrust less so once it has dried. Pyganic, while less toxic than the others, still requires some precautions. It is best not to apply at all when plants are flowering, and generally this period of time will not have many vinegar flies present anyway, since they are drawn to ripening fruit rather than flowers.
The following link by Pacific Northwest Extension is very useful and includes a pesticide safety chart when referring to pesticides and honey bees:
There are several insecticides mentioned for control of vinegar flies in this article. Before using any insecticides, check with your local Agricultural Commissioner's Office and consult product labels for current status of product registration, restrictions, and use information.
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