The USDA's Risk Management Agency and the University of California
Cooperative Extension in Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Clara Counties invite you to join them on Thursday, May 2 in "Surviving in Agriculture", a risk management workshop that will help your farm thrive in today’s challenging environment. The workshop is designed to help you gain a better understanding of how to manage risk in your farm operation.

Click on the link below to see the flier for more information.

A recent case of wilting blackberries around Watsonville has been confirmed from multiple samples submitted to several plant pathologists (the UCCE plant pathology diagnostic lab in Salinas obviously being one of them) to be caused by Verticillium dahliae.  The pattern is one of wilted plants scattered over the breadth of the field, with very few groups of more than three dead or dying plants. Verticillium on blackberry is actually pretty rare to find; in my career of more than 10 years I have only found 4 other blackberry samples to be positive for this disease.

As one can see from the pictures below, the affected plants stand out from the rest of the field by having few to no leaves (Photo 1).  Additionally, there are some leaves on affected plants which are a stark yellow color (Photo 2) and according to the literature this yellow leaf color can be diagnostic for Verticillium wilt.  Note also the darkened color of the epidermis (Photo 3) and the obvious discoloration of the vascular tissue (Photo 4) found when cutting deeper into the cane.

Generally, it is not at all uncommon in this field to will find Verticillium infected branches and others which are apparently healthy on the same plant.  This is consistent with an infestation of Verticillium which has not invaded all the roots and consequently has left some vascular tissue healthy and functioning.

The solution to this problem is to continue cropping if the disease does not manifest itself in many other plants with an eye to maintaining good watering practices so as to make up for the Verticillium compromised vascular system.  However, when planting a new blackberry crop, it would is strongly suggested to fumigate or use a variety which is less susceptible to Verticillium disease.

Researchers have found that V. dahliae exists as a series of different strains that have different host preferences. Characteristics of the blackberry V. dahliae pathogen have not been studied. Until further research information is available, growers should therefore assume that V. dahliae from blackberry, raspberry, and strawberry all can cross infect these three crops. This assumption would be important to remember when considering crop rotations.

So what does cheap natural gas do for California berry growers?  Not a lot apparently, if one extrapolates from an excellent article written by Colin Carter and Kevin Novan and recently released by the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics titled “Shale Gas Boom: Implications for California Agriculture.”

http://giannini.ucop.edu/media/are-update/files/articles/V16N3_1_1.pdf

As most Americans know by now, the ability to access through hydraulic fracturing (known in the common parlance as “fracking”) previously unavailable shale gas resources portends an big shift in the energy dynamics of the United States.

The enormous amounts of shale gas becoming available through fracking in the US has brought about a drop in the price of natural gas nationwide, but this has not been followed with a worldwide drop in natural gas prices.   Natural gas, moved as a gas through pipelines domestically, can only be transported to overseas markets once it has been converted to liquefied natural gas (LNG) at facilities where the gas is turned into liquid form and then pumped into tankers for transit. The current lack of such facilities in the US and subsequent difficulty to get our natural gas to foreign markets has resulted in huge price discrepancies globally, with natural gas prices in the US at approximately $3.30 per thousand cubic feet, at the same time in Europe for example prices are $12 per thousand cubic feet.

This price discrepancy of course presents a real cost advantage for users of energy and natural gas in the US over their overseas competitors.  How much of this price advantage accrues to California berry growers is a question worth examination.

According to the article cited above, only 0.8% of total natural gas consumption in the US occurs in the agricultural sector.  A lot of farm equipment, from tractors to motorized implements to trucks, use gasoline or diesel rather than natural gas.  Obviously, if a lot of this equipment were to be converted to use natural gas there would be some cost advantage, but this is very much a proposition for the long term.

On the other hand, natural gas is the main input in the production of ammonia, which is subsequently converted to the nitrogen fertilizers which are a mainstay of California berry growers, who use anywhere between 160 to 250 lbs of the stuff per acre.  However, fertilizer costs in the berry industry, according the UCCE Cost and Return studies make up only 1% percent of the total cost of production, meaning that price changes in nitrogen fertilizer are not that meaningful in one direction or another to the total cost of running a berry operation.  Furthermore, fertilizer prices are arbitraged internationally, meaning prices tend not to vary too much from country to country, so low fertilizer costs stemming from cheap natural gas feedstock in the USA don’t really translate to much of a cost advantage to local growers anyway.

The other possibility where cheap natural gas prices could confer an advantage to California berry growers would be a reduction in the price of electricity, more than half of which in California is generated from natural gas.  The heavy reliance on irrigation and the use of electricity to get that water out of the ground in California agriculture and the berry business at least superficially points to some savings from reduced energy costs.  However, digging into our latest Cost and Return studies, pumping irrigation water constitutes only about 1.5% percent of the total cost of production of berries.   The gains from cheaper gas and subsequently cheaper electricity will be not that significant in other words.

In conclusion, the increasing amounts of shale gas becoming available through fracking in the US, while offering some possibility of advantage over the long haul in terms of energy inputs for traction and transport, does not appear to give a lot of advantage currently to California berry growers over their foreign competitors in terms of cost of production.

UCCE is sponsoring a meeting on lygus in strawberries to be held April 18.  Four Ph.D. level entomologists (and one fruit guy) will bring together a veritable brain trust in one room to share decades of experience and knowledge in entomology and lygus bugs.

Biology, sampling, cultural, chemical and biological control of lygus will all be discussed.  This is without a doubt a can't miss event for growers, PCA's and anyone else interested in the latest and most in-depth information available on this difficult pest.

Agenda is to be found here:

http://cesantacruz.ucanr.edu/files/163453.pdf