- Author: Chris M. Webb
Mark Bolda is the Strawberry and Caneberry Farm Advisor in Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito Counties. Our own Oleg Daugovish collaborates regularly with him on many projects.
I would like to share with you Mark Bolda’s blog. He has several posts related to the spotted wing drosophila (SWD) previously known as the cherry vinegar fly. These posts include:
- the importance of monitoring for this pest allows growers to manage the insect before the infestation is heavy
- what to look for and steps to take if found
In addition to being informative, the posts on SWD that span about one year are additionally interesting as they are written as the problem unfolds. It is a glimpse into the on-going work and the on-the-ground problem solving that comes with being a UCCE Farm Advisor.
- Author: Chris M. Webb
On Tuesday, September 1st Ventura County UCCE’s Dr. Oleg Daugovish held the 8th Annual Strawberry Production Meeting. This meeting and ones like it are to provide information on current research relevant to Ventura County strawberry production happening both in the county and through other UC campuses. What happens if you missed the meeting, or attended but need to refresh your memory?
As luck would have it, Oleg posts all of the presentation materials on our Ventura County UCCE website. Besides the presentations themselves, you will find other formats of knowledge waiting to be shared. You can find them by clicking on this link.
Once there, you will see that in addition to strawberries, Oleg has much information on caneberries, vegetables, organic production, cost and return studies, weed susceptibility to herbicides chart, weeds and invasive plants in Ventura County, and Master Gardener presentation trainings, which cover backyard vegetables and weeds.
A grower checks strawberry leaves for the presence of spider mites
A tube is used to collect soil and root samples from a test plot looking for methyl bromide alternatives
Recording counts of spider mites and predator mites in Ventura County field
A roller is used to properly slope the tops of strawberry beds for good water drainage
- Author: Chris M. Webb
Ventura County UCCE Staff Research Associate Maren Mochizuki shares current research which hopes to provide an organic method to kill plant pathogens and weed seeds in production agriculture.
Synthetic chemicals to fumigate soil have been used in some production agricultural systems, to kill plant pathogens and weed seed before planting crops. Here in Ventura County, this is a common practice for strawberry production. Joji Muramoto, Associate Researcher at UC Santa Cruz and Oleg Daugovish, Ventura County UCCE Farm Advisor and Maren Mochizuki, Ventura County UCCE Staff Research Associate are investigating an organic method to treat soil before planting by creating anaerobic, or oxygen-free, conditions. Most organisms, including plant pathogens, cannot survive without oxygen.
We incorporated rice bran from the Central Valley into the soil as a carbon source to trigger microbial activity. To test the applicability within a strawberry production system, we created planting beds topped with plastic mulch. The beds needed to be well-sealed to ensure no air leaks that could add oxygen. Using drip irrigation, we added sufficient water to the beds to fill all soil pores, further pushing out any air/oxygen. Each day we monitor the soil environment with sensors measuring soil water content, temperature, and the level of anaerobic conditions and add more water as needed. At the end of three weeks, we will evaluate the survival of a significant plant pathogen, Verticillium dahliae.
ASD Sensors
ASD beds
- Author: Chris M. Webb
Ventura County UCCE Staff Research Associate Maren Mochizuki shares with us more information about yellow nutsedge, and what is being done to help minimize the problems it causes to local growers.
Managing yellow nutsedge costs local growers many thousands of dollars per year (see previous blog posting on yellow nutsedge for more information). Nutsedge is sharp enough to poke through plastic mulch installed on strawberry and vegetable beds. Once a shoot germinates through plastic, it can produce underground storage structures for reproduction (tubers) so that even if the shoot is removed, many tubers remain to sprout into new plants.
Nutsedge through plastic
To block shoot germination and prevent the production of more tubers, we (Oleg Daugovish, Ventura County UCCE Farm Advisor and Maren Mochizuki, Ventura County UCCE Staff Research Associate, in collaboration with Reiter Affiliated Companies) installed mechanical barriers underneath the plastic mulch of strawberry beds, including Tyvek homewrap, landscape weed barrier mat, and a layer of recycled paper roll between two layers of plastic.
All of these barriers prevented germination of yellow nutsedge in commercial strawberry fields compared to control beds with no barriers, but the plastic/paper/plastic treatment has the lowest cost per acre. Minimizing production of yellow nutsedge tubers reduces weed-crop competition and costly hand-weeding, improving the grower’s bottom line.
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- Author: Chris M. Webb
Today our Staff Research Associate, Maren Mochizuki, will share with us a glimpse inside a recent day as our office works to better understand the growth patterns of the yellow nutsedge.
Yellow nutsedge is a difficult weed to control because the plant produces new shoots via underground stems called tubers (similar to a potato); a few plants can turn quickly into an infestation! Costly and labor-intensive hand weeding has been the only means of management because current herbicides are not effective.
Strawberry bed with yellow nutsedge
To understand the underground growth of this weed, we (Oleg Daugovish, Ventura County UCCE Farm Advisor; Emmanuel Gonzalez, Ventura County UCCE Lab Assistant; and Maren Mochizuki, Ventura County UCCE Staff Research Associate) sliced a cross section of an infested strawberry bed. We were hoping to answer the following questions: How deep are the tubers? About how many tubers are produced from each shoot?
After cutting the cross section and pushing it onto a bed of nails to hold it, we were able to lift it onto the truck tailgate and drive it to a water source to wash a few cubic feet of soil from the nutsedge underground stem/root system. We were surprised to find that the tubers were not as deep as we expected (no deeper than 8 inches) and we counted several hundred tubers from our cross section, or about 3 per plant.
Yellow nutsedge tubers
The research team has another multi-year study using mechanical barriers such as layering plastic mulch, then paper, and another layer of plastic prevents germination of yellow nutsedge in strawberry beds as they continue to develop ways to handle this problematic weed. The mechanical barrier study will be featured in tomorrow’s blog posting.
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