Archive Nut, Prune and Olive Programs

Glyphosate resistant ryegrass has been a persistent problem since appearing in almond orchards in the Sacramento Valley in the late 1990s. It is a winter annual weed, but under irrigation it can germinate any time of the year.

This February there was a four day international conference in Orlando, FL that attracted 467 people from 21 countries, including about 20 from California.

Plants communicate. They do. Ecologist Richard Karban, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology, points out that one of the simplest forms of communication involves shade. When a plant is shaded, it grows away from the plant or other object that's shading it.

Leaf analysis is the preferred method of guiding a fertilizer program for fruit tree crops. Soil testing is less important, since the tree has the capacity to store nutrients in its various parts roots, trunk, stems and leaves.

Alternate bearing is typically initiated by adverse climate. Once initiated, in the absence of additional environmental constraints affecting crop load, the bearing status of an orchard alternates between ON and OFF years, with ON years exhibiting less vegetative growth than OFF years.

In a recent citrus meeting in San Diego County we asked how many growers were using soil moisture monitoring equipment to help schedule their irrigations. Only 3 people out of 40 indicated that they were using some sort of equipment to monitor soil moisture.

South African plant pathologists were the first to show that root rot in avocado could be controlled by trunk injection with both phosphorous acid and the patented material Aliette.

Growers are faced with an ever-changing list of commercial tools, each with the promise of providing some advantage to the farmer.

Thrips, those tiny little critters about a millimeter long or less that wreak economic havoc to U.S. agricultural crops--not to mention crops worldwide--may have met their match. They're under attack by entomologist Diane Ullman of UC Davis and her team of eight other investigators.

Everyone recognizes the mighty monarch butterfly.