All Issues

Mechanical harvesting of sweet cherries for brining is feasible in California but it has not been used extensively because of the difficulty of removing fruit from the tree. A loosening agent to reduce the force necessary to remove fruit would aid mechanical harvest.

The corn earworm, Heriothis zea (Boddie), also known as he tomato fruitworm and cotton bollworm, is a serious pest on weet corn, tomato, cotton, and several other row crops grown commercially in California. Sweet corn, however, is the preferred host and, although the larvae also feed in the tassel in the whorl, the most significant damage results from feeding on kernels in the developing ear.

California citrus growers and nurserymen today can draw from a unique bank that should be of progressively increasing value to them in future years as its holdings grow.

In the Imperial Valley, populations of the cabbage looper, Trichoplusia ni (Hubner) (photo) often build up on cotton and gradually spill into seedling lettuce in the fall. Looper infestations in lettuce are so heavy some years, that lettuce production would be in jeopardy unless efficiently controlled. Good insect control on lettuce is even more important because of increasing demands from the consumer for produce free of insect damage and debris.