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Welcome to our website dedicated to providing information on management of soil pests in flower and strawberry. Our project is focused on developing fumigant and nonfumigant systems to control soilborne pathogens and weeds so that growers can safely and profitably produce their crops. Fumigant use in California is heavily regulated and there are areas that cannot be fumigated due to proximity to hospitals or schools. In urbanized counties like Ventura, there are fertile fields that could be used for strawberry, but cannot be fumigated. Therefore our program focuses both on integrated use of fumigant and nonfumigant tools to allow growers flexibility in management of soilborne pests where geographical restrictions limit fumigant use.

Fumigants under evaluation are Dominus (allyl isothiocyanate, AITC) from Isagro, and TRX58 an experimental compound. Our nonfumigant program focuses on Steam for soil treatment. Soil heated to 158°F for 20 minutes with steam will kill soil pests like nematodes, Verticillium wilt and weed seeds.

Crops included in the project are cut flowers and strawberry.

Newsletter/Blog

Here we post frequently news about fumigant and steam research

Issue	Articles	Type	Date Added
1st Soil Management Meeting in Salinas (322KB)	Summary available We are very happy that so many of you participated in the meeting and that we had a open-minded and productive discussion session in our first meeting on soil management in Salinas on February 5th 2016. Attached the summary of the meeting. We hope to see and discuss with all of you again next year. Steve and Mark	PDF	3/1/16
Homepage started and a new steam prototype under way	Homepage release and new steam machine New Homepage: Here we release frequently news on our fumigation and steam research, such as videos, pictures, publications, data etc. New Steam Prototype: A new prototype of a steam soil disinfestation machine is built in cooperation with TriCal Inc. and Valley Fabrication, Salinas. It is a tractor towed direct-fired steam machine, able to steam soil in 12 inches depth and 14 feet width. We expect to run the first tests with the machine end of September.	JPG	9/10/15

Issue

Articles

Type

Date Added

1st Soil Management Meeting in Salinas (322KB)

Summary available

We are very happy that so many of you participated in the meeting and that we had a open-minded and productive discussion session in our first meeting on soil management in Salinas on February 5th 2016.

Attached the summary of the meeting. We hope to see and discuss with all of you again next year.

Steve and Mark

PDF

3/1/16

Homepage started and a new steam prototype under way

Homepage release and new steam machine

New Homepage: Here we release frequently news on our fumigation and steam research, such as videos, pictures, publications, data etc.
New Steam Prototype: A new prototype of a steam soil disinfestation machine is built in cooperation with TriCal Inc. and Valley Fabrication, Salinas. It is a tractor towed direct-fired steam machine, able to steam soil in 12 inches depth and 14 feet width. We expect to run the first tests with the machine end of September.

JPG

9/10/15