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Winter atmospheric rivers gave pathogens, diseases path to infect crops
Outbreaks similar to El Niño-influenced issues of the 1990s
The wave of atmospheric rivers that swept across the state this winter has created the right conditions for plant pathogens that haven't been seen for decades in California. University of California, Davis, plant pathologist Florent “Flo” Trouillas is getting more calls from growers and farm advisors concerned about potential crop damage.
“Generally, whenever you have rain events, you're going to have problems,” said Trouillas, a Cooperative Extension specialist who is based at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier. “In wet years we get really busy because most pathogens need and like water.”
Trouillas is like a disease detective. He splits his time between the field and the lab, working to diagnose pathogens, diseases and other ailments that strike fruit and nut crops such as almonds, cherries, olives and pistachios.
On a recent visit to an almond orchard near Fresno, Trouillas joined Mae Culumber, a nut crops farm advisor for UC Cooperative Extension Fresno County. A few weeks earlier, the two had walked the orchard, taking note of the base of some trees that had gumming — a thick, jelly-looking substance indicating a pathogen had taken hold.
“A lot of what Florent is doing is trying to assess patterns on a landscape,” Culumber said. “Sometimes things may look like they are one thing, but it could be another problem.”
When the two returned weeks later, the amber-colored gumming had moved into the canopy, looking like gumballs stuck to branches, some of which were already dead. “It's getting out of control from before,” Trouillas says. “This branch was killed. This is widespread.”
From the field to the lab
Lab testing confirmed what Trouillas believed was the culprit: Phytophthora syringae, a pathogen that can affect almond crops but is rarely seen in California. If it is found, generally the site of infection are wounds caused by pruning, but that is not the case here, where the infection began in the canopy at twigs, or small branches.
It is a threat to a key crop, which according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, generates $5 billion annually. The last time Phytophthora syringae hit California was in the 1990s after a series of El Niño-influenced storms. Trouillas, who has a photographic memory, remembered reading about it in an old manual.
“It's rare for California and one that we see mostly following atmospheric rivers,” he says.
“The disease will only happen following these extremely wet winters.”
Phytophthora is soilborne, mostly found in tree roots, and doesn't generally spread up into branches. But the intense storms created the right conditions for the pathogen to “swim” up trunks as winds blew spores into the air and rain dropped them back down into the canopy, Trouillas said.
Some of the trees in this orchard will die; others can be saved by pruning infected branches and applying a recommended fungicide, he said.
Identification, diagnosis, education
Trouillas is one of more than 50 Cooperative Extension specialists at UC Davis and each is charged with identifying problems and developing solutions for those issues in support of agriculture, the ecosystem and communities throughout the state.
In his role, Trouillas focuses not only on pathology and research but also on educating growers, nursery staff, pest control advisers and others in agriculture about ways to manage potential threats and how to prevent crop damage.
“His role is very crucial,” said Mohammad Yaghmour, an orchard systems advisor for UC Cooperative Extension Kern County. “He's not only on this mission to educate growers but he's also a source of education for us.”
Trouillas typically conducts one or two site visits a week, usually after a farm advisor reaches out about a problem they can't solve on their own.
“This allows us to be at the forefront of disease detections in California,” he said.
He likens these visits to house calls a doctor would make, only to fields instead. And one of those calls recently took him to a cherry orchard in Lodi.
“These guys help me quite a bit,” said Andrew Vignolo, a pest control adviser with Wilbur-Ellis who asked for a consult. “I bug them a lot.”
The visit starts like any consult in a doctor's office, only the questions come fast as they walk around the Lodi orchard where branches are dying, there is gumming and the trees appear stressed. Some look to be sunburned from exposure. Old pruning wounds show cankers, indicating that past disease treatments didn't get rid of whatever was affecting the trees.
Trouillas asks about the cultivar of the trees because some varieties are more susceptible to pests or diseases. He focuses on stress because that opens the door to disease.
Do they prune in the dormant winter months or in summer when pathogens are more prevalent? Does the soil get tested? How old are the trees? What about nutrition?
“I'm trying to figure out how they got infected so bad,” Trouillas said, walking the orchard. “Bacterial canker is a very mysterious disease.”
He thinks it might be a bacterial canker disease and shaves some bark to take to the lab for testing. He wants to come back next winter to take some samples to see where the pathogen is overwintering.
“We'll know in a few weeks if we have a fighting chance,” Vignolo said.
Be it Lodi, Fresno or elsewhere in the state, Trouillas focuses on local conditions. But what is learned in one field can be passed on to others, providing early warnings or advice for those in similar situations. “All these efforts at collaboration, from the field, to the lab, going through research projects, there's only one goal here — to help the farmers of California.”
Con pruebas de agua y limón inicia una investigación sobre el sabor de los cítricos
¿Qué sabores se revelan en un sorbo de agua con limón? ¿Hay toques de dulzura, acidez, sabores raros o un sabor de cítrico fresco? Los científicos del Centro Kearney de Investigación Agrícola y Extensión de UC (UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center) y el Departamento de Agricultura de los Estados Unidos (USDA) quieren conocer cualquier sensación sutil de sabor para un proyecto de investigación continuo durante los próximo 18 meses.
Los participantes probarán los principales tipos de cítricos, que van al extranjero, para confirmar que los métodos para eliminar plagas no alteran el sabor de la fruta. El sabor del limón será seguido por el de mandarinas, naranjas navel y Valencia y toronja.
Este es un trabajo crítico para la industria de los cítricos”, manifestó Mary Lu Arpaia, especialista en frutas subtropicales de Extensión Cooperativa de UC. “Una gran cantidad de los cítricos de California es exportada, pero existen cuarentenas por plagas para sus envíos, que ocasionan tratamientos con fumigantes”.
En el pasado, los importadores trataban los cítricos con bromuro de metilo. Sin embargo, este pesticida se ha dejado de usar porque reduce la capa de ozono. Un fumigante alternativo, la fosfina, mata los insectos, pero los científicos todavía desconocen el impacto que el químico tiene en la fruta.
“Esperamos que no haya una diferencia en el sabor”, indicó Arpaia. “Pero no sabemos. Por eso estamos llevando a cabo las pruebas”.
EL fisiólogo en plantas de USDA, David Obenland, cuya base se encuentra en la oficina de USDA al cruzar la calle de Kearney en Parlier, trabaja junto con Arpaia conduciendo el estudio en el laboratorio sensorial de Kearney. El laboratorio, que cuenta con una superficie de 1,100 pies cuadrados, está pintado de un blanco neutral y tiene una iluminación de amplio espectro y el sistema de ventilación minimiza otros olores distractores. Seis estaciones de pruebas cuentan con ventanas pequeñas que dan al área de la cocina, donde se preparan las muestran.
“Una investigación previa resolvió el tema de los residuos y determinó que la fosfina es efectiva en matar plagas”, dijo Obenland. “Pero no determinó por completo si el proceso podría dañar la fruta”.
El proyecto actual compara la fruta tratada con bromuro de metilo, fosfina y temperaturas heladas en la que la fruta es mantenida por encima del punto de congelamiento durante tres semanas. Además de la pruebas de sabor, los voluntarios evalúan la apariencia de las frutas.
“La gente compra con los ojos”, manifestó Arpaia. “Le pedimos a los participantes que comparen las frutas visualmente para ver si detectan alguna diferencia”.
Esta investigación está financiada por el Consejo para la Calidad de los Cítricos de California a través de una beca del Servicio Agrícola del Extranjero de USDA.
'Agriculture: Food for Life' is the theme of National Ag Week
How are you celebrating American agriculture in your life? In advance of National Ag Week, March 19-25, and National Ag Day, March 21, Central Valley third-grade students were “learning with lettuce” how to bring more agriculture into their lives last week. The UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center offers the free lettuce plantings every year at Farm and Nutrition Day in Fresno County and Kings County, typically around the time of National Ag Week.
Students with the help of volunteers learned how to plant tiny lettuce seedlings into a pot of healthy soil to take home for transplanting later. In addition to helping the students connect their food to agriculture, the lettuce planting offered an engaging, hands-on experience growing healthy and nutritious food at home.
National Ag Week is a nationwide effort coordinated by the Agriculture Council of America to tell the vital story of American agriculture and remind citizens that agriculture is a part of all of us. National Ag Day encourages every American to:
• Understand how food and fiber products are produced.
• Appreciate the role agriculture plays in providing safe, abundant and affordable products.
• Value the essential role of agriculture in maintaining a strong economy.
• Acknowledge and consider career opportunities in the agriculture, food and fiber industry.
Each American farmer feeds about 144 people. As the world population soars, there is even greater demand for the food, fiber and renewable resources produced in the United States. Agriculture is this nation's #1 export and incredibly important in sustaining a healthy economy. That's why National Ag Week is a great time to reflect on and be grateful for American agriculture.
Una nueva vida para el té del Valle de San Joaquín
Hace cincuenta años, la compañía Thomas J. Lipton Inc. financió un estudio realizado por el Centro Extension e Investigación Agrícola de UC Kearny en Parlier (UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center), el cual está despertando hoy en día el interés de los científicos. Durante 18 años, los investigadores mimaron y convencieron a 41 clones de té intentando determinar si las plantaciones de este producto podrían ser una alternativa lucrativa para los granjeros del Valle de San Joaquín.
Los científicos de aquellos tiempos predijeron un potencial económico, para las futuras plantaciones de té en California, de hasta 25 mil dólares. Hoy día, el té representa una industria de 3,800 millones de dólares en Estados Unidos y UC Davis lanzó recientemente la Iniciativa Global del Té (Global Tea Initiative). Kearney presentó los reportes de sus investigaciones, correspondencias y recortes de periódicos sobre el estudio que se hizo hace algún tiempo acerca del té a la colección de investigación y enseñanza y alcance agrícola que se extiende a las ciencias sociales, salud, cultura y economía del té en general.
Eso llamó la atención de Jacquelyn Gervay-Hague, profesora de química de UC Davis, quien estudia los microorganismos que crecen en la tierra donde se cultiva el té y su potencial impacto en los atributos saludables de este.
“Creo que existe un intercambio microbiano que termina en la taza”, señaló Gervay-Haague.
Cuando el programa para la investigación del té se abandonado en 1981, un investigador clarividente contaba ya con un puñado de los mejores clones de té plantados en el paisaje que rodea los edificios de Kearney, donde permanecen en forma de arbustos indescriptibles que florean durante el otoño.
Hague, juntamente con sus estudiantes con frecuencia viaja fuera del país para probar la tierra en plantaciones de té, supo sobre las plantas en Kearney y reconoció la oportunidad de conducir estudios en California.
“Es realmente increíble”, dijo la experta.
El director de Kearney, Jeff Dahlberg, cree que el renovado interés por el té del citado centro, las cada vez más reconocidas propiedades saludables del té y el creciente entusiasmo por los tés artesanales y cultivados localmente pueden convertir a este producto en un lucrativo cultivo especializado para los granjeros a pequeña escala del Valle de San Joaquín.
“Esto podría ser algo como los arándanos azules”, indicó Dahlberg. “Hace 20 años, la gente creía que no podían ser cultivados en California. Pero con la investigación realizada aquí en Kearney, ahora existe una próspera industria de arándanos en el Valle de San Joaquín y en la costa.
Esa fue la misma intención que impulsó a los predecesores de Dahlberg a apoyar los estudios sobre el té en las décadas de los 60 y 70.
En ese tiempo, se propagaron 41 clones de té en una casa de tablillas en Kearney y después fueron plantadas en una parcela de medio acre. En 1967, el investigador agrónomo de Extensión Cooperativa de la UC, Karl H. Ingebretsen, le contó al reportero de un periódico que las plantas provenían de clones que sobrevivió un estudio similar del USDA en la década de 1880.
“La mayoría de las plantas importadas fueron traídas de un cultivo en Carolina del Sur, donde la compañía Lipton las encontró 10 años antes creciendo de manera silvestre”, dijo Ingebretsen en 1967.
El superintendente de Kearney en ese entonces, Frank Coddington, manifestó que los científicos esperaban que una experimentación positiva los llevara a variedades de tés adecuadas para la cosecha mecánica y la producción de té instantáneo, un producto que en esos días se hacía cada vez más popular.
Los clones del té de Kearney crecen bien y aparentemente de manera saludable, indica el reporte. Las plantas de té toleran el clima seco de California y aguantan el calor cuando se les riega apropiadamente. Se reportó que cinco de los 41 clones demostraron ser “prometedores” pero cuando el proyecto del té llegó a su fin en 1981, solo algunas de las plantas representando dos de los clones fueron salvadas como arbustos para paisaje. Nueve plantas crecen ahora al oeste de una bodega de lámina corrugada y cuatro bajo la sombra de unos perales en flor justo al sur del edificio original del sitio.
Gervay-Hague planea apoyarse en los resultados de la investigación de Kearney usando las herramientas de producción agrícola del siglo 21.
“No voy a repetir el trabajo realizado en la década de los 60, pero ellos no sabían acerca de microbiomas o genética en ese entonces”, dijo la experta. “UC Davis cuenta con la capacidad de imágenes tridimensionales, la cual deseo usar para ver las plantas cambiar. Me gustaría hacer pruebas de ADN”.
La química de UC Davis está solicitando fondos para construir un repositorio de plantas que podría convertirse en la base para los jardines de té comerciales de California.
Teens put their food smarts to the test
Grocery shopping can be the most anticipated or the most dreaded necessity of daily life. A trip to the market can end with a smile over the thrill of victory from finding great bargains or end with a frown from the agony of defeat over budget anxieties. For most of us, budget is the primary factor in our food experiences. Low budget or no budget is often the culprit that leads to unhealthy food choices.
Food connections to local agriculture are highlighted through the partnership with the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center. The center will host agriculture tours and family nutrition education activities at a Wellness Fair later this month to wrap up the program.
According to recent United States Department of Agriculture studies, nearly 16 million children live in households where they do not have consistent access to food throughout the year.
UC 4-H Food Smart Families empowers families through food knowledge and education to build sustainable solutions that confront food insecurity and improve health. Youth are engaged at a critical age for growing skills and establishing behaviors today that become sustainable, healthy habits for their families and communities tomorrow. Youth learn they can prepare food themselves and parents learn about working together as a family to plan healthy meals.
Thoughtful discussions, and sometimes passionate debates, ranging from whole grain pasta versus whole wheat pasta to the tasty virtues of hummus, mixed with youthful laughter. The teens were pleasantly surprised to discover they had additional budget to spare. Return trips were made to the produce department for more fruit, vegetables and even hummus.
Comments from the teens told the story of their success. “Now I know what my mom has to go through when she's shopping for food,” and “Look at my cart. Food Smart Families is really influencing me!” Who knew grocery shopping could be so much fun?
The USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion offers these 10 tips for affordable vegetables and fruits:
• Use fresh vegetables and fruits that are in season.
• Check your local newspaper, online and at the store for sales, coupons and specials.
• Plan out your meals ahead of time and make a grocery list.
• Compare the price and number of servings from fresh, canned and frozen forms of the same vegetable or fruit.
• Buy small amounts more often to ensure you can eat the foods without throwing any away.
• For fresh vegetables or fruits you use often, a large size bag is the better buy.
• Opt for store brands when possible.
• Buy vegetables and fruits in their simplest form.
• Start a garden for fresh, inexpensive, flavorful additions to meals.
• Prepare and freeze vegetable soups, stews or other dishes in advance.
