Posts Tagged: integrated pest management

UC IPM’s Farrar briefs legislators on threats to California winegrapes

Recent surveys in the North Coast have found that 90 percent of the powdery mildew samples collected were resistant to strobulurin fungicides, the director of UC Integrated Pest Management Program told legislators at a joint hearing of the California Assembly and Senate Select Committees on California's Wine Industry. A potential solution is breeding winegrapes to be resistant to powdery mildew, but a drawback is that the wine industry is largely known for its varietals.

“Professor Andy Walker at UC Davis has succeeded in crossing winegrapes with a wild grape species that is naturally resistant to powdery mildew and then crossing the offspring back to the parent winegrape variety for several generations,” said James Farrar, who was invited to speak at the committees' informational hearing on “Fire Recovery and Pest Management Awareness” at UC Santa Barbara on Nov. 7.

In addition to powdery mildew, he also talked about red blotch virus, which was relatively recently identified in California, and grapevine leafroll associated virus and the mealybug species that transmit the virus. Bob Wynn from the California Department of Food and Agriculture gave an update on Pierce's disease and its vector glassy-winged sharpshooter.

Farrar warned the legislators of increased human health risks due to “unintended consequences of social pressure” on the herbicide glyphosate, which growers use to control weeds under grapevines rather than tilling the soil, to comply with Natural Resources Conservation Service and Salmon Safe guidelines.

“Recent social pressure resulting from the International Agency for Research on Cancer labeling glyphosate a probable human carcinogen and news stories indicating detection of glyphosate in wine have caused some growers to look at other herbicides,” Farrar said. “The other choices are glufosinate, which is more risky to applicators, less effective, and more expensive, and paraquat, which has similar price and effectiveness, but much greater risk to applicators. Paraquat is a restricted-use pesticide that is highly toxic to humans – 3 teaspoons will kill an adult. It has a higher risk ‘Danger' label in contrast to the lower risk ‘Caution' label for glyphosate.

“This is an increased risk to human health as a result of misplaced public perception of risk.”

Farrar closed his comments by saying, “The County Agricultural Commissioners and county-based University of California Cooperative Extension advisors are vital in the continued efforts to manage winegrape pests and diseases. They are the frontline support for growers and pest control advisers in this effort.”

To read the full transcript of Farrar's comments, visit http://ucanr.edu/files/273433.pdf. His handouts on grape pest management are at http://ucanr.edu/files/273434.pdf.

 

Jim Farrar named UC IPM director

Jim Farrar has been named director of the Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program for the University of California's Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. He will begin the new position on Oct. 1.

UC IPM works with growers and residents to protect human health and the environment by reducing risks caused by pests and pest management practices.

Farrar is currently director of the Western IPM Center, where he has served since 2013. He succeeds Kassim Al-Khatib, UC IPM director since 2009, who is transitioning to a UC Cooperative Extension specialist position located in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis. There Al-Khatib will focus on his research in weed management.

“UC IPM is a widely recognized national leader in integrated pest management,” Farrar said. “I am excited to continue efforts to make IPM the standard practice for managing pests in agriculture, communities and natural areas in California.”

Prior to joining the Western IPM Center, Farrar was a professor of plant pathology in the Department of Plant Science at California State University, Fresno for 12 years.

At Fresno State, Farrar received three teaching awards. He taught courses in plant pathology, plant nematology, diagnosis and control of plant diseases, crop improvement, aspects of crop productivity, mycology, sustainable agriculture and advanced pest management. His research centered on fungal diseases of vegetable crops, including management strategies for cavity spot of carrot. During his Fresno State tenure, he served four years as chair of the Department of Plant Science and a year as interim chair of the Department of Food Science and Nutrition.

From 1995 to 1997, Farrar taught in the Botany Department at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. At Weber State, he conducted research on rock cress plants infected with a rust fungus that causes false-flowers. This rust is closely related to a species that is a potential biological control agent for dyer's woad (Isatis tinctoris), an invasive weed.

Farrar has published scientific papers, extension newsletter articles, and articles in agricultural industry magazines. He also wrote a chapter in the book Tomato Health Management and five disease descriptions in the book Compendium of Umbelliferous Crop Diseases. He recently completed a three-year term as senior editor for feature articles in the journal Plant Disease and was senior editor for the online journal Plant Health Progress for three years. Farrar is a member of the American Phytopathological Society and the Pacific Division of the American Phytopathological Society.

The Wisconsin native completed his Ph.D. in botany and B.S. in plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and his M.S. in plant pathology at UC Davis.

MEDIA CONTACT: Jim Farrar, director-elect for UC ANR Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (530) 750-1271, jjfarrar@ucanr.edu

 

IPM specialist Frank Zalom to address global IPM group in Berlin

October 5, 2011

DAVIS — Integrated pest management (IPM) specialist Frank Zalom, professor and former vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and soon-to-be president of the 6000-member Entomological Society of America, is one of three Americans invited to speak at an international IPM workshop, Oct. 16-19, in Berlin, Germany.

Zalom, invited by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection of Germany, will speak on “Stimulating Use of Professional IPM Consultants in Agriculture, Benefits for Farmers and Society,” on Monday, Oct. 17.

The event is sponsored by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), which helps governments of the developed countries tackle the economic, social and governance challenges of a globalized economy. The OECD is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

At the OECD workshop, to be held in the Julius Kuhn Institute, Federal Research Center for Cultivated Plants, invitees will develop recommendations related to the workshop themes,  adoption and implementation of IPM in agriculture, contributing to the sustainable use of pesticides and to pesticide-risk reduction.

Wolfgang Zornback, chair of the OECD Working Group on Pesticides, German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, will welcome the group.

The speakers will include noted IPM specialists from Australia, Denmark, Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, The Netherlands and the UK. About 100 participants were either nominated by their governments or invited by the OECD. Half of the participants will include government representatives working on pesticide regulation, and half of the participants will include representatives from international/regional organizations: European Commission, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO), International Organization for Biological Control (IOBC), bio-pesticide industries, environmental and consumer organizations and academia.

Americans joining Zalom in Berlin will be Tom Green of the US/IPM Institute of North America in Madison, Wis., who will discuss  “IPM in U.S. Schools: Challenges, Opportunities and Implications for  IPM in Agriculture” and James VanKirk of the Southern Region IPM Center, North Carolina State University, who will address  “IPM Pest Information Platform for Extension and Education.”

The OECD workshop will conclude with a visit to the German chancellery.

Zalom will begin a four-year commitment to the Entomological Society of America (ESA) this fall when he will be inducted as vice president-elect at the organization’s 59th annual meeting set Nov. 13-16 in Reno. He will subsequently move up to vice president and president and then serve a year fulfilling the duties of past president. The UC Davis entomologist will become president at the end of the 2013 annual meeting and then will serve as president at the 2014 meeting in Portland, Ore.

Zalom has been heavily involved in research and leadership in integrated pest management (IPM) activities at the state, national and international levels. He directed the UC Statewide IPM Program for 16 years (1986 -2001) and is currently experiment station co-chair of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) National IPM Committee.

Zalom focuses his research on California specialty crops, including tree crops (almonds, olives, prunes, peaches), small fruits (grapes, strawberries, caneberries), and fruiting vegetables (tomatoes), as well as international IPM programs.

The IPM strategies and tactics Zalom has developed include monitoring procedures, thresholds, pest development and population models, biological controls and use of less toxic pesticides, which have become standard in practice and part of the UC IPM Guidelines for these crops.

In his three decades with the UC Davis Department of Entomology, Zalom has published almost 300 refereed journal articles and book chapters, and 340 technical and extension articles. The articles span a wide range of topics related to IPM, including  invasive species management, biological control, insect population dynamics, pesticide runoff mitigation, impacts and management of newer, soft insecticides, development of economic thresholds and sampling methods,  and determination of insect host feeding and oviposition preferences.

The Zalom lab has responded to six important pest invasions in the last decade, with research projects on glassy-winged sharpshooter, olive fruit fly, a new biotype of greenhouse whitefly, invasive saltcedar, light brown apple moth, and the spotted wing Drosophila.

Zalom is a fellow of ESA, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the California Academy of Sciences.

Highly honored for his work,  Zalom received the Entomological Foundation’s 2010 “Award for Excellence in IPM,” an award sponsored by Syngenta Crop Protection and given for “the most outstanding contributions to IPM.” In 2008 he was part of a team receiving an International IPM “Excellence Award” at the sixth International IPM Symposium. Also in 2008, Zalom was part of the seven-member UC Almond Pest Management Alliance IPM Team that received the Entomological Foundation’s "Award for Excellence in IPM.” The Pacific Branch of the ESA awarded Zalom its greatest honor, the C. W. Woodworth Award, in 2011.

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