Bean Seed Moisture Content Important

Bean Seed Germination Issues

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Statewide, there has been a problem with bean seed germination. In other words, when growers plant the seed, it does not germinate well. This is seed that is being grown to be planted as bean seed for a crop to be consumed.

Rachel Long—a UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor based in Woodland serving Yolo, Sacramento and Solano counties—is studying the problem.

“We had a big meeting last year with the California Dried Bean Advisory Board to discuss this, and one of the thoughts that came up is that maybe because of the drought that we’re letting the seed dry down a little bit too much, and then when it’s harvested, it’s getting internal injury by the combine and therefore that internal injury is causing these seeds to not germinate real well,” Long said.

“So I started a project to try to figure out, whether or not there’s some relationship between seed moisture at harvest and the quality of the seed,” Long said. “We are seeing some differences in particular if you do a harvest, certainly in the morning where you have a little bit higher moisture content, that you end up with better seed germination.”

“So even though they are planting seed for a seed crop, the seed is not treated any different than if it were being planted for consumption, and they are harvested in the same way,” Long explained.

“But what we think is that if you’re harvesting beans or seed stock, then you have to be much more careful and really watch the moisture content, so growers would want to harvest them in the morning rather than the afternoon, when there is more moisture content,” she said.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:14-07:00January 30th, 2018|

Band Canker Affecting Younger Almonds

Almond Band Canker Becoming a Big Problem

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Brent Holtz is a UC cooperative extension Pomology Farm Advisor for San Joaquin County. He recently told California Ag Today about how the fungus band canker on almonds is becoming more prevalent in the San Joaquin Valley.

“I’ve seen a lot more band canker, which is caused by a pathogenic fungus, Botryosphaeria dothidea, and we’re seeing it on young orchards, especially in in San Joaquin county,” said Holtz. “We’ve seen that a lot out in the delta and we’ve seen it in eastern San Joaquin county where the soils tend to be a little heavier, maybe old dairy ground and richer and we don’t really know why.”

“We’re seeing so much more, but it’s a fungus that infects usually the trunk or the main scaffolds, and we call it band canker because sap balls will come out at the site of the infection and create a band that circles around the trunk or the scaffold,” Holtz explained. “That’s why we call it band canker.”

It’s starting to show up in the orchards that have not been shaken yet, as a wound needs to happen before the infection sets in.

“We think it’s showing up in a lot of orchards before we start shaking the trees and usually in most cankers, we would have to have a wound that would have to happen first before the infection would take place either through a wound or a wound from shaking the tree,” Holtz said.

“Some of these orchards with symptoms tend to be trees that are growing very vigorously, and we suspect maybe that they’re growing so fast, growth cracks are created that the fungus may have got in and caused the infection.”

Trees with band canker on the trunk may not survive. And band cankered scaffolds have to be removed, which affects the tree’s architecture and will reduce yields.

There is evidence that micro sprinklers hitting the trunk could also increase the start of an infection.

“It seems to be showing up a little higher concentration where it was on a micro sprinkler irrigation system, where the sprinkler was actually hitting the trunk,” Holtz said. “We don’t seem to see it as much in orchards with a drip irrigation, so we are advising growers to consider drip or to put a splitter in their micro sprinklers so it can avoid wetting the trunk repeatedly with each irrigation.”

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:01:56-07:00January 24th, 2018|

Growers Face Fire Damage on Avocado Trees

Avocado Growers Should Not Cut Down Trees With Only Fire-Damaged Canopies

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Avocado growers should not make quick decisions on what to do with fire damage on avocado trees. There are right decisions and wrong decisions.

Wildfires in Ventura County have burned over two hundred and thirty thousand acres, and avocado growers are among those affected by the fires; many orchards have been burned. We spoke with Ben Faber, a UC cooperative extension farm advisor in Ventura County. He told us about this devastation, and how it’s affected avocado orchards.

“I’ve been out looking at burned orchards, and it’s really too early to look. It looks worse than you see, so you see the burn canopies and it looks devastating, but they’ll come back,” Faber said. “It’s when you look at the orchard and see the green canopy and and you say, Oh gosh, I’m saved. But if you get down on your knees and you see these pustule, or boils round the base of the tree, that means the tree is gone.”

“This is tree sap underneath that’s boiled out,” Faber explained. “The cambium is damaged, and you may think, ‘Oh, everything is looking fine,’ and then you get a nice dry wind and the tree collapses all of a sudden because the can’t carry enough water to meet transpirational demand. Oftentimes, that means it was a crown fire and burned around the base of the trunk.”

“Some of the trees that looked the most damaged actually might be much better off than those showing little signs of damage. That’s why it’s important for growers to wait to assess the damage in their orchards,” he said.

In trees showing canopy burn, you’ll have to prune the tree. It’ll come back fine, according to Faber.

“What we are afraid of is that growers will respond in the wrong way. They’ll probably start cutting down trees that have lost their canopies and leave the ones that have a green canopy, and it might be the other way around,” he said. “We’re telling people, don’t do anything. Water if they need to and let nature take its course.”

Editor’s note: Photos by Ben Faber

California Ag Today2017-12-14T14:37:53-08:00December 14th, 2017|

Pierce’s Disease Research Advancing

Many Projects Under Way To Reduce Pierce’s Disease in Grapes

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

The glassy-winged sharpshooter vectors Pierce’s Disease, which has been devastating grape growers in California for the last few years. California Ag Today recently spoke with Ken Freeze, the Outreach and Education Director for the Pierce’s Disease/Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter Board, a program that uses winegrower’s assessments to fund research. He spoke with us about research that’s been carried out to hopefully find a cure for Pierce’s Disease.

Pierce’s Disease is caused by a bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa, that reduces the vascular function of the vine. The sharpshooter insect vectors the bacteria.

“Andy Walker, with the Department of Viticulture and Enology, UC Davis, has been working on Pierce’s Disease-resistant grapevines. We just released some of those vines to the Foundation Plant Services at UC Davis,” Freeze said. “There are 14 more that are in the wings about ready to go. Some nurseries will be able to get that pretty soon, but already there are about 4,000 of his vines planted. Some of them have been planted in Georgia and Texas, which are real hotspot for the glassy-winged sharpshooter and Pierce’s Disease.”

“Here in California, 2,000 vines were planted in Napa Valley right along the Napa River. Those vines are doing great,” Freeze said.

“We’ve got another project. University of Florida plant pathologist Dr. Don Hopkins has found a benign stain of Pierce’s Disease. It’s like inoculating a vine with a smallpox vaccination. That’s actually a company that’s working on commercializing that now,” Freeze explained.

“We’ve got another project that involves a modified root stalk that sends either a protein or a molecule up into the vine – a non-modified scion – five different ways that stops the Xylella fastidiosa bacteria literally in its tracks before it can cause Pierce’s Disease in the vine. That’s just a small sample of some of the really good projects.”

“One grower told me: ‘It’s not the end of the tunnel, but we can see it,’” Freeze said.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:15-07:00December 1st, 2017|

New Aerial Images to Help Almond Farmers

Aerial Image Tools Help Almond Irrigation

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Aerial images of orchards can effectively tell farmers which almond trees aren’t getting enough water, according to the preliminary results of a five-year study by almond researchers at the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE), with funding support from the USDA.

Researchers from the UCCE are confirming the utility of Ceres Imaging’s new-to-the-industry aerial views of farmland that helped the startup win a water innovation competition last year. The preliminary results follow four years of replicated research plots in a large commercial almond orchard.

Why does almond irrigation matter? California only recently emerged from a major drought, and for almond growers, water efficiency is a top priority. Since 1990, California farmers have increased the use of sprinklers and micro-irrigation systems from 33 percent to 57 percent of total acreage. But micro-irrigation, the method that usually offers the highest water use efficiency (crop per drop) is prone to clogging and other maintenance problems, which can stress crops and reduce yield.

“Water is the number one input for most growers and is managed carefully in terms of how much is used and when,” said Ashwin Madgavkar, CEO and founder of Ceres Imaging. “This study shows that Ceres imagery can be used with high confidence to monitor if your crop is getting sufficient water or if the crop is in a water-stressed condition, so you can make timely corrective actions. Ultimately, the tool can be used to help catch issues before they result in crop losses.”

Maintaining ideal irrigation levels is a huge challenge for farmers, as is predicting the final harvest tonnage, which is why the study examined the usefulness of Ceres aerial images in those areas. Detecting deficient irrigation quickly is one way Ceres images offer early warnings to growers.

“Findings over the last four years show that the average Ceres conductance measurement from their imagery over the season has provided the best correlation with applied water,” reported Blake Sanden, UCCE Farm Advisor for Kern County. “While there’s no perfect predictor of final yield, Ceres aerial sensing of canopy plant stress has a significant relationship with final yield.”

This UCCE study has been under way since 2013 and will end after results for 2017 are recorded.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:15-07:00November 30th, 2017|

Bayer’s “Grow On” Tool Pinpoints Sustainable Farming

Program Segmented for Different Crops

By Joanne Lui, Associate Editor

Nevada Smith of Sacramento is a marketing manager for Bayer Crop Science’s Western Region. California Ag Today recently spoke with him about Grow On, a tool that farmers can use to identify, apply, and communicate sustainable farm practices.

“It’s a tool to help growers really think about how they approach the marketplace and how they communicate the message around sustainability. We think it’s a critical aspect for not only … their success but our success,” Smith explained. “But there’s many things they’re not really identifying that they do every day from a common standpoint that they need to promote themselves. What we’ve really done in the next step which we felt was missing was really going after each crop segment. In the Grow On campaign, we have a citrus segment, a tree nut segment, a grape segment, and several other ones. “

Segmenting the program can help target specific aspects of each type of crop.

“You can really understand what aspects might provide you from a labor point of view that really affects grapes and … performance,” Smith said. “If I’m a citrus guy, what am I doing about bees? These are different components, so you don’t really overlap. We’re really trying to ground into each crop.”

The idea behind Grow On is to give farmers the tools to be advocates for farming and sustainable agriculture.

“Bayer’s producing this before the marketplaces, which I really don’t understand, and let them be their own conduits,” Smith said. “We’ve talked about advocacy. We’ve talked about what growers are doing each day to solve their own problems to keep themselves sustainable, but now’s an opportunity to take these little aspects in six different buckets here and really understand how they can talk the story themselves.”

“We look at the big picture, and what we’re trying to do is provide solutions to what Bayer’s providing. They’ll begin to see other things that their doing themselves. They can organize themselves in thought and provide those tools to whoever’s buying their commodity and crop and also to that persons who’s asking them why do you farm? How are you helping the environment through your practices? This is the platform for them to do that.”

For more information about Grow On, visit cropscience.bayer.us.

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-11-16T21:27:40-08:00November 16th, 2017|

Pistachios Suffer Navel Orangeworm Damage

Overwintering NOW Population Must Be Reduced

By Robert H. Beede, UCCE Farm Advisor, Emeritus

The following is a special report by Robert H. Beede, UCCE Farm Advisor, Emeritus, on the state of the pistachio harvest and the fight against navel orangeworm damage.

Season Wrap Up: It looks like we wound up with about 600 million pounds. Only God knows how many million navel orangeworm got, but you all know it was a bunch! Processors have their hands full delivering the quality nut California is known for. Many growers I speak to ask, “What happened?” From my discussions with many crop consultants, what DIDN’T happen was sanitation! This was not only true for the pistachio growers, but almond producers as well.

Growers barked at me about the wet weather making orchard access difficult to impossible, the size of the trees making sanitation cost prohibitive, and the difficulty in getting the nuts out of the trees. These issues are all true. So, if you decide that you cannot sanitize, then you had best figure out how you are going to run the ranch on pistachios that are 30 to 40 cents less valuable than those with low worm damage.

I know I sound like the donkey’s behind with all the answers, but the pistachio industry needs to join forces with the almond guys to determine what we can collectively do to reduce the overwintering NOW population.

There has been millions spent studying NOW, and I have NEVER waivered on the fact that sanitation is the cornerstone to controlling this beast! I also still think that once we get the kinks out of mating disruption, that everyone should use it as a means to SUPPRESS the population. Note that I did NOT say, “Control it as a stand-alone program,” just in case someone out there wants to stuff words in my pie hole!

We are in DESPERATE need of an effective adult monitoring tool for NOW mating disruption. I hope this comes soon, in order to give pest managers a method of knowing when the pheromone is not reducing mating sufficiently. We also need more research on the cultural and environmental factors affecting the number of early split nuts, which become the NOW link to the new crop at harvest.

Sanitation: Now is the time to begin winter sanitation by removing the nuts that did not come off during harvest. Many of these nuts are blank, but do not assume that all of them are. Research by many good scientists has proven that winter sanitation is the key to breaking the overwintering NOW population cycle, which looms ever greater when the winter is warm and dry. Beginning the season with a large overwintering population simply reduces the effectiveness of your in-season sprays. Although the research has not been done, to my knowledge, the TIMING of sanitation may be a factor in its efficacy.

Nut removal and destruction early in the fall may be more effective, because the percentage of NOW larva in the early instar stages should be greater. This is due to the large peak in egg laying that occurs during hull degradation. Thus, they may be more susceptible to desiccation or fungal attack because of their smaller size. Disturbing their overwintering site from the tree onto the ground early also places more environmental pressure on their survival. This is just my opinion; it may be worthy of investigation.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:01:58-07:00November 8th, 2017|

Raisin or Wine Grape Decision is Made Early

Going Raisins or Going Green for Wine

By Brianne Boyett, Associate Editor

California Ag Today recently spoke with Jeff Bitter, vice president of Allied Grape Growers of Fresno, a wine grape marketing co-op owned by approximately 550 growers located throughout the San Joaquin Valley as well as the North Coast.

Allied Grape Growers markets almost 200,000 tons of grapes to over 60 different outlets, primarily wine and concentrate processors. According to some estimates, the wine grape crush was down this year for Thompsons. The decision is made early for the farmers to either pick green for crush or extend out for raisins.

“For the most part, growers make the decision whether to raisins or go green for wine grapes early on in the season,” Bitter explained. “There’s always a few fence sitters that will make the decision based on what’s going on at harvest time. There are also many decisions and some cultural practices that need to be made and done earlier than August, in a lot of cases.”

“We saw where this year’s crush has been lighter than anticipated, because the crop simply hasn’t been there. I think we’re going to see that the raisin harvest is much lighter than anticipated as well,” Bitter said.

There’s a higher demand for white grapes this year, mainly for concentrate and some wine production.

“Generally, the shortage and the interest in white grapes this year has come from the fact that the southern hemisphere was short. Actually, they’ve been short the last two crops. That’s kind of opened up a hole in the global marketplace for some lower and generic white juice and to some degree wine,” Bitter said.

Bitter said the demand for raisin variety grapes at wineries is mostly from concentrate, not so much for wine making.

“Some wineries will blend in concentrate into the wine for added sweetness, depending on what style wine they’re making. By and large, the concentrate that’s made from Thompsons is going to the food industry and to the juice market,” he explained.

California Ag Today2017-11-03T14:39:06-07:00November 3rd, 2017|

Protecting California Citrus Industry

State’s Citrus Industry at a Crossroads

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Karen Ross, Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, told California Ag Today recently that the fight to protect the California citrus industry from Citrus Greening is ongoing with many moving parts.

“We are working closely with both with USDA and county ag commissioners to protect our important citrus industry,” she said. “And funding from our federal agency partners is important in the fight.”

“There is a strong sense of urgency, and I honestly feel we’re at a significant crossroads because of the most recent Huanglongbing infected tree finds in Southern California that keep the infected Asian Citrus Psyllid numbers up,” Ross explained.

She noted that the biggest challenge is citrus in the state’s urban areas.

“The beauty of citrus is that nearly every Californian has a citrus plant of some kind. That’s also one of our biggest challenges right now, because we’re very dependent on our urban residential neighbors to allow inspectors to repeatedly go to their door, in order to take samples, and then possibly having to go back and pull trees.

Ross said that the state has dedicated full time leadership to help fight HLB. There’s a lot of moving parts in the program.

“It’s gotten very large, and we’re going do whatever we need to do to make sure California citrus has a long, long part of our history and our economy,” she said.

Ross noted that the Asian Citrus Psyllid isn’t the only pest concerning California agriculture.

“Besides our big Asian citrus psyllid program, we have ongoing medfly infestations, several fruit fly infestations, and light broth apple moth infestation, and we are working on Japanese beetle eradication programs,” she said.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:01:58-07:00October 31st, 2017|

Kiwi Growers Farming New Varieties

Great Harvest for CA Kiwi Growers

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

California kiwi growers are having a great season! California Ag Today recently spoke with Nick Matteis, Assistant Manager for the Kiwifruit Administrative Committee, based in Sacramento, about the harvest.

“The crop looks great! We’ve got a good distribution of sizes, so we’re excited about that,” Matteis said.

They have some new gold varieties that are increasing in production, and they hope to double their harvest from last year.

“Most of the new varieties globally are some type of gold, but there some other colors out there,” Matteis explained.

Red kiwi fruit and new varieties that look quite interesting are on the rise.

“We have one grower that’s testing some red, but it’s very early,” Matteis said.

There is also a new variety called the Megakiwi, which is exactly how it sounds.

Matteis also spoke with us about California Grown’s new social media outreach program called Farm 2 Fan. Farm 2 Fan offers a spotlight for farmers whose produce have plenty of fans.

“We are right in the middle of a promotional campaign that we execute in partnership with Visit California,” he said. “This is a video series and digital marketing campaign that introduces farmers producing different crops from all around the state of California.”

California Ag Today2017-10-30T15:06:02-07:00October 30th, 2017|