The problem used to be in the foothills, but now marijuana growers are sourcing out areas on the Valley floor to plant the illegal crop for very high profits.

Manuel Cunha, President of Nisei Farmers League, Fresno.

Recently, marijuana has been found on rangelands on the West Side. Furthermore, a high profile bust happened in southeast Fresno where the crop was planted among two acres in a carved-out area of a cornfield. During the raid by the Fresno County Sheriff Department, a suspect, a reputed gang member, was found with a gunshot wound, after an exchange of gunfire from a vehicle that had apparently just sped by the scene.

These fields are linked to medical marijuana cards and fields under cultivation, but the Sheriff Department notes that there is far more marijuana being produced than the approved permits.

“Farmers are at risk with the marijuana growers on their land,” said Manuel Cunha, president of the Nisei Farmers League in Fresno.  “Farmers could be considered suspects for a short time until more evidence is gathered, and at the same time, they could be in danger if they were to wander up on the field. The Feds can take the land away from the owner if they feel that the owner is involved,” Cunha said. “The Feds will sell the land and then put the money into the DEA program.”

Cunha said another major problem is human trafficking. “Many farmworkers must be let go from farms due to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) audits. The farmworkers who have lost their jobs hear that people are looking for workers, but there is no mention of marijuana. Instead, marijuana growers tell the workers they are being hired for maintaining irrigation and a drip system,” noted Cunha.  “Low and behold, workers find out they are dealing with marijuana growers; and the growers threaten to harm both the workers and their families if they do not stay on the farm and work.”

Again, the pot growers will eventually move back up into the hills as authorities keep busting them up on the valley floor. “Then the hills become dangerous to cattle grazers and backpackers in the area,” Cunha said.

New Disease on Almonds
Bacterial Spot Found in the San Joaquin Valley

By Brent Holtz, David Doll, Roger Duncan, John Edstrom, 
Themis Michailides, and Jim Adaskaveg

Bacterial Spot Causes Lesion on hulls.

Over the past few years, we have observed these symptoms at about the same time in mid-April to early May.  The damage looked similar to leaffooted bug (LFB-Leptoglossus clypealis) or anthracnose symptoms. Concern was raised when ‘Fritz’ containing orchards sprayed proactively three times for LFB or anthracnose again experienced the same symptoms. 

Xanthomonas arboricola pv. pruni is a plant pathogenic bacterium capable of causing the disease ‘bacterial spot’ of Prunus species, such as almond and stone fruit. We will have to verify that this pathogen is in fact causing these symptoms using procedures known as Koch’s postulates, which involves re-inoculating symptomless plants and reproducing symptoms and re-isolating the pathogen, but the evidence looks pretty convincing. 

Amber gum flows from the hull spots.

Symptoms of infected nuts include the production of amber colored gum from spots on the hull (Figure 1). Cutting into the hull, there is no presence of LFB feeding, but there is a lesion about the size of a pencil eraser (Figure 2).  Lesions may enlarge, become sunken and orange in color, or exude an orange slime similar to anthracnose symptoms. Leaves may show spots (Figure 3), turn yellow, and drop prematurely.  Twigs may show visible lesions or cankers (Figure 4), which may be a source of overwintering inoculum.  Infected nuts may stick on spurs and be found in close proximity to mummy nuts from the previous year, still showing dried up lesions (Figure 5). 

Management for bacterial spot will be much different than controlling LFB or anthracnose.  It may involve trying to reduce inoculum levels by defoliating leaves with zinc sulfate in the fall, destroying mummies, and spraying fall, dormant, delayed dormant, and in season copper treatments to reduce overwintering inoculum.  

Intensive spray programs with copper and mancozeb have not controlled Bacterial Spot “down under” while in the South Eastern United States, peach growers have applied copper plus the antibiotic oxytetracycline as preventative fall sprays with some success.  Unfortunately, bacterial diseases are very difficult to control. 

The Tulare County Agricultural Commissioner’s office is announcing that six additional Asian citrus psyllids (ACP) have been detected on three traps south of the city of Porterville. The latest interceptions were confirmed by the California Department of Agriculture (CDFA), bringing the number of psyllids found in our county to nine. Maps and current information are available on the Agricultural Commissioner’s website by visiting: http://agcomm.co.tulare.ca.us/default/.

CDFA has already begun to saturate the affected area with detection traps in order to determine the extent of any infestation. The United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) and CDFA will work collaboratively to determine what steps are taken next.

“Thanks to the responsiveness and cooperation of our farmers and their neighbors, we were able to do away with ACP restrictions in mid-June, so it is very disappointing to have new detections pop up so quickly,” said Tulare County Agricultural Commissioner Marilyn Kinoshita.

The Asian citrus psyllid is an invasive species of grave concern because it can carry the disease huanglongbing (HLB), also known as citrus greening. All citrus and closely related species are susceptible hosts for both the insect and the disease. There is no cure once a tree becomes infected. The diseased tree will decline in health, producing bitter, misshaped fruit until it dies. To date, HLB has been detected on just one residential property in the Hacienda Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Kinoshita points out that her staff will support the efforts of our $750 million citrus industry, as well as our residential citrus owners. “I want to emphasize that citrus fruit is safe to eat and the disease is not harmful to human health. The Asian citrus psyllid is another example of the many invasive species that enter our state every year”.

Andrew Vargas and his father Arnaldo may have to quit farming if there a zero allocation of water next season.

Marty Acquistapace is worried about the damage the well water with high salts and boron is causing to his trees.

Marty Acquistapace has been farming 2,200 acres of almonds for Blackburn Farming Co., and its almond processor, Silver Creek Almond Co., all west of Mendota. Acquistapace joined the company eight years ago, when water was more plentiful. Due to  the 2009 first biological opinion in 2009, water allocations started at an unprecedented zero, but following the historic water march it was raised to 10 percent in Westlands Water District. Then came 2010, 2011, and 2012 all at 40 percent allocations.

High salt and boron levels burn the leaves of almond trees. It takes up to three years for recovery

California’s financially struggling dairy farmers likely will get some relief, after months of nearly non-stop negotiations and tireless work from lawmakers and stakeholders. Stakeholders have negotiated a sorely-needed short-term fix to help dairy owners, and Assemblyman Dr. Richard Pan (D- Sacramento) has written new legislation to help craft a thoughtful solution.

Weed Day attendees head to research field at UC Davis.

A crowd of near 100 attended the UC Davis Weed Day on Thursday, July 11.  The popular event is hosted by the UC Davis Weed Science Program and UC Weed Research and Information Center.

Topics discussed included melons and weed response to herbicides, by Lynn Sosnoskie and Brad Hanson, UC Davis. They reported that herbicides are available for postemergence use in melon production, but only on grass species, not broadleaves.  Melon growers are in need of new pre and post options as well as a new weed management program to effectively control troublesome weeds.

Sosnoskie and Hanson also focused on field bindweed management in processing tomatoes. Field Bindweed is a deep-rooted, hardy perennial that propagates and spreads via asexual (rhizomes) and sexual (seed) means. Once established, the species is extremely difficult to manage.

The goal of the research was to evaluate the efficacy of pre/post herbicides for field bindweed control in early and late planted tomatoes.

In the early planted tomatoes all herbicide treatment combinations reduced both perennial and seedling bindweed density and cover.

On the late planted tomatoes, the use of glyphosate, preplant, reduced in-crop field bindweed cover at two weeks after transplanting across treatments.

Hanson also spoke about the management and mitigation of herbicide resistant weeds. He noted that most recommendations focus on multiple herbicide modes of action. “In tree and vine crops, including preemergence herbicides can increase the available herbicide modes of action and can reduce dependence of the available postemergence herbicides,” Hanson said. “Several relatively new preemergence herbicides are available for use in tree nut orchards and growers.”

For instance, Hairy Fleabane can be controlled very well during the bolting stage with Rely herbicide at 3 pints per acre with AMS at 2 quarts per 100 gallons.

More information on this meeting will be published in Vegetables West Magazine.

Curly Top Ravaging Tomatoes and Melons on West Side

“In my memory, I have not seen it this bad,” noted Tom Turini, UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor, Fresno County. “It’s bad enough this year, that it will definitely be reflected in the yield.”

Some tomato and melon fields within near the Coastal Range foothills have been shredded and growers’ seeing that it was a lost cause, and disked the field up.

The damage is caused by curtly top virus vectored by the sugar beet leafhopper, (BLH) which overwinters in the Coastal Range foothills and come down when the hill side dry up in the spring. 

“The leafhoppers came down early because of the dry spring. Turini notes that Fresno and Kings counties are bearing the brunt of this, and that two or three percent of the acreage is gone because of infection. “Furthermore, the industry has lost maybe 10 to 15 percent of the tonnage in fields that have not been disked under,” Turini said. “It is a very bad season.” 

Extensive story coming in Vegetables West Magazine.

Mobile app Helps Tree Crop Growers 
Protect Water Quality

Tree crop growers have a new tool to help them assess the potential impact their growing practices may have on water quality. 

Know Your H2O, an iPad app developed by the UC Cooperative Extension Agricultural Water Quality Research and Education Program in San Diego, asks growers a series of questions about their growing practices, then suggests Best Management Practices based on UC research that can reduce runoff or leaching of contaminants from orchards into water.

Although there are many sources of water pollution, runoff from farms may contain contaminant levels that exceed water quality standards. 

Runoff from agricultural operations can pick up and carry natural and man-made pollutants, including fertilizers, salts, pesticides and sediments to lakes, rivers, wetlands and beaches, according to Loretta M. Bates, UC Cooperative Extension staff research associate, who leads the Agricultural Water Quality Research and Education Program in San Diego County. 

The self-assessment questions fall into the following categories:

A. Property Management

B. Road Management & Erosion Control

C. Irrigation Practices

D. Leaching & Runoff

E. Nutrient Assessment & Fertilizer Management

F. Integrated Pest Management



Internet access isn’t needed for the iPad to perform the assessment, but you will need connectivity to email the results to yourself because the application won’t store the data.

In Fresno
Delta Water Summit

9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The Delta Pumping Restrictions, the Biological Opinions, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and the Alternative Delta Conveyance Project represent the most significant and important water issues and conversations that California has had since the 1982 peripheral canal proposal. Yet, if you asked the average Californian if they know anything much about any of these various items the answer is typically “Not much or not at water”. This is particularly true in Southern California and the Silicon Valley who ironically rely tremendously on their water supplies coming from the Delta.

Even in the Central Valley, ground zero for water supply shortages and economic impacts (due to the Delta Pumping restrictions), chances are that most have felt or heard of the Delta problems but really do not understand much about the details.

The summit, organized by Mario Santoyo, Director of the California Latino Water Coalition (CLWC), will bring high-level policy, technical and legislative representatives from both the State of California and the Federal government along with key water agencies to present, discuss and answer questions through a series of panels moderated by well-known media figures. The target audience will be the general public principally but invites will go out to all elected officials and legislators.  Examples (not in any particular order):

1.     Welcome by CSUF President Joseph Castro.

2.     CLWC Member (TBD) introduces Governor Brown (Invited). Governor Brown addresses his Water Supply Vision for California.

3.     KMPH Video Overview of the Delta issues and the BDCP at a level the general public can understand and appreciate (Intro by Rich Rodriguez).

4.     First Panel discussion, lead by Fresno Bee Moderator Bill McEwen, regarding water agencies roles, challenges and expectations with the BDCP.

a.     Ara Azhderian, Water Policy Administrator, San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority

b.     Joan Maher, Deputy Operating Officer for Water Supply, Santa Clara Valley Water District

c.      Ron Jacobsma, General Manager, Friant Water Authority

d.     Jim Beck, General Manager, Kern County Water Agency

e.     Tom Birmingham, General Manager, Westlands Water District

f.      John Colemen, Vice President, Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA)

5.     Second Panel Discussion, lead by moderator (Univision), regarding their roles and actions associated with the BDCP and any short-term relief.  

a.      Michael Connor, Commissioner, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Invited)

b.     John Laird, Secretary, Natural Resources Agency (Invited)

c.      Gloria Gray, Delta Stewardship Council

d.     Sunne McPeak, Delta Vision Foundation

6.     Third Panel Discussion, lead by KMPH Moderator Rich Rodriguez, regarding current legislative efforts by them or colleagues to assist e3ither the short term relief or long term solutions

a.     U.S. Congressman Jim Costa

b.     U.S. Congressman David G. Valadao (Invited)

c.      State Senator Jean Fuller

d.     State Assemblymember Henry Perea

e.     State Assemblymember Jim Patterson

f.      State Assemblymember Rudy Salas

7.     Close with Assemblymember Henry T. Perea, California Latino Water Coalition Central Valley Co-Chair.

Watson comes to Farm Bureau after 27 years with State Compensation Insurance Fund, where he most recently served as its senior vice president of government and business, overseeing the government affairs, billing and collections, and premium audit departments.