Breaking News: Cal Poly Opens New Greenhouse and Insect Rearing Facility

New Greenhouse Facility Opens to Save Citrus from Psyllids that Vector HLB

Facility to Rear Tamarixia Radiata, Natural ACP Predator

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Scores of citrus industry leaders, citrus growers, scientists and CDFA officials attended the ribbon cutting event TODAY at the opening of a new greenhouse on the Cal Poly Pomona campus to rear Tamarixia radiata, a tiny parasitic wasp imported from Pakistan because it is an Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP) nymph predator. ACP, in turn, is a serious nonnative citrus pest that can vector Huanglongbing (HLB)—a deadly citrus disease also known as Citrus Greening—that has devastated the powerhouse citrus

industry in Florida, threatens to ruin additional citrus economies, and is the biggest threat the California citrus industry has ever faced.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS), infected citrus trees “produce fruits that are green, misshapen and bitter, unsuitable for sale as fresh fruit or for juice. Most infected trees die within a few years.” ACPs have been detected in Alabama, American Samoa, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Texas and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Of those locations, the HLB disease has been detected in California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Texas and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

ENTER: Tamarixia radiata

Use of the ACP predator, Tamarixia radiata as a biological control for ACP was discovered by Mark Hoddle, biological control specialist and principal investigator, UC Riverside ( UCR), Department of Entomology. The first release of Tamarixia was in December 2011 after USDA-APHIS cleared the natural enemy for release from the Quarantine Facility at UCR.

Mark Hoddle UC Riverside Department of Entomology

“Tamarixia can kill ACP nymphs in two different ways,” explained Nick Hill, a Tulare County citrus producer and Citrus Pest & Disease Prevention Program (CPDPC) chair. “The first is parasitism. In this instance, a female parasitoid lays an egg underneath a fourth or fifth instar—the larger and final developmental stage of the ACP nymph before becoming an adult—nymphs that are most preferred by Tamarixia for parasitism. When the egg hatches, the Tamarixia larva begins to feed on the under-surface of the ACP nymph. Eventually the larva completely excavates the body cavity of the ACP nymph and pupates inside the empty shell of its host.”

Hill explained the first releases of the tiny and harmless wasp will occur this fall in urban areas, “to help control ACP so that we do not have to do mitigations such as spraying in those areas. We hope to get to a point where we no longer need to go into people’s yards and ask if we can treat the trees.”

“The issue,” commented Valerie Melano, professor and chair, Cal Poly Pomona Plant Sciences and interim chair, Cal Poly Agribusiness & Food Industry Management/Agricultural Science, “is that we need to come up with the best possible ways to raise enough wasps for big releases to prey on ACP. We will have CDFA employees working in this green house, as well as student workers who have participated in our research program all along,” noted Melano.

Nick Hill, a Tulare County citrus producer and Citrus Pest & Disease Prevention Program (CPDPC) chair.

Hill added, “The idea is to get enough Tamarixia out there so they start reproducing themselves and they become self sufficient. This is tough to accomplish, but researchers think if they can get big numbers of the wasp into the urban areas, they can put a big dent in lowering the populations of ACP.”

Cal Poly Pomona Greenhouse

The new Cal Poly 5,040-square-foot research greenhouse, built in collaboration with Citrus Research Board and constructed through a $400,000 grant from the Citrus Pest & Disease Prevention Program, will house the second Tamarixia production program in California. CDFA’s Mount Roubideaux facility in Riverside houses current production. Both facilities will support the CPDPC biological control program that oversees releases in urban areas with high ACP populations.

The new greenhouse should produce a 1-1.5 million wasps. “It’s a very nice facility,” said Hill. “We are trying to boost the biological control program to produce four million Tamarixia a year.”

California Quarantine

The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) operates an extensive monitoring program to track the distribution of the insect and disease in both residential areas and commercial citrus groves. Results have determined quarantine zones, guided releases of biological control agents, and prioritized areas for a residential chemical control program. Nearly all of southern California is under quarantine for ACP, due to the fact that more than 15 residential trees have been discovered to be in infected with HLB.

The ACP quarantine in California includes parts of the following counties: Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Monterey, San Benito, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Stanislaus; and the following entire counties: Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Tulare County, and Ventura.

Asian Citrus Psyllid Cooperative Program
California, Arizona, Baja California, and Sonora (USDA-APHIS). Visit our Citrus Diseases page to identify a plant infected by citrus greening, citrus canker, citrus black spot and sweet orange scab. If you detect an infected plant, report it immediately.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:51-07:00July 25th, 2016|

Poultry Industry Doing Well, for Now

Poultry Industry Shines, Like a Canary in a Coal Mine

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Bill Mattos, president of the California Poultry Federation, based in Modesto, reported the state’s poultry industry is doing well despite new regulations and wage increases. “First of all,” he explained, “it looks like chicken has taken over as the [category of] highest meat consumption now in the United States. It’s getting more and more popular, so that’s good,” Mattos noted.

“Also, the best thing is the industry seems to be weathering the Highly Pathogenic Avian Flu (HPAI) A (H5N1) storm,” he continued. “In California, we’re doing our due diligence with biosecurity. We don’t have any Avian Influenza. We’ll knock on wood for that.”

“The industry is also enjoying lower feed costs. That’s 60% of our cost, so that’s good news,” he added.

And, poultry industry employees have job security. “It doesn’t look like there will be fewer employees in the industry over the next few years, and we’d like to have more,” he said.

Notwithstanding the good news, challenges loom on the near horizon. “The Air Quality and Water Quality Control Boards are regulating a lot of different industries,” Mattos observed. “They’re starting to look at the poultry industry now that they have completed the dairy rules. We’re very concerned about those issues, so we are trying to work with the boards to explain to them what we do and how our business runs,” noted Mattos.

The updated minimum wage requirement may hurt the California poultry industry, another big concern of Mattos. “We supply half the chicken consumed in California. The other half comes from out of state. Without the same minimum wage requirements, we’re going to be at a disadvantage. We’re looking into the different possibilities—what we can do—to offset that.”

“You will be seeing some new things coming out from the poultry industry as we look at the ramifications of the new minimum wage,” explained Mattos. “We can’t compete with that. They are going to be taking a lot more percentage away from us, which may cost us some jobs if we don’t work this out.”

“With the minimum wage hike, California lawmakers are trying to appease workers. But it really affects businesses. Ours happen to be mostly in the Central Valley, which is the hardest-pressed area for unemployment. It isn’t a good place to have to follow wage requirements like you’re seeing in San Francisco and Los Angeles. It frankly makes no sense in the Central Valley,” said Mattos.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:17:13-07:00July 21st, 2016|

Solving Central Valley Water Salinity

Mizuno on Water Salinity Solutions

By Laurie Greene, Editor

According to a Central Valley Salinity Alternatives for Long Term Sustainability (CV-SALTS) report, rising salt levels in the soil and groundwater threaten the potable water supply and agricultural productivity for the entire region. Walter Mizuno, longtime lecturer in mechanical engineering at Fresno State and director, Valley Industry Partnership for Cooperative Education (VIP) Program, researches increasing salinity conditions in Central Valley soil and groundwater, as well as methods of desalination.

Mizuno explained, “As the salt level rises, and if the soil salts aren’t leached out periodically, the ground becomes unsuitable for cultivating several crops. Growers either shift to high salt-tolerant crops or essentially idle that land.”

Central Valley salinity conditions are serious, according to Mizuno. “Growers have already taken a lot of land out of production on the Westside,” he said, “and they’ll continue to do that until the salt mitigation measures have been implemented. Essentially, we need to get back to where we can currently sustain the amount of farming we have with the type of water that we have.”

“We are looking at desalination of agricultural drainage water,” Mizuno stated. “We’re trying to reclaim water that’s suitable for even human consumption; but right now, we’re looking at reclaiming water that is suitable for Ag use through a desalination process called vapor compression distillation, which takes drainage water from the Ag fields, distills it to make it pure and recovers some of the salts on the backside.”

Mizuno explained salt recovery would enhance the economic viability of this project by eliminating the cost of trucking or disposing the resulting brine and by possibly converting it into a revenue stream. “We’re trying concentrate that brine to a point, using solar evaporation, where we can find other uses for the highly concentrated form or maybe even sell it to a chemical processing company. We are also focusing on minimizing the energy cost to distill the water, to make the process more efficient.”

“We’re trying to combine multiple technologies, using ion exchange as our front end process,” Mizuno explained, “to get rid of some of the hardness in the water. We get rid of calcium and magnesium in the water, which helps the distillation process and protects the equipment for a longer period of time before requiring cleaning or eventual replacement. We’re using the brine stream of the distillation process to actually regenerate, upfront, the ion exchange units—similar to a home water softener.”

Mizuno explained, “When you look at the reasons why desal isn’t used more often—just the cost of energy makes the cost of the water expensive. So, we do a lot of energy recovery. Just take the basic process of distillation in which you heat up the water solution, boil it off, and condense the residue. A lot of that water you use, or a lot of the energy used to boil off the water, is lost; so we recover the heat from that steam to save energy. In other words, we don’t discard that energy; we try to reuse it.”

“We have been conducting studies on some Westside ranches,” he continued, “with our pilot plant that processes only one thousand gallons per hour. A series of ditches on those ranches collect the drainage water to be purified. Now, we have moved everything back to the Fresno State Center for Irrigation Technology (CIT),” said Mizuno, “because we’re building a brand new redesigned unit, which should be operating by the end of this year.

“The second phase of the project,” Mizuno commented, “is to move the unit out to Panoche, and conduct field testing out there. We will evaluate the energy efficacy and also the economics of the unit and process, and we will field-test to determine how rugged and dependable it is out in the actual service area.”

“This is actually a research project,” Mizuno clarified. “We’re still fairly far away from commercializing it. Basically, we will evaluate the scalability of these units so that depending on the size of the farm and everything else, you can either put multiple units out there or design a single-unit system very similar to ours. You could size the system to meet whatever the demands are, but you need a reservoir or holding area, and you’d like to be able to operate 24/7.”

“We are considering using solar to power this,” Mizuno mentioned. “The issue with solar is, obviously, it tends to work during the daylight hours but doesn’t do much during the evening hours. We’re looking at using batteries, electricity, natural gas or some other energy source to keep the process running when the sun goes down, but it’s a matter of economics.”

Mizuno said the research team is optimistic about the process itself, but he does not anticipate it will be a cure-all. “It is a research project,” Mizuno reiterated, “and we’re trying to see if we can drop the energy cost, and lower the water cost. I think the economics will change though. Water will cost more for everybody in the next few years. As that changes, I think some of these technologies are going to become feasible from an economic standpoint.”

The entire state shoud be aware of these water issues, according to Mizuno. “I think there are still a lot of issues that the common person isn’t aware of and how they fit in, and Ag is no exception. I would like people to understand that we are working to stretch the available amount of water supplies we have and we are working on technologies that are yet unproven. But some of these technologies will require a few more years—to many years to solve. Others are not economically feasible today, but they may be in the future as water supplies get tighter.”

Mizuno has observed that farmers are already doing a lot to conserve water, particularly employing the use of new technologies such as drones to evaluate water stress and nutrient stress in plants. “Right now,” he offered, “we are looking at another piece of the puzzle; we’re trying to stretch the amount of water supply we have, utilize it in multiple-use scenarios, and use it more intelligently to make some waste streams into revenue streams.”

Mizuno urges the general population to just be aware. “Conservation is the first step for a lot of people,” he said. “That’s the easiest way to stretch water supplies, and so I think people need to understand that water is a finite resource in the state of California. The water situation is not likely to get better anytime soon, even if we have normal rainfall and so forth. We are in an overdraft situation with our water supply.”

CV-SALTS participants collaborate to develop a workable, comprehensive plan to address salinity, including nitrates, throughout the region in a comprehensive, consistent, and sustainable manner.

Center for Irrigation Technology (CIT) celebrates 35 years!

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:52-07:00July 18th, 2016|

Jasieniuk on Weed Evolution

Tracking Herbicide Resistance in Weed Evolution

By Emily McKay Johnson, Associate Editor

Marie Jasieniuk, professor and weed scientist at UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, discussed her groundbreaking research, “I work on the population genetics and evolution of agricultural weeds and invasive plants,” she said. “We use molecular tools to look at the origins and spread of weeds. We also use molecular tools and genetic studies to understand the evolution of herbicide resistance in weeds,” Jasieniuk added, “to be able to propose management approaches that reduce the likelihood of further evolution and spread of resistant weeds.”

UC Davis Annual Weed Day 2016

Jasieniuk and her team identify the origins of invasive plants, and determine how they were introduced. “We study how they were introduced, how they have spread and whether they have been introduced multiple times. Again, if we understand how they’re spreading, we can do something to try to stop the spread,” she said.

Italian rye grass, a weed Jasieniuk is currently studying, is problematic because it is resistant to Roundup, a popularly used weed and grass killer by growers. “UC ANR Cooperative Extension specialist, now emeritus, Tom Lanini, and I sampled over 100 locations of Italian rye grass and tested them for resistance to Roundup ten years ago,” she said about the project, funded by USDA. “Last year, we re-sampled all of those sites, and we’re re-testing to see if there’s been an increase or a decrease or no change in resistance to glyphosate, to Roundup,” she said.

Roundup isn’t the only weed and grass killer available on the market. “We’re looking at resistance to three other herbicides,” she said. Working with growers to determine the most efficacious weed treatments that also reduce the likelihood of wood resistance to herbicides,” Jasieniuk explained, “We interview growers about their herbicide use, non-chemical approaches, and integrated management techniques to identify management practices that correlate highly with low or no resistance,” she explained.

Resistance management is found to be more effective with a rotation of various herbicides. “What you want to do is rotate different types of herbicides with different modes of action,” Jasieniuk said. “Perhaps do tank mixes and incorporate non-chemical approaches as well,” she added.

Eliminating weeds can be as simple as disking and digging them out with a shovel when there are only a few. “I think, in many cases, this would have done a lot to prevent new weeds from coming in and certainly resistant weeds from spreading,” she noted.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:53-07:00July 11th, 2016|

Sparked Cultural Interest in Gardening and Locally Grown Produce

Locally Grown Food Inspires Consumers to Learn More, Garden at Home

By Laurie Greene, Editor

Cultural changes in eating habits are sparking an added interest in locally grown produce. Scott Steinmaus, professor in the Biological Sciences Department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly SLO), outlined the surge in local produce purchasing and how it is igniting consumer interest in growing their own gardens.

“The food craze is a real big movement right now,” Steinmaus stated, “especially with urban folks. Some of the biggest scenes are the foodie craze—that farm-to-table idea of buying locally, organically-produced food.”

Scott Steinmaus, professor of Biological Sciences Department at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Continuing, “And the cooking shows are out of control-popular, right? Where does the food come from? It comes from here; this is what it’s all about,” he said, with pride.

The growing trends are also reinvigorating students to become more involved, according to Steinmaus. “Students are asking where their food comes from,” he commented, “and who the farmers are that produce such healthy fruits and vegetables. That is an exciting part of our discipline as well—this foodie craze, and I think our students want to become a part of that,” he reflected.

The push for local produce is also inspring more people to grow their own home gardens. “When they garden, they get it,” Steinmaus explained. “And as soon as people get their hands dirty and as soon as they produce their first tomato; there’s nothing more empowering than producing your own food,” he said, “even if it’s a little bit.”

With this renewed interest in home gardening, Steinmaus observed, many are discovering their preconceived notions of farming were not quite accurate. “We’re working with the American Horticultural Society, putting together the videos that show people farming isn’t what you might think it is; it is actually completely different.” Steinmaus said.

“Farming involves a lot more than a green thumb,” he elaborated. “It requires the understanding of growing cycles and identifying various deficiencies. It utilizes very high technology. It is producing food; there is nothing more empowering than putting food on your kitchen table that you grew in your garden, or was grown by a farmer you know just down the street, and you know his [or her] name,” said Steinmaus.

California Ag Today2016-07-06T17:44:22-07:00July 6th, 2016|

Postharvest Short Course Focused on Taste and Quality

UC Davis Postharvest Course Covers Food Loss, Produce Handling

By Lauren Dutra, Associate Editor

The 38th annual Postharvest Technology of Horticultural Crops Short Course concluded TODAY, June 24 at UC Davis. Presented by Beth Mitcham, director of the Postharvest Technology Center, the course focused on postharvest produce quality and safety.

Beth Mitcham, Director of the Postharvest Technology Center at UC Davis.

“This class provided a really broad overview of all the topics that are relevant for postharvest handling of produce, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, and also ornamentals,” said Mitcham. “We cover the crops that are grown in California, but because our audience includes a lot of people from around the world who want to learn the basics about postharvest handling, we also cover a few crops that aren’t grown in California for commercial purposes. Furthermore,”she noted, “we also address some of the latest technologies that are available for maintaining excellent quality,”

Maintaining a good cold chain throughout the entire shipping line is critical, according to Mitcham. “We talk a lot about temperature,” she elaborated. “In fact, we tell students the three most important things about postharvest biology and technology are: temperature, temperature and temperature. We discussed many other technologies during the week, but they are secondary to good temperature management,” she noted.

Mitcham also mentioned food waste and how to control it. “So much effort goes into growing the crop, which includes harvesting at the prime of ripeness and getting it in the pre-cooler, on the trucks and to the market. But, people buy it, put it in their refrigerator and then don’t eat it. It goes bad and they waste it. It does happen,” said Mitcham. “Our goal is to try to make the product as hearty as possible while retaining really good flavor so it can last in your refrigerator as long as possible but also so people want to eat it, so hopefully it doesn’t sit in there and degrade.”

In reducing postharvest losses, Mitcham commented on the dissonance between addressing postharvest flavor and consumer satisfaction, “In some ways they are two opposite ends of the spectrum; some of the things we do to reduce losses are counter to delivering good flavor to consumers,” she said. “We really need to do both, and that was a big part of our message this week.”

Also at the event, the California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement (LGMA) discussed food safety principles, and Trevor Suslow, a UC Davis Plant Pathologist with the Postharvest Technology Center, discussed good agricultural practices (GAP) for food safety.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:54-07:00June 24th, 2016|

New IPM Work on Brown Stink Bug

New IPM Approach to Brown Stink Bug In Desert Cotton

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

This year, the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Cooperative Extension, Riverside County began an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program to control Euschistus servus, or brown stink bug, a problem in Southern California’s cotton production areas.

Vonny Barlow, a UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor in Riverside County

Vonny Barlow, a UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor in Riverside County began evaluating brown stink bug in cotton last year, and he received additional funding this year from a National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) grant administered through North Carolina State University, to continue his research this year. Barlow just hired two interns to work with brown stink bug in the Palo Verde Valley in Southern California.

The pest was known to exist in Arizona for about eleven years, but was not a critical issue until about three years ago, when it moved into California. California cotton growers had to spend a lot of money to spray to manage the insect, and it just wasn’t economically feasible.

“In many areas in the south, the brown stink bug pierces into the cotton boll with its proboscis-like mouthpart—a stiff, short straw,” said Barlow. “Once the cotton boll is pierced, the brown stink bug tries to feed on the cotton seed. The problem is the puncture allows bacteria to enter and boll rot to set in. Boll rot is the issue because it lowers yield quality; without boll rot, the brown stink bug is much more of a manageable pest.”

Spraying is not the answer to control the bug, according to Barlow. “We are going to look at an area-wide pest management approach by just essentially surveying the pest control advisers (PCAs) and growers about cropping that is near or even some miles away from cotton,” he said. “Where is the brown stink bug showing up? When did it show up? Is it moving? When are you going to harvest? Is it moving into the cotton? That way, we can give the cotton growers a better idea of when they should start management practices for brown stink bug, instead of just routinely calendar-spraying every two weeks.”

“We hope to predict when brown stink bug will move into cotton. Farmers who just harvested wheat should expect it will come into your field within the week. Start scouting; it is another very good IPM tactic to reduce sprays and to better manage pests,” said Barlow.

Featured image: Brown Stink Bug (Source: Brown Stink Bug (Source: “Chemical Efficacy Trial using Select Insecticides against Brown stink bug, Euschistus servus on Commercially Planted Cotton” by Vonny Barlow, University of California, Agricultural and Natural Resources, Riverside County, April 2016 issue of “Postings from the Palo Verde” newsletter)

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:54-07:00June 23rd, 2016|

AgTech—The New Frontier for Farming

AgTech: Bringing Agriculture and Technology Together for Success

by Emily McKay Johnson, Associate Editor

Aaron Magenheim, an innovative leader in the AgTech movement, helps startups and investment companies understand production farming in California to bridge the disconnect between farmers and evolving technology. Enabling farmers to be on the cutting edge of technology has been key to the success of his company, Ag Tech Insight (ATI).

Aaron Magenheim, AgTech Insight founder

Magenheim grew up in a family agricultural irrigation business on the Central Coast, Signature Irrigation, and has supported growers his whole life. Four years ago he started Signature AgTech, a stand-alone agriculture technology company, which sells, installs and supports various technologies for growers on the Central Coast and in the Salinas Valley.

The turning point occurred when, according to Magenheim, “I started spending a lot more time in Silicon Valley, and about two years ago I saw a huge disconnect among bright people with great ideas, a lot of money coming into the market and the knowledge that many farmers have absolutely no clue there are solutions 50-100 miles away.”

“That’s when I started AgTech Insight,” Magenheim continued. “I had no clue what we were going to do with it. We have evolved through a number of different situations and built a great team. We started doing meet-ups about a year and a half ago, and we have done nine or ten of them now.”

“We’re at the point now where we are getting collaboration from the city of Salinas and other Monterey Bay economic entities coming together to work with us to build meet-ups and more activity in the area.”

Helping Growers Understand

“As we’ve talked with growers and helped them understand what technology can do to them,” Magenheim explained, “we have also raised money for some companies through grower funding to develop technology and installed in the field. Through that process, we have found growers are really interested in working with and helping early-stage companies. But the value proposition has changed; growers used to have a good value proposition to help an early stage company because they would get use for two or three years of a new technology in their operation before someone else did and profit from that.”

“We’re starting the AgTech Grower’s Alliance (ATGA) —a next generation, ag industry-backed ecosystem to advance the development of AgTech businesses,” Magenheim detailed. “From prototype to market expansion, ATGA, a catalyst for the adoption of technology in agriculture, is basically putting a fund together to allow growers to invest in early stage companies before they’ve put a million dollars into their product, and develop their idea from concept to a scalable point that attracts Silicon Valley [investment],” Magenheim said.

ATGA is growing, even outside of California. “We’re stamping out a satellite in the Turlock area,” Magenheim stated, “and I’m heading to Chicago tomorrow to meet with groups of growers to establish another satellite in that area. This can happen in a lot of different regions—bringing the technology together. It’s really a community effort bringing the growers together,” he said.

Field-level actions

Magenheim wants to track equipment and improve collection of in-field data. “I want to be able to go to a field and see when it was disced, when it was listed, when it was watered, when it was planted, when we should harvest, and what that projected harvest is going to be,” he elaborated. “We have a lot of companies working on software and big data and Internet of Things (IOT) and that’s great; but if you can’t get that information from the field, and you don’t have a place to pull the data from, then it doesn’t exist. We really concentrate on a lot of field-level actions.”

“People are coming from schools such as California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB) and Hartnell College in Salinas, and from all over the country at this point,” Magenheim said, “whether they are educators or students trying to understand where their opportunities are. Growers come to our events to learn and understand where technology is going and how their operations can benefit. Then you have a lot of technology people. We get people from Silicon Valley and from Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology coming down to hear what the growers are talking about and looking for.”

_______________

Over the past 45 years, Ag Tech Insight (ATI) team members have been integrating the best ideas and advancements available to the agriculture industry, including designing, building, and implementing new tractor equipment; revolutionizing row crop irrigation by incorporating drip tape in Salinas Valley; and starting drip tape recycling programs and hydrostatic harvesting. AgTech has brought dozens of new software solutions to the market, from multiple GPS asset tracking systems to world-leading data collection and remote management. Recently AgTech diversified and significantly improved current monitoring and control systems for some of the largest names in the agricultural industry.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:55-07:00June 22nd, 2016|

Downey Mildew Continues to Challenge Leafy Greens

Downey Mildew Continues to Threaten Lettuce and Spinach

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm Director

One of the many facets that makes California Agriculture so successful is the hard-working group of farm advisors who assist growers with a multitude of plant and pest issues. Steve Koike, plant pathology farm advisor for UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Cooperative Extension in Monterey County, noted, “It has been a fairly typical year, and I wouldn’t say any particular new disease has been noteworthy, which is good for the growers.”

Steve Koike, farm advisor of UC ANR Cooperative Extension, Monterey County.

Koike, whose research focuses primarily on understanding disease systems, identifying new diseases and examining new methods of disease control, said growers “don’t like to see new diseases come out of our work. The main concern, downey mildew, continues to be challenging for both lettuce and spinach growers.”

“We started in the early spring with heavy mildew on both lettuce and spinach crops,” explained Koike, “and it’s remained pretty heavy on lettuce throughout the spring and early summer here. Spinach downey mildew goes up and down, which is not unusual.” he said. “We had some heavy mildew weeks for spinach growers, then we didn’t hear anything, then we heard that it had died down, and then ten days ago there was another surge. It’s one of those things that is hard to predict because it is variable.”

Since starting his farm advising position in 1989, Koike has been involved in educational programs and applied research in vegetable, fruit and ornamental crop diseases. Because downey mildew can overwinter in perennial crops, its continued occurrence is not too surprising.

“Earlier this year, Jim Correll, my cooperator at University of Arkansas, other leaders in the industry and I finally did confirm race 16, a new biotype of downey mildew. A few years ago, it was only race 12; it is moving target,” he noted.

“Although we have confirmed Race 16 on spinach, we are a little concerned because there are reports of disease on some race 16-resistant varieties.” Koike said.

Featured image: Downey Mildew (Source: UCANR Cooperative Extension, Tehama County)

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:55-07:00June 22nd, 2016|

Vegetables Are the Key to Great Nutrition

How to Increase Fruit and Vegetable Consumption

By Laurie Greene, Editor

In honor of National Eat Your Veggies Day, we spoke with Francene Steinberg, department chair and professor of nutrition at UC Davis, and director of the UC Davis Dietetics Education Program for undergrads. She encouraged the importance of leaning on vegetables for optimum nutrition and health benefits.

Francene Steinberg, department chair and professor of nutrition at UC Davis

“A varied diet of fruits and vegetables, along with grains and some protein sources is extremely valuable to give everybody the best energy for them to grow,” Steinberg said. “It really is so important to get the full spectrum of all the nutrients in these foods, particularly the vegetables.”

“In addition to all the required nutrients,” she explained, “we know the required vitamins and minerals—those that we know about and for which we have the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA), the “average daily level of intake sufficient to meet the nutrient requirements of nearly all (97%-98%) healthy people.” (Source: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine)

Continuing, Steinberg said, “There are also quite a few other nutrients and compounds in those foods that are good for us—that have biologic effects. Not only just fibers, but also phytochemicals, phytonutrients, they are really part of what helps to promote overall health. It’s not just the vitamins and minerals in a vitamin pill. You really need to eat the whole fruits and vegetables and grains, and so forth, to get the full effects,” noted Steinberg.

There is a new approach to how much produce people should eat on a daily basis. Steinberg noted the importance of eating the rainbow; fruits and vegetables of every color. Previous nutrition campaigns used to stress the importance of consuming five servings of fruits and vegetables each day.

“Most people don’t even come near to eating the amount of vegetables they need. Rather than focusing on a specific number, an easier goal is just eat more than you currently do, in terms of vegetables. Eat one more serving each day. Try a new vegetable each week. See if you like them,” said Steinberg.

Eat The Rainbow

In particular, Steinberg recommended red beets which are a wonderful vegetable to add to your eating list. “Beets are delicious. These deeply colored fruits and vegetables—whether they’re red, or green, or orange—that really denotes they have more nutrients in them. There are all these colored compounds that are often bioactive in the body. They really are good for you. You can, as you say, eat the rainbow by choosing these brightly colored fruits and vegetables.” noted Steinberg.

Steinberg encourages consumers to ‘”eat the rainbow.”

By consuming more vegetables, consumers can more avoid many chronic diseases. “I think that certainly most of the chronic diseases we suffer from today stem from obesity, diabetes, heart disease, that sort of thing,” Steinberg commented. “They’re often a combination of overconsumption of overall calories and empty nutrients, and not enough consumption of some of these fruits and vegetables that hold such valuable nutrients for us,” said Steinberg.

“It really is a matter of trying to make your diet as nutrient-rich as possible, and really avoiding those empty calories that seem to provide us lots of extra calories without any added benefit,” she stated. “If folks can cut down on some of the sugary and highly fatty snacks, chips and that sort of thing, and eat a piece of fruit or an extra vegetable serving per day they’re really much better off.”

Steinberg suggested one way to stimulate the desire to eat more vegetables is by making them readily available. “I think sometimes when people buy some of the produce, then they put it away in the refrigerator, it’s not visible. It’s hidden and they go to the cupboard and look and there’s a bag of chips that’s very easy to grab.”

She also recommended ways to make sure produce is not left behind. Consumers can purchase “fruits and vegetables that are already pre-washed and cut up, and put them in a little baggie or bowl on the counter, if they’re not perishable, or just a baggie in the refrigerator. It’s a quick grab and go. You can take it and have it as a quick snack. Things that are appealing to children are small bites that are easily consumed, bright and colorful.”

Steinberg recommended consumers “try to find those fruits and vegetables that are very fresh. Sometimes the ones we find in the grocery stores are not as flavorful as [backyard-grown], from the farmer’s market, or even just knowing which vegetables are in season. At the grocery store, the best things that are in season are usually going to be the freshest and tastiest. ” said Steinberg.

Fresh is not the only way consumers can enjoy the benefits of produce since frozen varieties are easy to come by. “Some of the frozen whole vegetables and fruits are highly nutritious,” said Steinberg. “They’re very affordable and available year round.”

Steinberg also mentioned the availability of low calorie dips such as hummus can easily be found in grocery and convenience stores which encourages more fresh vegetable consumption. In fact, hummus is primarily chickpeas, another great vegetable. “Dipping fresh vegetables in hummus. That’s delicious,” she said.

California Ag Today2016-10-24T15:54:25-07:00June 17th, 2016|

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