UC Lindcove Research Center Gets New Director

El-kereamy named director of UC Lindcove REC

By Pam Kan-Rice, Assistant Director, News and Information Outreach

Ashraf El-kereamy will be the new director of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources’ Lindcove Research & Extension Center, starting on July 1, 2020. He will continue to serve as a UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences at UC Riverside and based at Lindcove Research & Extension Center.

“Elizabeth Grafton-Cardwell retires this year after 13 years as director of Lindcove REC, California’s premier citrus research center,” said Mark Lagrimini, UC ANR vice provost for research and extension. “We are excited to have Ashraf in place to carry on the tremendous success attributable to the research performed at Lindcove. Ashraf brings a breadth of research, extension and leadership skills.”

El-kereamy has extensive experience with several commodities with research revolving around plant hormones, fruit ripening, plant nutrition, and the responses of different plant species to abiotic stress conditions.

Since February 2019, El-kereamy has been serving as a UC Cooperative Extension citrus specialist based at Lindcove Research and Extension Center. Prior to the specialist position, El-kereamy was a UCCE viticulture and small fruit advisor for Kern County, where he established a research and extension program serving the San Joaquin Valley table grape industry for four years. Prior to joining UC ANR, he was an assistant/associate professor in the Department of Horticulture at Ain Shams University in Egypt.

“I am honored and very excited to be the director of Lindcove Research and Extension Center, which plays a crucial role in the California citrus industry,” El-kereamy said. “I am confident that, with the support of our industry, community and the University of California, we will build tomorrow’s Lindcove REC as a center of excellence in research and extension. I am looking forward to leading Lindcove REC and providing our clientele with up-to-date technologies to cope with the challenges facing the California agriculture industry.”

El-kereamy earned a bachelor’s degree in horticulture and master’s degree in pomology from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, and a doctorate in agriculture with an emphasis in grapevine physiology and molecular biology from Toulouse University in France.

California Ag Today2020-06-24T13:22:34-07:00June 24th, 2020|

AgvisorPro Here to Connect with Farmers

AGvisorPRO Hopes to Connect Farmers with Experts

By Tim Hammerich with the Ag Information Network of the West

Farming is complex and it requires deep expertise in a variety of fields. So what can a farmer do to access that expertise especially in a remote environment, especially during COVID-19? Rob Saik of AgVisor Pro has a solution: he calls it the Uberization of agricultural knowledge.

“The number of times through the course of the year, when a farmer could reach out to really talk to people with deep domain expertise that could help the farming operation are numerous,” said Saik. “And so the farms that I talked to, many of them have agronomists that are working with them, or many of them have veterinarians that are working with them. But geez, if the market’s moving, you need access to a marketing person.”

“The farmers told me that what they sensed was advisor pro would give them instant access to an entomologist when they needed to talk to an insect guy. Advisor pro would give them instant access to a marketing guy with deep domain marketing experience when they wanted to talk to somebody about marketing. And so it created a way for farmers to, first of all, find these people. And secondly, in some cases, a farmer just wants a second opinion,” explained Saik.

Farmers and experts can download the AgVisor Pro app and connect with each other to give and receive expertise in exchange for money. The experts are both vetted and rated to make sure the level of on-demand service remains high. Learn more at agvisorpro.com.

California Ag Today2020-06-24T08:03:12-07:00June 24th, 2020|

Remote Food Safety Audits Available

LGMA Partners with Western Growers to Offer Remote Food Safety Audits During Pandemic

Mandatory government food safety audits of leafy greens farms under the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement are continuing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Announced today by Western Growers (WG) and the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (CA LGMA), is the availability of a new process developed through a collaboration with iFoodDecisionSciences (iFoodDS), that streamlines all verification documents and data for online review by government auditors.

This process will allow the execution of remote audits and has been reviewed and accepted by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which has oversight of the LGMA programs and auditors. While in-person inspections may be temporarily limited to protect farm workers, farm office employees and government auditors, much of the LGMA audits are focused on reviewing verification documentation which can be presented in various forms, including large amounts of paperwork.

“As an industry leader in produce safety, Western Growers remains committed to leading produce safety initiatives and solutions,” said Sonia Salas, WG assistant vice president of food safety, science & technology. “In a time where COVID-19 is testing all industries, this new auditing process will support food safety oversight during this pandemic.”

The system was developed over the past few weeks, has been tested and is now available to certified members of the LGMA who are audited an average of five times over the year.

“We were able to use this new process in a real audit situation and it worked extremely well from start to finish,” said Sharan Lanini, Director of Food Safety for Pacific International Marketing and chair of the LGMA’s Technical Committee. “This is a great development in the government audit process.”

“The streamlining of data and verification documents online is a really positive outcome of our ‘new normal,’” said Diane Wetherington, Executive Chair of the iFoodDS board. “The use of iFoodDS software will not only save the auditors time, but it will allow them to more efficiently assess compliance with LGMA food safety metrics through the use of a consistent online verification system.”

“When the LGMA began in 2007, it was the first program of its kind in the nation. As we navigate through these unprecedented circumstances, the LGMA program continues to find innovative ways to move forward and achieve its objective of advancing food safety for leafy greens products,” said Scott Horsfall, Chief Executive Officer of the California LGMA. “This new auditing system is another example of the pioneering spirit of the LGMA and its commitment to find new and better ways to enhance the safety of leafy greens.”

WG has worked with the AZ and CA LGMAs since their inception in 2007 and is currently the facilitator of proposed changes to the LGMA food safety guidelines. WG continues to explore and support new ways to enhance food safety efforts, particularly in these challenging times.

California Ag Today2020-06-23T08:17:53-07:00June 23rd, 2020|

No-Till Saves Water, Increases Yield

No-Tillage Sorghum Yields Exceed Standard Tillage in a Four-Year Rotation

Since the advent of irrigation in California with the widespread drilling of wells in the 1930s and the proliferation of orchard crops during the past two decades, total annual water use in many watersheds exceeds supply. Partly as a consequence, California enacted the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014, which limits withdrawals to replenished levels.

Because irrigated agriculture accounts for nearly 80% of total water use, reductions in irrigation will be required, but preferably without decreasing either productivity or food supply. Furthermore, with some climate change projections suggesting a potential 20% water loss by the middle of the century, the need for more efficient water use could become acute. Fortunately, some water-saving methods such as drip irrigation have been supported by the government and there have been programs that have increased implementation and farmers understand these methods well.

Reduced disturbance tillage, or no-till, however, also offers an under-utilized strategy for increasing agricultural water use efficiency in California. There has been very little research and there is very little information available to farmers on no-till production systems for the diverse array of crops that have been produced in the state historically.

UC Cooperative Extension cropping systems specialist Jeff Mitchell led a diverse team of ANR, farmer, private sector and other public agency partners to evaluate the potential for producing sorghum and garbanzos, using high residue, no-till techniques in the San Joaquin Valley in a four-year study conducted at ANR’s ag experiment station in Five Points, Calif.

Standard tillage practices have been used throughout the region for nearly 90 years. Using similar inputs and amounts and pest management, they showed that a garbanzo and sorghum rotation in no-till yielded at least as well as in standard tillage.

Sorghum yields were similar in no-till and standard tillage systems while garbanzo yields matched or exceeded no-till than in standard tillage, depending on the year.

In the trial, no-till garbanzos yielded an average of 3,417 pounds per acre versus standard tillage with an average of 2,738 pounds per acre; garbanzo production in California, which is almost all in standard till, averages 2,300 pounds per acre.

We envision that if water costs continue to rise and as curtailments on water supply increase, the value of agricultural land in California will eventually decline, providing more of an economic incentive for using no-till for growing a portfolio of crops, such as sorghum and garbanzo, amenable to these pending constraints on irrigation.

In addition, there already exists high acreage of relatively low-value field crops in the state. As annual row crop farmers are faced with the need to reduce water use, knowing which field crops perform well in no-tillage conditions is important for the region. For this reason, this work may serve as a decision-making tool for growers in the future, especially if there is the opportunity to both reduce management costs and maintain yields

An outgrowth of this work on no-till systems is the group of about 15 farmers who’re now a part of a USDA NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant Program project that is looking at opportunities and approaches for reducing disturbance in organic vegetable production systems.

California Ag Today2020-06-22T08:14:15-07:00June 22nd, 2020|

New Date for Citrus Post-Harvest Pest Conf.

Citrus Post-Harvest Pest Control Conference
Postponed to Sept. 2021

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 41^st Annual Citrus Post-Harvest Pest Control Conference has officially been postponed to September 8-9, 2021. The 2021 conference will be held at the Wyndham Hotel in Visalia, California.

The technical two-day conference for citrus industry personnel, service company representatives and researchers will provide updates on recent developments in post-harvest disease management, packinghouse food safety, post-harvest fruit quality, cold storage and cold chain.

We hope everyone stays safe and well, and we look forward to seeing you in-person in the Fall of 2021!

2020 Post-Harvest Webinar Coming Soon

We know that many of you look forward to this conference each year. In the interim, we are working on offering a post-harvest webinar that will give you important industry updates. This webinar will be presented in September 2020.

Stay tuned for more information on the webinar, which will be released soon!

If you have any additional question, please contact
CRB Director of Communications Carolina Evangelo at (559) 738-0246 or
email at Carolina@citrusresearch.org.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:01:44-07:00June 18th, 2020|

Soletrac Electric Tractors Available

Solectrac Electric Tractors Are Here

By Tim Hammerich with the Ag Information Network of the West

Can tractors go electric? Steve Heckeroth and his team at Solectrac think so. The Mendocino native was building electric cars in the early 90s and had the idea to apply the technology to tractors.

Heckeroth… “I realized the biggest problem I’d had with cars was the battery weight, and the battery weight could actually be an asset in a tractor. And so I switched my focus to tractors because I figured, food is, is actually more important than transportation.”

So, Heckeroth went to work on designing a fully electric tractor.

“I designed a tractor patterned off to the tractors that were made in the fifties of the Allis Chalmers G, which had a mid hitch so that the farmers could see what they were doing when they were cultivating,” said Heckeroth.

Heckeroth says the tractor is plenty powerful for small farm activities and the battery is easy to change and recharge.

“It takes less time to change a battery pack than it does an implement. You just drop off a used battery pack and put on a fresh one, and then put the use one on a charge on a solar array. And by the time you’re done with the fresh pack, the one that you put on the solar array is charged up and ready to go, so you can go continuously,” said Herckeroth.

Check it out at Solectrac.com

California Ag Today2020-06-17T08:53:31-07:00June 17th, 2020|

Mia Airsman New CA FFA Secretary

Airsman Found a Passion for Agriculture in the FFA

By Tim Hammerich, with the Ag Information Network of the West

Mia Airsman was elected as the new California State FFA Secretary last month. The graduating senior at Galt High School didn’t come from an ag background but developed a passion for the industry through her FFA experience.

“Growing up, I didn’t really have a background in ag. I don’t come from like a farm production or like any sort of ag background. I kind of found that love when I got to high school in our ag program,” said Airsman.“And so I just dove in headfirst, whether that was ag mechanics, floral, ag biology. I tried it out all my freshman year, and then from there I was able to kind of see that this was something that I could definitely pursue as a career.”

The association had to make an adjustment to elect their officers this year online. Airsman said it was stressful but worth it.

“I didn’t know what to expect originally going into it. This was all completely new to me, and then when everything got switched virtually, it was kind of challenging because you’re running for state office, like essentially from your bedroom, and it’s so anticlimactic,” said Airsman.

“But I kind of also enjoyed being able to be at home, but there was like a lot of anxiety leading up to it because you’re constantly waiting for your camera to pop on, and then suddenly you’re being interviewed. So I would say it was a little bit stressful and nerve-wracking, but in the end, it was completely worth it.”

The FFA organization continues to create passionate leaders for agriculture.

California Ag Today2020-06-16T13:31:26-07:00June 16th, 2020|

Ask an Enviromentalist—An Occasional Series

Ann Hayden of Environmental Defense Fund Shares Her Thoughts on Ag and SGMA

By Don Wright, Waterwrights.net

This is the first “Ask an Enviro” feature and we have hope it will grow into something profitable for all of us who drink water and eat food – that’s the common link. I’ve heard my entire career farmers are like herding cats and ag does a poor job of telling its story. So, there will also be a feature “Ask a Farmer”. The plan is to run each of these two features once a month. Do you folks working in agriculture have some questions you’d like to ask environmentalists? Here’s your chance. Do you folks who don’t work in agriculture have questions for farmers? Here’s your chance. Send your questions to me don@waterwrights.net and we’ll start this dialog.

I’m very pleased to introduce you to Ann Hayden of Environmental Defense Fund. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Ann over the past couple of years and I can tell you she’s not a flame thrower. Likewise EDF recognizes humans are a part of the environment as well. You may contact Ann at ahayden@edf.org

Ask an Enviro

WaterWrights.net is launching this new series, “Ask an Enviro,” to help break down silos, open communication and build a stronger bridge between environmentalists and farmers in our community. I’m Ann Hayden, senior director, western water and resilient landscapes, at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). EDF is an international nonprofit that has spent decades building inclusive environmental coalitions alongside farmers, ranchers, corporate leaders and other unexpected allies — teaming up on projects where we can make the greatest impact. EDF has been working on environmental issues in California since the 1980s and was founded in New York in 1967. I’ve been a member of EDF’s western water team for more than 17 years and met Don Wright at a landowner workshop held by the Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District.

Why is EDF working on water issues in California? How would you describe EDF’s approach?

EDF’s been working in California for more than 40 years to ensure that people and our environment have reliable water supply now and into the future. The reason is simple: Water is central to all of us. It hydrates us, helps feed us, powers our economies, sustains wildlife, and provides recreation on rivers and lakes. We recognize the critical role that the agriculture sector plays — farmers are literally feeding us — and we have long believed that agriculture has an important role in being part of the water solution, and that rural communities need to have a say in how decisions are made. That’s why we work with farmers, marginalized communities, and other local stakeholders to understand their needs and challenges. We then collaborate with them on designing and implementing sustainable water and land use solutions that balance all interests and protect the most vulnerable.

In some cases these solutions take the form of water accounting and trading programs, like the one we co-developed with the Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District and a group of its ag customers in Kern County. In other cases, we work with rural communities to increase local capacity to effectively engage in decision-making and advocate for safe, reliable drinking water, as we did in partnership with the Rural Community Assistance Corporation and the Rural Water Boards Leadership Institute.

How does EDF envision balancing the needs of the farming community with its environmental goals, especially as SGMA requires reducing groundwater pumping?

We believe that meeting the needs of the farming community and the environment are not mutually exclusive, that it is possible to help agriculture adapt to an uncertain water future while ensuring that environmental conditions improve. Where feasible, EDF supports developing additional water supplies for the Valley, but even with full development of affordable and environmentally responsible supplies, most evidence suggests that land conversion will be required. Balanced solutions will require a mix of different actions. We know that farmers have some tough decisions to make with the limited water supply they have, but without SGMA, the decisions would become even tougher as water scarcity reached a crisis during the next drought or the drought after that. With SGMA, we have the chance to think about the future and plan deliberately for the reductions in water use that have to happen at some point.

If farmers focus on irrigating their most productive lands, then it may be possible to repurpose less productive lands and create other values that farmers and communities can benefit from. And, we think California should bring some public dollars to bear to help in the transition. Examples of new uses could be low-impact solar, wildlife-friendly groundwater recharge, and restored floodplains to reduce flood risks and restore habitat. In the case of habitat, farmers could gain a new source of revenue by selling mitigation credits to entities, such as Caltrans or a developer, that need to mitigate environmental impacts.

What projects are you working on that you are most excited about?

I think the groundwater accounting work with Rosedale Rio Bravo will pay dividends for California’s water future. When farmers have easy to access data about their water use, they can make more informed water management decisions.I’m also very excited about a new project in the Kaweah Sub Basin in Tulare County because it brings together local stakeholders to develop options about how to implement the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in ways that meet the region’s goals. This project will be the first in the Central Valley to use the state’s Regional Conservation Investment Strategies (RCIS) program to help communities respond to the water and land use changes that are expected under SGMA. Groundwater Sustainability Agencies in the region recognize that some amount of acreage will likely be taken out of production as a way to balance groundwater demand with available supply. The RCIS allows stakeholders to identify areas that can be consolidated and converted — on a voluntary basis — to other uses like habitat, groundwater recharge, dry land grazing and low-impact solar, which farmers can be compensated for creating. Importantly, the process will proactively engage diverse members of the community to have a say on what they want their community’s future to look like.

We were really pleased to see the East Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Agency awarded $515,000 in February from the state’s Wildlife Conservation Board to develop an RCIS plan. Not surprisingly, the kickoff has been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic but it’s now scheduled to happen, virtually, in July. My hope is that this process in the Kaweah Sub Basin can become a model for other regions as they grapple with similarly challenging issues.

On a more personal note, how did you end up working on water issues?

I grew up in a rural part of Yolo County surrounded by farms and small agricultural operations. While my family wasn’t directly involved in farming, my brothers and I got our feet wet raising pigs and sheep and showing them at the annual 4-H festival in nearby Woodland. We were friends with our farming neighbors and shared the same underground water supply as them, so anytime there was a disruption in the operation of our shared well, residents and farmers had to work together to quickly find a solution.

Over the years, the community also came together to figure out how to improve the levee system when roads, properties and farms flooded during wet years. There were also hot, dry summers that seemed to repeat year after year, and I have stark memories of folks coming together to restore nearby Putah Creek, which would completely dry up and strand salmon. So I came to realize over time just how much water connects us all and how collective action can make a huge difference. This appreciation led me to focus my education on better understanding how to manage these systems in ways that can work for people and wildlife. Shortly after finishing graduate school, I landed my dream job at EDF, where I was quickly working on projects to help improve water supply reliability.

California Ag Today2020-06-16T10:35:34-07:00June 16th, 2020|

Farmer Pedro Schambon Develops Pro Farmer Software

Pro Farmer Software For Farmers by Farmers

By Tim Hammerich with the Ag Information of the West

Farmers of fresh produce all have to navigate various regulations such as Good Agricultural Practices, Organic and other certifications, and the Food Safety Modernization Act. Pro Farmer software can help.

This is a challenge for farms of all sizes, and particularly for small farms that do not have the staff to help keep things up-to-date. Farmer Pedro Schambon saw an opportunity to help in this area by creating Pro Farmer Software.

“When we were farming organic vegetables and you know, one of the requirements is to get the Good Agricultural Practices Certificate. Comply with a Food Safety Modernization Act, comply with Good Agricultural Practices, and also comply with the organic certification. And every year when we were getting their auditors to come to our farm, it was a lengthy process to be able to comply with everything that is required in those three certifications,” said Schambon.

Schambon used Zoho, which is a low-code platform to build the software himself. Once he had something that managed his farm, he began offering it to other small farmers as well. He still farms himself but sees this as a way to equip the next generation of farmers with the tools they need to be successful.

Learn more about the software at pfs.farm

California Ag Today2020-06-16T08:49:26-07:00June 16th, 2020|

UCANR’s Deanne Meyer Honored

Meyer receives Bradford-Rominger Agricultural Sustainability Leadership Award

By Pam Kan-Rice, UCANR Assistant Director, News and Information Outreach

Deanne Meyer, UC Cooperative Extension Livestock Waste Management Specialist, is this year’s recipient of the Eric Bradford & Charlie Rominger Agricultural Sustainability Leadership Award, given by the Agricultural Sustainability Institute (ASI) at UC Davis.

Meyer is being honored for her leadership in substantially improving the sustainability of California’s dairy industry through her research and outreach.

The Bradford-Rominger award recognizes and honors individuals who exhibit the leadership, work ethic and integrity epitomized by the late Eric Bradford, a livestock geneticist who gave 50 years of service to UC Davis, and the late Charlie Rominger, a fifth-generation Yolo County farmer and land preservationist.

Meyer has directed the environmental stewardship efforts of the California Dairy Quality Assurance Program (CDQAP)—a voluntary partnership between the dairy industry, government and academia—since the program’s inception in 1996.

Meyer’s dedication to build a bridge between industry and regulatory agencies has paid dividends for California’s air and water quality. With Meyer’s leadership, more than 700 dairy farms have completed an on-site, third-party evaluation of their facility’s manure management. The program has been so successful that it received California’s highest environmental honor, the Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award, in 2007.

Reflecting on Meyer’s work, Glenda Humiston, UC vice president for agriculture and natural resources, said, “Serving as chair of California’s Water Quality Task Force in the mid-1990s, I had a front row seat to the challenges Deanne faced as she organized CDQAP and brought many unlikely allies to the table. The many successes of that program is a testament to her skills as both a scientist and a diplomat.”

Beyond Meyer’s work with CDQAP, her research in groundwater salinity has provided farmers, agency staff and other concerned stakeholders with unbiased information presented with an understanding of agricultural realities.

“Her efforts, leadership, and dedication are so valued by all the diverse sectors she works across,” said Anita Oberbauer, professor and dean for Agricultural Sciences at UC Davis. “By working closely with regulatory agencies and farmers, she ensures our state’s livestock and dairy producers have the tools that they need to meet the environmental challenges.”

Learn more about the Bradford-Rominger award on the Agricultural Sustainability Institute website at https://asi.ucdavis.edu/about/awards-and-scholarships/bradford-rominger-award.

Past winners of the Bradford-Rominger award include UC Cooperative Extension advisors Rachael Long, Rachel Surls and David Lewis, Sustainable Conservation’s Director of Resources Daniel Mountjoy, UCCE advisor Rose Hayden-Smith, UCCE specialist Ken Tate, UCCE advisor Mary Bianchi, natural resource conservation consultant Kelly Garbach and UC Davis lecturer emeritus Isao Fujimoto.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:17:07-07:00June 15th, 2020|