UCCE Farm Advisor Archives - California Agriculture News Today

2018 Cotton Crop Proceeding Well

Late Season Pests Can Be a Challenge

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

The 2018 cotton harvest will be starting in the southern part of the Central Valley later this month, and some growers will be facing pressure from pests.

California Ag Today recently spoke about the topic with Dan Munk, a UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor in Fresno County specializing in irrigation crop nutrient management and cotton production systems.

“The crop looks very good and loaded with cotton bolls. We don’t have a lot of boll losses, and that’s a real positive thing, so very excited about the potential for fairly high yields in the 2018 season. The biggest concern right now is pest management, press pressures as we approach the latter part of the season,” Munk explained.

The main issue this time of year is the honeydew that pest leave on the cotton. Honeydew is the exudate extracted by the insect as it feeds on the leaves.

“Because we have the bolls on the plant that have opened, we now have exposed lint and need to protect that lint from stickiness that’s created from whitefly and the aphid honeydew, which is basically the added sugars that those insects that feed on the leaves of the plant, and they excrete them and deposit them on the lint,” Munk said.

Munk explained that the big concern right now is dealing with pest pressures in terms of whitefly and aphid—both sucking insects. “The problem right now [is] where we’re seeing pest pressures—particularly from whitefly as we get later in the season—will build in many fields.

There are several approaches to controlling whitefly and aphids. One is to deal with the eggs that they produced. And then there’s a certain class of materials to deal with the eggs.

“There’s another class of materials that deal with the juveniles—that early form of the insect—and then there are ways to control the adults,” Munk said.

“A number of insecticides have been applied to deal with those various levels of insect populations based on the individual field situation,” he explained.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:01:53-07:00October 3rd, 2018|

Spotted Wilt Virus Light This Season on Tomatoes

Thrips Widespread But Yields are High

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

Spotted wilt virus on tomatoes was a big concern at the beginning of the season. California Ag Today spoke with Tom Turini, vegetable crops farm advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension in Fresno County, about the topic. We caught up with him on the west side of Fresno County. He said despite the potential virus pressure, tomato yields have been very high this year.

“Thrips are the vector of tomato spotted wilt, and while the thrip distribution is much wider than it was last year, it doesn’t look like we’re seeing the level of economic damage,” Turini said.

Tom Turini

“We had had concerns initially about problems, and of course that could get worse as we get later in the season, but so far our yields have been very, very high,” Turini said.

He explained that the strong yields is in part due to the mild temperatures during the spring, so there was good early fruit set. “Even that, I would expect that now with these higher temperatures over the last six weeks, we’re going to start seeing the effects of the yield-robbing virus with a later harvest,” he said.

Last year, the concern was with fresh market tomatoes.

“We had concerns late last year in the fresh market, but this year it’s at moderate levels of economic impact. “It doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen in the future, but at this point, it looks like we were spared, at least for the early season crop.”

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:01:53-07:00August 15th, 2018|

Navel Orangeworm Pressure Could Be Increasing in Almonds

Lack of Good Sanitation Leads to High Navel Orangeworm Numbers

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

It could be another heavy year for Navel Orangeworm (NOW). David Haviland, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor for Kern County and entomologist told California Ag Today that sanitation in almond orchards over the winter was not as good as it could have been.

“Everything right now is about trying to prevent a repeat from last year, and it is a little tricky so we know that sanitation wasn’t as good this winter as it generally should be,” he said. “The best time to shake NOW mummy nuts from an almond tree is after a rain when the nuts are heavier.”

David Haviland

However, rains came late this season, and by the time the rains left, there was only a few weeks before spring.

“This left a very short window to get any shaking done, and some people did an excellent job during that window to sanitize and other people just couldn’t get around all their acreage,” Haviland said. “On average across the whole industry, sanitation was not up to where it should have been, and it gave growers a difficult start to the season.”

NOW could be early this year, but the crop is on time.

“With all of this prolonged hot temperatures, particularly high night-time temperatures, the trees are shutting down a little bit at night compared to what they would do if the nighttime temperatures were cooler,” Haviland explained.

As a result, harvest is not coming as quickly as people would like.

“The problem is that the longer the nuts are in the orchard, the greater chance there will be NOW damage,” he said.

Timely crop protection sprays are recommended.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:01:53-07:00August 7th, 2018|

UC Estimates Costs and Returns for Growing Garbanzo Beans

By Pam Kan-Rice, UCANR

The UC Agriculture and Natural Resources’ Agricultural Issues Center has released two new studies on the estimated costs and returns of producing garbanzo beans, also known as chick peas, in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys.

“Although acreage is relatively small, garbanzos are an important crop because California growers produce the large, cream-colored seed that’s used for the canning industry, often used for garnishes for salads,” said Rachael Long, a UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor serving Sacramento, Solano and Yolo counties.

Chick pea seedlings in field.

The studies estimate the cost of producing garbanzo beans on 200 acres as part of a row crop rotation, using subsurface drip irrigation. A three-row bed tillage implement shallowly chisels, tills and reshapes the beds, avoiding disturbance of the buried drip tape left in place. Planting of seed treated for fungal and seedling diseases—Ascochyta rabiei, Rhizoctonia and Pythium—into residual soil moisture occurs in December. Seeding rates for the garbanzo beans are 85 pounds per acre.

Input and reviews were provided by UC ANR Cooperative Extension farm advisors and other agricultural associates. Assumptions were used to identify current costs for the garbanzo bean crop, material inputs, cash and non-cash overhead. A ranging analysis table shows profits over a range of prices and yields. Other tables show the monthly cash costs, the costs and returns per acre, hourly equipment costs, and the whole farm annual equipment, investment and business overhead costs.

Chick peas nearing harvest.

“The importance of these studies right now is that they are currently being used to help secure USDA crop insurance for garbanzo production, expected in 2020,” Long said.

The new studies are titled: “Sample Costs to Produce Garbanzo Beans (Chick Peas), in the Sacramento and Northern San Joaquin Valleys – 2018” and “Sample Costs to Produce Garbanzo Beans (Chick Peas), in the Southern San Joaquin Valley – 2018.”

Both studies can be downloaded from the UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics website at http://coststudies.ucdavis.edu. Sample cost of production studies for many other commodities are also available at the website.

For additional information or an explanation of the calculations used in the studies, contact the Agricultural Issues Center at (530) 752-4651 or the local UCCE Farm Advisors; Sarah Light, selight@ucanr.edu, Rachael Long, rflong@ucanr.edu, Michelle Leinfelder-Miles, mmleinfeldermiles@ucanr.edu, or Nicholas E. Clark, neclark@ucanr.edu.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:13-07:00March 7th, 2018|

American Society of Agronomy Meets

Plant Soil Conference Discusses Nitrogen Management

By Patrick Cavanaugh Farm News Director

Dan Munk is a UC California Cooperative Extension Fresno County Farm Advisor who specializes in irrigation, crop nutritional management and cotton production systems. He recently spoke about the California chapter of the American Society of Agronomy holding its annual plant and soil conference recently in Fresno. Attendance was great, and agronomic issues regarding water, irrigation and nutritional management were covered.

“[The] California chapter of the American Society of Agronomy convenes a annual meeting known as the plant and soil conference, which was held recently in Fresno for a day and a half. We had the CDFA Secretary Karen Ross address the group as well as some nutrient management experts from across the state and outside of the state,” Munk said. “And we discussed agronomic issues related to water irrigation, nutrient management in agriculture. And there was a pest management session as well.”

There were more than 220 top state agronomists, with many Certified Crop Advisors as well as some growers and industry affiliates attending that meeting.

Nutritional management plans for efficiency, especially for nitrogen, are being closely looked at and discussed.

“I think the nutrient management plans that we’re doing is something that we need to continue to get better information. We have an understanding now of where some of the limitations are now for efficiencies,” Munk explained. “I mean, we can’t always be 100 percent efficient in these things and when we are, that’s when you get into the situation where you have some yield losses. So there’s, there’s always going to be some nitrate movement out of the root system in agricultural systems. That’s just the nature of the beast.”

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:13-07:00February 20th, 2018|

Groundwater Nitrates Due to Legacy Issues

Minimizing Groundwater Nitrates

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Groundwater nitrates have been a concern over the last decade and growers have made much improvement to minimize the problem. But still, new regulations are requiring that growers not make the problem worse.

California Ag Today recently spoke with Dan Munk, a UC Cooperative Extension Fresno County Farm Advisor, about the topic. He specializes in irrigation crop nutritional management and cotton production systems. He explained that when water leaves the root zone, it takes away salts and nitrates.

The issue is that irrigated agriculture is always going to have some water leaving the root zone simply to leach salts.

“And when you leach salts, you take away with that water, along with something like nitrates. So that’s part of the system,” Munk said.

“And so what we can do in agriculture is limit those losses and try to be more efficient because it still makes us more efficient in that we spend less money on fertilizers that way,” he said.

“However, there’s always going to be some losses to … systems over time, and I think that’s the best we can do,” Munk said.

He said that many of the nitrates in the ground water are due to legacy issues. When growers had different irrigation systems or when growers had different access to water.

“Today, we’re applying a lot less water, much more uniformly and have been for many years. Things really have changed in terms of the amount of nitrates that are going below that root zone and into the groundwater,” Munk explained. “It is much less today.”

For more help in understanding the problem of nitrates in the groundwater: www.cvsalinity.org

California Ag Today2018-02-16T16:59:44-08:00February 16th, 2018|

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|

Orchard Sanitation is Critical This Season

Orchard Sanitation to Push Back on NOW Underscored

By Mike Stevens, Associate Editor

We are completing our coverage of the importance of orchard sanitation to push back on Navel Orangeworm (NOW) pressure for 2018.

We recently spoke with David Haviland, UC Cooperative Extension entomologist and farm advisor for Kern County. He spoke about how sanitation is the most important practice that needs to be implemented.

David Haviland

“Yes, 2017 was a really interesting year on NOW. It was a bad year overall. Several things led up to that. The first one was sanitation was an issue,” Haviland explained. “There is not much of an excuse in the southern half of the almond industry, but with all the rain up north and the flooded orchards, yes, it was very difficult to get in and do sanitation, and we know that that is the absolute backbone of navel orange worm programs.”

Pistachios were also a concern when it comes to NOW.

NOW was right on schedule in pistachios. The pistachio crop was a little behind and so it was common to do a normal monitoring, normal spray program, and set up for a normal harvest. But then the crops sat out there for another 10 days or two weeks, which, of course, makes it very vulnerable to NOW worm damage.

“The longer you get away from your insecticide sprays, the more damage that’s going to occur, and a lot of the crop was harvested after the fourth flight occurred,” Haviland said. “When you put in the concerns with sanitation this year, and with the increased degree day accumulation, there were plenty of moths and then the crop got delayed. The overall effect was that this was a worse than normal year.”

At the same time, the industry is full of examples of growers that had very acceptable damage.

“Growers that did follow in greater pest management practices … did get their sanitation done. They documented that those things are really important, they are very effective, and the growers that weren’t able to get that sanitation done hopefully got a case study, personal experience in the value of sanitation,” Haviland said.

Every grower needs to do their part by incorporating sanitation, noted Haviland. “Obviously, if you’re the only one sanitizing amidst a bunch of growers that aren’t, that’s a concern,” he said.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:01:57-07:00December 19th, 2017|

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|