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Research and IPM
Grants Programs: Extension IPM Demonstration
In 2007, with funding from ANR, the
Statewide IPM Program began a competitive grants program to fund
demonstrations of IPM research in the field. In
its first year, the program funded nine projects.
Purpose and Goals
The purpose of the Extension IPM Demonstration
Grants Program is to demonstrate IPM practices and promote the
implementation of IPM in production agriculture and in residential
and urban areas, and to protect natural areas such as wildlands
and water bodies. The primary focus is to increase adoption of
IPM practices.
The overarching goal of the grants program is
to reduce potential risks from pests to the environment, human
health, or economic interests of the system.
The program is designed
to bridge the gap in the research–extension continuum by
taking results from research sites on the campuses, at research
centers, and in counties and demonstrating them in new locations
and situations.
For information about the Demonstration Grants
Program, contact the
UC IPM director, associate directors, or any IPM advisor.
Projects for 2007-08
From the 2007 UC IPM Demonstration Grants
Program—New residential IPM approaches to manage
codling moth
- Daniel B. Marcum, UCCE, Shasta/Lassen counties
- Alan Knight, USDA-ARS
- Carolyn Pickel, UCCE/IPM, Sutter-Yuba counties
Scientists have discovered a chemical in pears
that has just the right scent to attract codling
moths to traps.
This discovery is part of a larger UC program to control codling
moth pests in homeowners' backyard trees.
The urban area-wide project has a multi-pronged
approach to controlling codling moth, including better cultural
practices like pruning, trapping females and males with new lures
and traps, using a granulosis virus and insect-feeding nematodes
applied in the spring and fall. The new lures attracts both sexes
and contains a novel chemical called pear ester that
has the natural taste of Bartlett pears used in pear-flavored jellybeans.
Through the Selective Organic Fruit Tree (SOFT)
program, scientists hope to give homeowners an effective program
using certified-organic approved methods to produce worm-free fruit
and nuts in backyards. In turn, reduction of moths in backyard
trees can reduce pests migrating into commercial orchards, a growing
concern with encroachment of suburban developments into agricultural
areas.
Application of IPM practices to Trinity County's
heritage and backyard orchards
- Gary Nakamura, UCCE, Shasta/Trinity counties
- Carol Fall, UCCE, Trinity County
Trinity County has a substantial number of heritage
fruit orchards, dating from the gold mining era through World War
I, on public and private lands. UCCE Trinity's Heritage Orchard
Project has been inventorying these trees and using this unique
asset to promote use of these heirloom fruit orchards as a food
resource, demonstrate techniques to care for and increase production
from these fruit trees, provide a focal point for agritourism and
value-added product marketing, and preserve a vanishing horticultural
heritage.
In 2007, researchers held three well-attended
workshops on fruit tree care and pruning, using the 80-year-old
apple and pear trees at Lee Fong Park as a demonstration site.
Trinity County has an ordinance prohibiting
the use of pesticides on public lands that precludes application
of carbaryl. As a result, the team promotes sanitation, traps,
and spinosad sprays. Reinforcement of pruning techniques complements
and enhances the effectiveness of other IPM practices such as Selective
Organic Fruit Tree treatments.
Demonstration garden promotes best IPM practices
- Ken R. Churches and Karen Riley, UCCE, Calaveras
County
The Calaveras County Demonstration Garden offers
up-to-date information and demonstrates good growing and IPM practices.
Hands-on workshops in the garden give the public practice using
IPM techniques.
Master Gardeners developed the Demonstration
Garden as a teaching tool. They are installing and maintaining
Quick Tip signs throughout the garden and a weather station, developing
tours and seminars, and distributing UC IPM Quick Tips and other
resources, besides posting data on the UCCE Web site. Visitors
see IPM strategies in practice in garden beds and get Quick Tip
cards to take home.
The Calaveras County Agriculture Department
also uses the Garden to present seminars on invasive weeds, current
county and state regulations, and best practices when using pesticides.
Improved adoption of IPM by nut crop PCAs
and growers in the lower San Joaquin Valley
- David Haviland, UCCE, Kern County
- Bob Beede, UCCE, Kings/Tulare counties
With the expansion of almond and pistachio production
in Kern County, the need for extension and demonstration projects
about IPM practices related to these crops is vital. This need
stems from the recent influx of PCAs required to oversee this vast
nut crop acreage. Presently, most are versed in field crops such
as cotton, alfalfa and corn, or perennials like grapes and citrus.
The purpose of this project is to provide almond
and pistachio PCAs and growers in the lower San Joaquin Valley
with opportunities to see IPM principles demonstrated in the field.
This will improve their familiarity with the practices UC recommends
in the UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines and Almond Year-Round
IPM program.
Area-wide "puffer" demonstration
in Tehama County
- Carolyn Pickel, UCCE/IPM, Sutter-Yuba counties
- Rick Buchner, UCCE, Tehama County
Codling moth is the primary target of broad-spectrum
insecticides in walnuts, so adoption of alternative pest management
technologies could greatly reduce growers' use of these insecticides.
The walnut Pest Management Alliance (PMA) has
been working to develop a practical mating disruption program in
walnuts using puffer pheromone dispensers. Research and long-term
demonstrations in Butte and San Joaquin counties have begun to
show success in using this technology to control codling moth in
walnuts; in fact, mating disruption can reduce bad actor pesticide
use from 50 to 75 percent depending on the population density in
the block. Puffer dispensers provide the first effective and economic
mating disruption program that is commercially available. This
project expands the technology to promote adoption in Tehama County.
Demonstration of house fly IPM at commercial
dairies
- Alec C. Gerry, Entomology, UC Riverside
- Gerald E. Higginbotham, UCCE, Fresno County
- Christian Shelton, Computer Science, UC Riverside
House flies are considered to be the number
one nuisance pest associated with dairy and other confined animal
operations. These flies are also capable of carrying a number of
disease organisms that affect humans and animals such as the virulent Escherichia
coli strain. The presence
of house flies is especially problematic in urban or semi-urban
areas bordering agricultural areas containing animal agriculture.
This project demonstrates to large dairy operators
the value of an automated spot card monitoring system as part of
an IPM program for house flies. Using the automated system, operators
can quickly measure fly abundance and take action based upon proportional
increases in fly abundance, using early intervention measures and
avoiding the need for later chemical applications, while reducing
outbreaks of nuisance and disease-carrying house flies.
Demonstrating the use of silicon and other
IPM practices to reduce pesticide applications in bedding plant
operations
- Julie Newman, UCCE, Ventura/Santa Barbara
counties
- Cheryl Wilen, UCCE/IPM, San Diego County
- James Bethke, UCCE, San Diego County
Production of annual bedding plants, garden
plants, and propagation materials in California exceeded more than
$364 million in 2006. Typical plants include begonias, geraniums,
impatiens, New Guinea impatiens, marigold, pansy/viola, and petunias.
This industry is characterized by very rapid
plant production, usually going from seed to finished plant in
four to six weeks. IPM practices taken for granted in much of California
agriculture are not practiced by many growers. Because of the short
turnaround time, biological control with predators and parasites
is severely handicapped, and many of these growers rely on pesticides
to assure that the plants are pest-free.
Adding silicon to fertilizer mix can enhance
bedding plant resistance to pests and increase tolerance to pest
damage, reducing overall pest population development. Project leaders
are demonstrating the technique at four California sites to increase
its use by growers.
Management of corn leafhopper and corn stunt
disease in corn
- Charles Summers, Entomology, UC Davis, Kearney
Agric. Center
- Carol Frate, UCCE, Tulare County
- Shannon Mueller, UCCE, Fresno County
- Tulio Macedo, UCCE, Madera County
- Mick
Canevari, UCCE, San Joaquin County
- Marsha Campbell-Mathews,UCCE, Stanislaus
County
- Kent Brittan, UCCE, Yolo County
In addition to yield losses caused by feeding
injury, corn leafhopper is a vector of the corn stunt spiroplasma, Spiroplasma
kunkelii, the cause of corn
stunt disease. Infection with the disease can result in even more
significant yield losses than those attributable to leafhopper
feeding alone. Southern San Joaquin Valley is hit with corn leafhopper
and corn stunt disease every year. Damage is most severe on corn
harvested late in the season (from September on). Severely infected
corn has a significantly lower nutrient value and many dairies
refuse to accept it.
Winter cereal species serve as bridge hosts
to help carry adult leafhoppers through the winter. Planting successive
corn crops is a dangerous practice because the large number of
spring volunteer corn plants may carry the corn stunt spiroplasma
and serve as a ready in-field source of disease inoculum.
This project aims to teach growers and PCAs
how to sample for corn leafhopper and stunt-diseased plants, and
how to properly make decisions about the need, or the lack of need,
for pesticide treatments.
Demonstration of efficacy of postharvest
ethephon in the suppression of overwintering codling moth in
pears
- Robert Van Steenwyk, ESPM, UC Berkeley
- Chuck Ingels, UCCE, Sacramento County
- Lucia Varela, UCCE/IPM, Sonoma County
Codling moth is the key insect pest of pears.
In the past, control of the pest has relied on repeated applications
of some insecticides. Pear codling moth management now relies on
mating disruption and supplemental insecticides to maintain a low
population. Codling moth pheromone control has been demonstrated
to be effective under very low population pressure, but several
supplemental insecticide applications may be required to maintain
this low population. The supplemental insecticides may cause a
substantial increase in secondary pests which are usually held
under control by beneficial arthropods with a minimal need for
sprays.
Use of the plant growth regulator Ethephon is
an environmentally benign method to supplement mating disruption.
Its application shortly after harvest promotes early ripening and
fruit drop. If the fruit remaining in the orchards after harvest
can be induced to ripen rapidly, then codling moth overwintering
population can be largely eliminated without the use of insecticides.
This project demonstrates to pear growers the
long-term effectiveness of a postharvest codling moth suppression
program on pears using Ethephon 2SL on codling moth populations
and rattail fruit production.
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