Today I wanted to follow up on my post from a few weeks ago about volatile organic compounds (VOC) from herbicides and other non-fumigant pesticides. In case you missed it, the discussion on February 27 was about an online VOC calculator developed by California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR). This tool allows users to compare calculated VOC emissions of individual pesticides or season-long pesticide programs.

Earlier this month, I attended the 2011 Plant and Soil Conference which was held in Fresno this year.  This annual meeting put on by the California Chapter of the American Society of Agronomy (http://calasa.ucdavis.edu/ ) usually has several sessions during the two-day program designed to update Certified Crop Advisors, Pest Control Advisors, and other professional agronomists on current research and regulatory issues.  One of the speakers in the Environmental Quality Session, Pam Wofford from CDPR, spoke about reducing emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) from pesticides by switching formulations.  I thought I’d touch on that issue today.

There are a number of definitions of...

During the last few years, one of my core research areas has included several projects related to preplant soil fumigation in collaboration with a number of UC, USDA-ARS, and industry researchers.  I touched on soil fumigants a bit a few weeks ago shortly after methyl iodide was registered by DPR (link to previos post).  Today I thought I’d touch upon research results related to minimizing emissions of two of the most widely used methyl bromide alternatives, 1,3-dichloropropene and chloropicrin. 



Soil fumigation is used prior to planting a number of high value crops in California.  One of the most widely used soil fumigants, methyl bromide,...

Happy New Year!

Today I thought I'd attach a poster presentation from the recent 38th Annual Almond Industry Conference.  The attached poster has some information on an ongoing research project in which we are testing thermal disinfestation as an alternative to soil fumigation for management of almond replant disease.

This is not especially a weed research project but has become an interesting area of research because of the high economic and environmental costs of soil fumigation.  In second and later generation, trees can be affected by a variety of soil pests including fungal and bacterial pathogens, parasitic nematodes, and other yet-to-be-identified pests that can reduce orchard establishment and early...

Last week (December 1, 2010), the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) registered the soil fumigant Midas for use in the state following months (years) of controversy and protests. I’ve been meaning to talk a bit about soil fumigation in this blog and I’ll try to address the general issues in a future post. For today, I’ll focus on methyl iodide since it is a "hot topic".

Midas, marketed in the US by Arysta LifeScience, is a combination of methyl iodide...