Researchers who studied runoff from agriculture, sewage treatment plants and urban neighborhoods found that the main source of pesticide concentration was from urban run-off, according to an article published in the Daily Californian. Portions of the American River and San Joaquin River contain pesticide levels high enough to kill some invertebrates, such as gadflies and mayflies.
"On the source side of things, urban run-off consistently has pyrethroids at levels that are toxic to some organisms," the story quoted Donald Weston, a UC Berkeley biology professor and co-author of the study. The study was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
The researchers found that nearly all residential runoff samples had pyrethroid levels that were toxic to the test organism, Hyalella azteca. Pyrethroids are found in many common household insecticides - such as Raid.
Weston told the Californian that the prevalence of pyrethroids in household insecticides was due in part to a ban on organophosphate insecticides in such products. Pyrethroid use has increased about three-fold over the last 10 years, he said.
Urban water runs into storm drain.
The Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program has singled out San Joaquin County's UC Cooperative Extension nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor, Anna Martin, for helping create a healthier community.
Martin was one of 16 people and organizations to receive Cultivator Awards at a ceremony Jan. 29, according to a CCROPP news release. CCROPP honors one person or organization in each San Joaquin Valley county. Martin was the recipient in San Joaquin County. Regional awards were also presented.
Martin is chair of the CCROPP Council, Healthy San Joaquin. She manages the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program and the Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program for San Joaquin County and is a member of the San Joaquin County Nutrition and Activity Coalition.
According to the news release, the Cultivator Awards highlight and celebrate a broad range of obesity-prevention efforts with a direct focus on changing environments and policies that promote healthy lifestyles.
The CCROPP news release was picked up by the Stockton Record.
A fruit fly that made its first California appearance four years ago in Watsonville - spotted wing drosophila - can be managed with three basic common-sense techniques.
"It's going to come down to trapping, monitoring and good sanitation," Mark Bolda, University of California Cooperative Extension farm adviser in Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties, told a group of growers in January, according to an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
"Most of the industry is in this room right now," the story quotes Bolda. "That's why it's important to work together. You can't leave discarded fruit in the fields anymore. Neither can your neighbors. It's going to be a breeding ground for flies."
Last July, Bolda wrote in his Strawberries and Caneberries Blog that spotted wing drosophila had infested cherries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and strawberries in California.
"It has been found in many (I think the number was 21) counties across California, as well as several other states," Bolda wrote.
However, he told farmers last month he is optimistic that growers and researchers are headed in the right direction.
"I think the worst of it is behind us," he said. "Really, it's standard pest management. We just got caught by surprise, initially. We have much more work to do. We still haven't gotten really clear results."
At Grape Day this week in Lodi, the opening speaker, UCCE farm advisor Paul Verdegaal, focused on vine mealybug and spotted wing drosophila, reported the Lodi News-Sentinel.
He said spotted wing drosophila resembles the common vinegar fly, which only attacks rotted fruit, but will also lay eggs in healthy fruit with soft flesh, such as grapes, cherries and strawberries.
Reporter Jordan Guinn wrote that there are still many unanswered questions about the pest, but scientists know one thing for sure: It's spreading rapidly. The pest came from Japan and is now a regular resident in orchards and vineyards in California, Oregon and Washington.
Up-to-date information on spotted wing drosophila can be found on Bolda's blog.
Detailed background information about spotted wing drosophila is available on the UC Integrated Pest Management Web site.
Spotted wing drosophila.
UC Cooperative Extension provided Marin ranchers and dairy operators exposure at a two-hour workshop Feb. 2 to the latest conservation practices that can help the agriculture industry reduce its environmental impacts and increase farm and ranch energy efficiency.
In addition to local farmers, reporter Rob Rogers was at the event collecting information for an article published in the Marin Independent Journal yesterday.Rogers reported that cows produce a smaller percentage of greenhouse gases in the United States and Europe than in other nations, where farming is a larger part of the economy, and where it's practiced less efficiently. According to the United Nations, livestock produce about 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gasses. In the U.S., livestock is responsible for just 5.8 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions.
Workshop speaker Frank Mitloehner, UC Davis air quality specialist, said research shows that it is cows - not waste storage lagoons - that emit most methane and nitrous oxide on dairies.
"Lagoon waste is so heavily diluted that it's a smaller factor than fresh waste," Mitloehner was quoted in the story.
He offered solutions that may not sit well with organic producers:
-
Produce more milk with fewer cows by increasing efficiency.
-
Cut back on grass-fed cattle, which, because of extra roughage, produce more methane.
Albert Strauss, an organic dairy farmer who also spoke at the meeting, noted that reducing cow emissions is only part of the environmental picture. One option for reducing dairy emissions is converting waste into energy with a methane digester. Using this technology, the Strauss operation meets its own energy needs and will soon be selling extra energy back to PG&E, the article said.
dairycow
The Bakersfield Californian reported that it isn't just the listless economy ravaging Kern County agriculture. The industry's woes are pinned on water.
Reporter Courtenay Edelhart spoke to the director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, Dan Sumner, about the national economic downturn's impact on ag. With the exception of the dairy industry, Sumner said, agriculture prices haven't been that bad over the past year.
The state of California has, however, suffered three years of drought - with implications that even last month's series of storms cannot reverse. The Bakersfield area had 5.10 inches of rain between July 2008 and June 2009, and only 2.38 inches during the same period a year earlier, the article said.
But even more significantly, recent court and government actions regarding water allocations are not satisfying southern San Joaquin Valley agriculture's thirst.
- In 2008, a federal judge restricted pumping into agricultural canals from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to protect Delta smelt
- The California Department of Water Resources said it will only be able to deliver 5 percent of requested State Water Project water this year to the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, Central Coast and Southern California, although that figure may be updated next month
- The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation allowed only a 10 percent allocation for agriculture south of the delta.
The result: 40,000 acres of Kern County farmland aren't being farmed and, in December 2009, Kern County had 1,400 fewer farm jobs compared with December 2008.
Irrigating young cotton.
