Firewood borne diseases and pests can cause devastating damage to trees and huge financial losses to growers and the agricultural community.  The simple yet important act of keeping firewood purchases local and not transporting to public areas can help prevent invasive pests such as the Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP), gold spotted oak borer, emerald ash borer and others from gaining a foothold in your community. 

For more useful information about this important effort, visit the California Firewood Task Force website.  The Farm Bureau Pest Issues webpage has a list of invasive pests and diseases that could threaten Ventura County.  Also check out a special presentation on ACP at the UCCE ACP Workshop webpage.

The event was sponsored by the Santa Barbara County Flower and Nursery Growers Association and included a barbeque lunch as part of the registration fees.

The workshop was designed to assist greenhouse and nursery growers evaluate their water quality management practices (BMPs) and implement an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program.  Information was provided to assist growers in conducting a self-audit of current water quality management practices, developing a farm water quality plan and implementing an IPM program to reduce impacts on water quality.

UC and ANR manuals and resources were used to supplement the presentations.  Continuous education credits were also requested for participants.

For more information please visit the AG Water Quality Program webpage or view the workshop PowerPoint presentation here.

The meeting focused on updating growers and interested members of the public on subjects relevant to producing strawberries in Ventura County and other areas.  The agenda included topics on:

• Strawberry cultivar performance and research updates
• Management of Macrophomina and Fusarium and treatments
• Irrigation practices for strawberries in Oxnard and Watsonville
• Water quality monitoring results for strawberry production fields in Ventura County
• Fertility research updates
• Management of mites, thrips, corn earworm and spotted wing Drosophila
• California Strawberry Commission update on research and regulatory issues pertaining to strawberry production

The production meeting included lunch and attendees could receive continous education credits from the Department of Pesticide Regulation. 

For a list of this and other strawberry meeting presentations online, please click here.

UC ANR’s Spanish News Service website brings Agriculture and Natural Resource information to California residents who are fluent, and more comfortable learning, in Spanish. This is a vital service for all Californians as many of the issues and challenges we face together can only be solved by all of us working together.

This highly organized, visually appealing, and easy to navigate site provides a great deal of information on many important topics. The information can be accessed by audio, video, articles, and blogs.

Topics include:

• Invasive species
• Water quality
• Nutrition and fitness
• Child development
• Preventing obesity and overweight
• Reducing the risk of diabetes
• Natural resources
• Recovering from a natural disaster
• Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
• Preventing and recovering from wildfires
• Money management
• Gardening
• And much more

A similar site is available in English.

UC’s Spanish News and Information Service provides Californian’s with important information, including preventing and recovering from wildfires.