Pest Management Alliances Lead to IPM Adoption

 

Field Meetings: Seeing is Believing

Farmers are facing increasing regulation of pesticides, in part the result of environmental concerns about pesticides in water supplies and health effects on farmworkers.

 

 
UC IPM (Integrated Pest Management) advisors have been leaders in many of the Pest Management Alliance (PMA) projects funded by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation to develop and demonstrate pest management systems that reduce pesticide risks.

The Almond Alliance established long-term demonstration/education sites in Butte, Stanislaus and Kern counties to show growers that reduced pesticide spray programs work. For four years, no sprays were applied in some of these orchards and reduced-risk (less pesticide) sites showed no increase in damage at harvest. Pesticide use in almonds went down, with a 20% reduction in 2001 alone. The key to the program is winter sanitation, a practice that UC IPM has been promoting for 20 years.

In prunes, the Pest Management Alliance focused on developing and demonstrating sampling plans and treatment thresholds that help growers determine whether sprays are needed for each economically damaging pest. A major goal is to reduce dormant sprays. For two years, the Alliance compared a five-minute search of mite populations to the more time-consuming presence-absence sample technique. This research showed that the two methods are highly correlated, resulting in PCA acceptance of the simpler, faster five-minute search technique.

The Walnut PMA has worked closely with researchers to refine pheromone techniques for controlling codling moths. The Alliance has (1) developed monitoring protocols to help growers and PCAs determine when the pheromone confusion technique requires supplemental sprays,(2) worked with researchers to learn how to use the new bi-sexual lure and (3) field-tested and learned how to use a walnut blight model, XANTHOCAST.
 

 
Almond growers have reduced their total pesticide use by 65% since 1990. The California Almond Board attributes much of this to the results of the almond PMA. Prune growers have been able to reduce their overall pesticide use by 34%. Results of the Walnut PMA's demonstration of reduced-risk practices on 30,000 acres indicate that walnut growers will be able to reduce their insecticide use by 75%.
 

Supporting Unit: Sutter-Yuba Counties
 
Carolyn Pickel, Area IPM Advisor
Cooperative Extension, Sutter-Yuba Counties
142-A Garden Highway, Yuba City, CA 95991-5593
(530) 822-7515 email: cxpickel@ucdavis.edu