Almond Pest Management Alliance

Advisory Team Meeting

Nov. 10, 1999 10 a.m.

Olive room, DANR Building, UC Davis

Minutes

Attending:

Wes Asai, PCA

Bob Elliott, Calif. Dept. of Pesticide Regulation

Joe Connell, Farm Advisor, Butte County

Nicole Darby, Field Scout, Butte County project

Frank Zalom, Director, Statewide IPM Project

Mario Viveros, Farm Advisor, Kern County

Walt Bentley, UC Area IPM Advisor, Kearney Ag Center

Roger Duncan, Farm Advisor, Stanislaus County

Lonnie Hendricks, Farm Advisor, Merced County

John Edstrom, Farm Advisor, Yuba, Yolo counties

Chris Heintz, Research Director, Almond Board of California

Mark Looker, Almond PMA Project Administrator

Introduction of Advisory Team Members

Advisory Team members introduced themselves. Nicole Darby was representing Carolyn Pickel who was unable to attend.

Review of Minutes of June 16, 1999 Meeting

The minutes of the June 16, 1999 Advisory team meeting were reviewed. They were accepted as submitted.

Review of Year-end Reports for Demonstration Projects

The tentative year-end reports for the three county projects were reviewed. The reports will form the basis for the Year-end Report which must be submitted to DPR by Dec. 31, 1999.

Kern County:

• Mario reported it appeared the dormant spray is not controlling PTB. It does control scale and they possibly need to rethink dormant spray use.
• The biggest damage came from ants. It appeared the dormant spray may have reduced the ant population. Clinch didn’t appear to have worked-- it needs to be applied at least two months ahead of harvest.
• Control of mites with predator mites worked very well. Omite showed itself to be a good miticide.
• Winter sanitation worked well. But overall in Kern County need to be better educated on winter sanitation.

Butte County

• This orchard is a very clean orchard and there was no significant damage at any time in the orchard. There was really no difference in any of the four treatments used. Scale population seems to be under control.
• Winter sanitation- there was less than one mummy per tree.
• The cooperator is well aware of innovative practices. They farm almonds only, they are on smaller acreage than down south and are very aware of what is going on in their orchard.
• A satellite plot using Stealth, Lorsban and Success showed very low insect damage. At nonpareil harvest, the numbers were low. At Harvey harvest, the numbers were a little higher but the results were still acceptable.

Stanislaus County

• The cooperator here keeps excellent records and has historically averaged less than 1% damage, which makes this project quite a challenge.
• Mummy removal-- there was an average of 1.4 mummies per tree.
• NOW is basically non-existent.
• PTB - catches appeared to be the same for all three treatments in the standard practice. There were increased catches in the intermediate and soft programs.

General discussion about first year results:

• Bob: Growers need to be more involved in their orchards and do extensive monitoring.
• Walt: The projects offer the opportunity to be a training ground for PCA's.
• Lonnie: More needs to be done to get information about these projects out to PCA's.
• Mario: Economic analysis is very important especially now with low almond prices. Bankers have a tremendous amount of influence with growers in regards to lowering their input costs.
• Roger: Hard to extrapolate from Stanislaus project to other orchards because project orchard is so clean.

Recommendations for future projects:

• Research is needed on the regional differences of San Jose Scale. This needs to be analyzed further in Year Two and beyond.
• The role of cover crops needs to be researched either as a component of PMA project or as a separate project.
• Reduction goals that are "reasonable and obtainable" should be considered by the Advisory Team as it plans for year Three,
• Measurable goals should be set for the communications/outreach component i.e. measuring how many people attend field days, how many newsletters are mailed out, identification of meetings where PMA projects are discussed, etc.

Upcoming Dormant Spray Field Days

• • Nov. 23 Kern County
  • Dec. 15 Stanislaus County
  • Dec. 16 Butte County

Discussion was held about the components of the upcoming field days sponsored by PMA. Each project's farm advisor will complete the agenda and the flyer. The flyers will be shared with CAFF and Mark who will see that it is mailed out to their respective mailing lists. CAFF will staff the sign-in tables at Chico and Modesto field days and coordinate the lunches.

Application for Year Three Funding

The Almond PMA is applying for funding to update its Pest Management Evaluation (PME). That application must be submitted by Dec. 9. The PME must be submitted by March 9, 2000. This is the first step in applying for Year Three funds. The deadline for submission of the Year Three Work Plan is April 14, 2000.

Next Meeting Date

The next Advisory Team meeting was set for March 2, 2000 at DANR building, UC Davis.