Almond Pest Management Alliance

Advisory Team Meeting

Thursday, Sept. 7, 2000

Olive Room, DANR Building, UC Davis

Minutes

1. Introduction of Advisory Team Members and guests
2. The following PMA Advisory Team members were present and introduced:

   Chris Heintz

   Nicole Darby

   Mark Cady

   Gene Beach

   Lonnie Hendricks

   Joe Connell

   Mario Viveros

   Carolyn Pickel

   Walt Bentley

   Frank Zalom

   Roger Duncan

   Bob Elliott

   Lisa Ahlem

   Mark Looker

3. Review of Minutes of June 14, 2000 meeting. The minutes of the June 12, 2000 meeting have been sent out to all team members. No comments have been received for revisions and the minutes were accepted as presented.

4. Review of PMA Project from June to present

Kern County Project

UCCE Farm Advisor Mario Viveros reviewed the Kern County project to date. A copy of the Kern status report is attached. Mario said the most notable finding from the project is that monitoring makes a big difference but that the cost of such monitoring by PCA's is a cost growers feel they cannot bear. The Kern cooperator, Thomas Vetsch, is paying for a PCA to monitor but at the same time training his own people to help lower the cost.

Mario feels the next project step will be to determine how to evolve the infrastructure so that monitoring becomes implemented by growers.

Stanislaus County Project

UCCE Farm Advisor Roger Duncan discussed the status of the Stanislaus County project to date. A copy of his report is attached. As of this date, two of the three blocks have been harvested but crackouts have not been completed. Overall, the plots continue to be very clean, with low PTB counts, low populations of San Jose scale and low mite populations across all treatments.

Looking to Year Four, the possibility of a no-spray block has been discussed with the cooperator but he is not inclined to go in that direction, reports Roger.

Butte County Project

UCCE Farm Advisor Joe Connell reported on the status of the Butte County project to date. A copy of that status report is attached. All three blocks have been harvested and the crackouts completed, showing that damage continues to be very low across all treatments. European fruit lecanium populations have been building in the orchard. It wasn't detected in the project's first year but signs of a population were detected during the dormant spur sample inspection. Not monitoring protocol was developed but a satellite project studying oil sprays for control of EFL was conducted in Butte County and results are pending.

The key to reduced risk practices continues to be intensive monitoring.

5. Fall dormant spray field days

Tentative dates were discussed for dormant spray field days in the three projects.

• Stanislaus County-- week of Dec. 11, possibly at a site in San Joaquin or Madera county.
• Butte County - - two meetings possibly in the second or third week of Nov.
• Kern County-- Nov. 22

6. Year Four workplan due Nov. 1, 2000

The proposal for Year Four of the PMA project is due to DPR on Nov. 1, 2000. Nicole Darby is working on the proposal and needs input from all of the management team by mid-October.

Bob Elliott of DPR noted that it was important to have standardized project practices for all three sites, as well as standardized reporting for all the projects. He commended the almond PMA for putting these practices into effect. In its year Four proposal, the almond PMA should demonstrate the progress it has made and include cost data, which is considered critical by growers and the DPR.

Pesticide Use Report (PUR) data is important and Bob said he would see if he could provide 1999 data to Nicole.

7. Fall Newsletter

A newsletter will go out in the first part of November to growers explaining to them the status of the PMA projects in all three counties and alert them to the upcoming field days. Additionally, Dr. Lynn Epstein of UC Davis will provide an article and charts on her analysis of PUR data and trends in dormant applications in almond orchards.

8. Miscellaneous/announcement

Chris Heintz announced that the walnut, pistachio and almond industries were hosting a tour by EPA officials on Oct. 2-4. The tour would look at growing and processing practices to give the EPA a better understanding of the day-to-day workings of the industries and provide background for making decisions on the importance of pesticides.

9. Next meeting date

The next meeting will be held after the first of the year. Modesto was discussed as a possible meeting site but a definite date and location was left pending further discussion with team members.

Submitted by: _________________________

Mark Looker, Project Administrator