By David Eddy
Western Editor
(Reprinted with permission of Western Fruit Grower magazine)
Three
years ago, a consortium of organizations including the Almond Board of
California, the Almond Hullers and Processors Association, the University of
California Statewide IPM Project, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisers and the
Community Alliance of Family Farmers came together to launch the Almond Pest
Management Alliance. With money from the state Department of Pesticide
Regulation, they embarked on a project to find out how different pest management
practices would fare.
It's
an exhaustive project involving huge blocks of almond trees in three of the
state's top production areas: Butte, Stanislaus and Kern counties. Now in the
third year of an expected five years (funding has been secured through the
fourth year), no hard and fast conclusions can be made, emphasize the
participants. But one thing is perfectly clear about the differences in pest
damage found in the three treatment programs: There is none. Nada, zip, zilch.
"What we're finding is very low damage in all three treatments," says
Roger Duncan, UC Extension farm adviser in Stanislaus County.
The
three treatments are the grower's conventional program, a soft program that
relies heavily on Bts, and an intermediate program that utilizes many of the new
reduced risk products that have come on the market in the past few years. Duncan
wasn't shocked to find the new chemistries performing well, but the Bts are a
different story. "I was surprised that the Bt program worked as well as the
standard program," he says. "We've all fallen into the trap that you
have to use a dormant spray no matter what. I used to think that too."
Cost Is Another Matter
The
conventional and soft programs also cost about the same, with each coming in at
just over $100 an acre. But the intermediate program, which utilizes products
that cost the manufacturers huge amounts of cash to develop, came in at over
$200 an acre, just about double the cost of the other two treatments.
That
tremendous cost difference makes the decision on what Stanislaus County almond
grower Merlyn Garber uses on the remainder of his orchards a whole lot easier.
But perhaps surprisingly, Garber says for the time being he's sticking with his
conventional approach. He's taking that approach even though the soft program
was just as effective, cost the same, and had the added benefit of preserving
the beneficial insects that took care of San Jose scale.
"We've never hesitated to treat conventionally, and for now we're
not going to change. Let's see a little more time," he says. "I'm not
saying we won't make some changes in the future, but for now we're going to stay
with what we've used in the past."
Chris
Heintz, the Almond Board's research director, agrees with that wait-and-see
approach. She says that it's dangerous to make sweeping generalizations before
all the facts are in. "After five years of data, we'll be able to come to
sound conclusions," she says.
For
Heintz, the highlight of the program is how well it was set up. It's gratifying
to see the practical application of years of research, and see it done not just
in one orchard or one area, but in three distinct growing districts. She thinks
the Pest Management Alliance has functioned so effectively because such a wide
variety of individuals took on active roles. "We were one of the first
PMA's out there, and now we're frequently called by other associations who want
to learn about the PMA and how to set one up," she says.
Garber
agrees that the project has been administered very professionally, and by
spanning such a relatively long length of time, those interested will really get
a good picture of how best to manage pests. He himself has always wondered if he
was taking the right approach in managing his ranches. "That's one reason
why we did it," he says. "The information isn't out there."
The
only drawback for Duncan - and it's certainly a minor one - is that perhaps the
selected growers are a little too efficient. After all, almonds don't face quite
the array of pests that other tree crops, such as apples, face. Maybe with other
growers they might see some different pest pressures in the three treatments.
"Merlyn's always had a first class program," he says before adding
with a chuckle, "we need to find someone who's had problems."
For more information, check out the Almond Board's Web site at www.almondboard.com.