Nov. 9, 1999

Bob Elliott, Contract Manager

Department of Pesticide Regulation

830 K Street Mall

Sacramento, CA 95814

Re: Contract #98-0326

Dear Bob:

In accordance with the terms outlined in the grant awarded June 4, 1999 to the Almond Pest Management Alliance (PMA), I am enclosing the first quarterly status report on the Alliance’s activities for the period of August 1, 1999 through Oct. 31, 1999.

At the time of this report, there are no eligible expenses to report for reimbursement by DPR.

As we enter the second year of the PMA project, the PMA Advisory Team met on June 16, 1999 to discuss the tentative results of Year One and plan for Year Two. I have enclosed the minutes of that meeting.

As you are aware, another Advisory Team meeting is planned for Nov. 10 at UC Davis. That meeting will discuss further the year-end reports each project site will file, in addition to the Final Report on Year One which is required as part of the grant. At this time, not all of the three project’s final reports are complete. Once they are, I will forward them to you, as well as post them to the PMA website.

Activity during this reporting period focused on harvesting samples from each of the orchards and performing crackout analysis for insect damage. Once that analysis was completed, project team members were able to pull together data for writing of their final reports.

The first significant field activity under Year Two will be performed with the dormant spray field days set for Nov. 23 in Kern County, Dec. 15 in Stanislaus County and Dec. 16 in Butte County. These field days will allow the University of California Cooperative Extension farm advisors and other UC researchers to discuss some of the alternative approaches to dormant spray applications. The field days also allow the advisors to discuss the ongoing PMA projects, their purpose and goals and findings to date.

Also planned for the second quarter is publication of a newsletter which will update almond growers on the progress of the PMA project to date. This newsletter will be published in mid-November and will emphasize the findings from the Year One reports, as well as publicize the planned dormant spray field days.

I hope this information is helpful to you. As you know, this status report, as well as status reports from each site’s field scout, are posted to the PMA website, which is maintained on my website www.lookercomm.com.

Please let me know if I can provide you with any further information.

Sincerely,

Mark Looker, Project Administrator

Almond Pest Management Alliance

Cc: Almond PMA partners