Pesticides
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the future.” The right mix of nutrition leads to healthier plants and to “a significant de- crease in pest pressure,” Kreps said. “Pests are going to orchards or vineyards that are more stressed than the one next door, so the healthier you make your field, the less likely you are to get an infestation,” he said. Water stress to plants, including from water allocation cutbacks, directly affect pest pressure on the farm, Kreps said. Pest risks add to the need for increased water storage in California, he added. “If the state keeps imposing harder wa- ter restrictions, and as a consequence, your orchard or vineyard is stressed, you’re go- ing to have more pest issues, so it’s a dou- ble-edged sword,” he said. California citrus growers have worked for years to protect the sector from huanglongbing, or HLB, a fatal bacteri- al disease of citrus spread by the Asian citrus psyllid. Casey Creamer, president and CEO of Exeter-based California Citrus Mutual, said pesticides are important to protect the food supply. “There are bugs out there that would like to eat the fruit before we do,” he said. “Citrus growers take great care in mak- ing sure that chemicals are used as a last resort,” Creamer said. “In our citrus pest
disease program that we have in partner- ship with CDFA (California Department of Food and Agriculture), we use a lot of biologicals and beneficials to deal with the Asian citrus psyllid.” With the psyllid being “an invasive spe- cies that could kill the entire industry,” Creamer said, growers often rotate mate- rials to prevent resistance. The number of effective pesticides available for use in agriculture is shrink- ing, he said. In the past, there were more broad-spec- trum materials to control more than one pest. Today’s biopesticides and new chem- istries are much more targeted and might address only a single pest, he said. Government approval of new pest man- agement materials for use by agriculture has been a challenge due to regulatory and legal challenges that block or delay reg- istration of new materials, Reardon said. “Registering new materials has always been a challenge in California because in- terests such as the environmental commu- nity are effectively suing the department over registrations, so that has slowed down the process,” Reardon said. “If we don’t ad- dress the challenges of pest prevention in this state, we’re going to be in trouble.” California agricultural groups say the regulatory process to register new pest control materials should be streamlined.
“It is very expensive to bring a product to market,” Creamer said. Creamer weighed in on behalf of citrus growers as a member of a stakeholder work group formed to adopt safer, sustainable pest control practices by 2050. Released last year, the state’s sustainable pest management roadmap for California includes goals of eliminating use of priority or higher-risk pesticides, by transitioning to sustainable pest management practices. “To make sure that we’re thinking about this in a more holistic manner, we need the tools available for growers and for the state and federal governments to deal more ef- fectively with invasive species,” Creamer said. “We have to keep bringing the issues that we’re experiencing out in the field to these conversations so that better deci- sions are made moving forward.” In related news, DPR is seeking pub- lic comment on proposed modifications to its pesticide application notification regulation, a first-of-its-kind system to provide advance information on appli- cations of restricted material pesticides used in agriculture. A public hearing is set for July 23. To learn more, visit www.cdpr.ca.gov/ docs/pesticide_notification_network/. (Christine Souza is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. She may be contacted at csouza@cfbf.com.)
Madera County pistachio grower Rich Kreps, a certified crop advisor and sus- tainability specialist, said farmers have re- duced their use of the most toxic pesticides for several reasons. He said they include improved crop protection technology with softer materials, fewer applications to con- trol costs and limits on types of pesticides used to sell commodities to some interna- tional markets. “California farmers are the best in the world, especially at being efficient with the products that we are using,” said Kreps, board chairman for the American Pistachio Growers. “In the past, guys that might have had the luxury of saying, ‘I’ll do that second or third spray,’ are just do- ing one or two and not putting on the third unless it’s absolutely necessary.” As a sustainability specialist, Kreps helps farmers adopt more sustainable crop pro- duction practices. “The impetus of the sustainability spe- cialist is to help farmers that want to use more organic and biological inputs and water management better to make our soils healthier,” Kreps said. “There’s not a farmer out there that I know who doesn’t want to be sustainable.” He added, “The farmer is creating something that is generational, so the whole point behind that is to sustain it for
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July 24, 2024 Ag Alert 15
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