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cess, Choate said. “We know that CGMMV can very easily be carried throughmechanical transmis- sion—peopletouchingthecrop, theequip- ment inthe fields, going fromplant toplant toplant, any kindof pruningactivities that mayhappen in the courseof seedproduc- tion,” he said. To combat this, crews enter a field throughadesignatedsiteandwalkthrough a foot bath to disinfect footwear. “In the case of hybrid watermelon production, the pollination process is extremely hands-on,” Choate said, with “up to 100 people pollinating at a time, depending on the size of the field. Getting those crews to only be in that field, and completely sanitized before they went to another field, was a key component.” The same goes for greenhouses where cucurbit seeds are sprouted before being transplanted: “In some of the breeding ef- forts, if you’reusing scissorsor someof the tools like that, you’re sanitizing fromplant to plant, even,” he said. Syngenta agronomist Brandon Hunt said watermelon seeds are washed in the fieldat harvesttime, andagainat the farm, before being sent to a facility for a final cleaning before distribution. Harvesters also are thoroughly sanitized before leav- ing the field, he added. “It could be anything that canmove it,” Hunt said. “Wedon’t really evenknowyet. Sowe’re trying to prevent everything.” Buskirk said she was first alerted by a seed-company representative about the issue and put her plant-pathology educa- tion towork researching the virus. “Since we’re a seed-production region and we’re exporting in the Sacramento ValleyandNorthernCalifornia,weareeven moreinterestedandvigilant tobeabletodo
our seedproductionhere,” she said. The Sacramento Valley has been a seed-production hub for some 80 years, “and we wanted to keep it that way,” she added. “That’s the reason to be very, very, very diligent.” Tera Pitman, a staff research associate with the University of California, Davis, Department of Plant Pathology, said re- search into the virus has involved looking into alternate weed host possibilities and the genetic variability of the virus that’s been found inCalifornia. “The project that’s currently ongoing is sequencing isolates thathavecome inwith seed shipments,” Pitman said, “just to get a clearer pictureonwhere these things are coming fromand howmuch genetic vari- ation is out there.” The likeliest scenario, she said, is that “it has been introduced multiple times with seeds entering California.” Tested seeds have shown similar sequences to those found in Europe, India and China, she added. Pitman said growers who think they
sis of the company’s thousands of histor- ical manure data points. Online space: https://bit.ly/WAE21-Figure8or seewww. livestockwaterrecycling.com and www. figure8environmental.com. • Certa-Set CLIC Irrigation System by NAPCO Pipe & Fittings, Houston, Texas. Themanufacturer said its leak-freeCerta- SetCLICsysteminnovates theway farmers irrigateagricultural operationsby increas- ing efficiency, reducing water waste and reducing labor required tomove irrigation pipe.Online space: bit.ly/WAE21-NAPCO or seewww.certa-set.com. • RS10 Bluetooth Long Range Adapter by Ranch Systems Inc., Novato. The RS10 is a solar-powered, long-range Bluetooth adapter that the manufacturer said elim- inates the cable restrictions of remote monitoringofwiredsoilmoisture sensors. Utilizing Bluetooth 5.0, the RS10 is capa- bleof reading the sensors at four times the range of legacy Bluetooth devices. Online space: bit.ly/WAE21-RanchSys or see www.ranchsystems.com. • Permanent Crop Analyzer by Smart Guided Systems LLC, Indianapolis, Indiana. The Permanent Crop Analyzer is autilityvehicleadd-onkit that usesLiDAR to scan high-value, permanent crops, giv- inggrowersdata foranalysis.Onlinespace: bit.ly/WAE21-SmartGuided or see www. smartapply.com. •TwinDT4ShakersbyTOL Inc., Tulare. Themanufacturer said the unique design of the Twin D T4 shakers allows them to shake, catch and windrow nuts without the need to sweep, and that the process significantly reduces dust and provides a more efficient harvest. Online space: bit. ly/WAE21-TOL or seewww.tol-inc.com. The Top 10 NewProducts Competition is conductedannuallyby the International Agri-Center in Tulare, which operates the WorldAg Expo. have a CGMMV issue can use Agdia ImmunoStrips for field identification; if it’s not identified in the field, growers should contact a UCCooperative Extension farm advisor and the California Department of Food andAgriculture. Apositivedetection inthe fieldresults in a three-year remediation process, during whichcucurbitscan’tbegrowninthat field and growers need to suppress weeds as muchaspossible, Pitmansaid.As thevirus only affects cucurbits, other crops can still be grown. “As long as your crop isn’t removing soil along with whatever it is you’re growing, then it’s not a big deal,” she said. When the three years are up, growers returning to cucurbits need to ensure they’re buying seeds certified to be free of the virus, Pitman said, noting that while research into potential resistance to the virus has been done, no resistance has yet been found. (Kevin Hecteman i s an ass i stant editor of Ag Alert. He may be contacted at khecteman@cfbf.com.)
growers into action. “At that point, the industry got togeth- er and formed a working group through the California Seed Association to begin to address what was becoming a problem for us,” Choate said, adding that the asso- ciationalso launchedagrower-awareness campaign to outline best practices. Those efforts led to a Clean Seed Agreement—sponsoredby the seedasso- ciation and implemented last year—and a set of hygiene protocols for people and machinery intended to eliminate virus transmission from field to field. “We got the various seed companies that are growing cucurbit seed in the Sacramento Valley to agree to only plant seed that was tested clean and free of CGMMV,” Choate said of the agreement. Detections of cucumber green mottle mosaic virus in California have dropped fromsevenin2017, andperhapsasmany in 2018, tooneeachin2019and2020, hesaid. PattyBuskirk,whorunsaseedcompany andmanages a row-cropseed-production farm in Colusa County, said bringing in- fected seed to an area “could jeopardize a grower base” and that “it’s important for all of us to regulateourselves, tomake sure that this quarantine disease doesn’t con- tinue to grow.” “There isn’t any seed that leaves my warehouse that gets planted for mother seed, for a seed-production plant or field, that hasn’t been tested,” Buskirk said. “I don’t know of a nursery in California that will even let you plant a cucurbit seed in their nursery unless you give thema neg- ative test with a lot number on it.” Hygiene measures for people and harvest equipment are part of the pro-
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• LOIS by Livestock Water Recycling, distributed by Figure 8 Environmental, Calgary, Canada, and San Luis Obispo. LOIS is the first machine-learning mod- ule touse the power of data fromthe LWR technologyplatform, combinedwithdata from the specific, surrounding environ- ment to optimize manure treatment, the manufacturer said. Using proprietary algorithms, LOIS helps producers make informed decisions based on the analy-
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