USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is issuing a Stakeholder Registry announcement to solicit public comment on two pathway risk assessments and three potential regulatory policy options for Tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) in fresh tomato and pepper fruit for consumption and plant propagative material (including seeds). To safeguard U.S. agriculture against the introduction of the virus into the …

Grower-Shipper Association of Central California – Possibly due to colder winter and spring weather conditions as well as mitigation strategies taken by farmers, pest and disease pressure associated with the Thrips-Vectored Impatiens Necrotic Spot Virus (INSV) have lessened in leafy greens fields as compared to 2022. As observed and reported by the Grower Shipper Association’s (GSA) INSV Task Force, this reduced …

David W. Cudney, UC Cooperative Extension specialist emeritus, passed away in Riverside on March 30. He was 82. Cudney joined UCCE in 1964 as a farm advisor for Imperial County. In 1978, he became a UCCE weed science specialist for Southern California, based at UC Riverside. While working as a specialist, he earned his Ph.D. from UC Riverside in 1989. …

Amber Vinchesi-Vahl, UCCE — The Pest Management Strategic Plan for Processing Tomatoes in California (see attachment) was published in May 2021 and encompasses a wealth of information on pest issues and farming practices for processing tomatoes in California. Myself, Cooperative Extension Specialist Cassandra Swett, and UC IPM collaborated on creating this document directly from stakeholder input and funding from the Western IPM Center. …

Maeli Melotto and her team at the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences are looking for strains of lettuce that are genetically stronger at resisting bacteria that can make people sick. Their work has led to the identification of a gene that could play a role in the plant’s susceptibility to E. coli, a bacterium that causes potentially lethal intestinal illness. …

Darkling beetles girdle seedlings at or below soil line by chewing which can cause significant damage and plant death when beetles are in high numbers. Darkling beetles are not usually a problem once plants are big enough to withstand the chewing damage. They move in from field edges, including weedy areas or adjacent crops like grains or alfalfa. Conventional control …

Two newly developed, low-cost tests that use nanoparticles to detect chemicals can accurately measure tiny amounts of two potentially harmful herbicides in fruits, vegetables and their products. Reporting in the journal Food Chemistry, a Washington State University research team used two testing methods to measure the levels of two herbicides, namely atrazine and acetochlor, in samples of apples, strawberries, cabbage, corn and …

Strawberry farmers worldwide may get help from new University of Florida research that shows a way to battle one of the fruit’s fiercest foes. The key: combine genomic data with phenomics. The genome amounts to all the DNA in an organism. Phenomics is the study of plant growth, performance and composition. Through phenomics, scientists use DNA to measure plant traits. …

If you savor a juicy watermelon in the scorching summer heat, farmers toil to meet your tastes. But, like all farmers, those who produce watermelons seek ways to control diseases, so they don’t lose all or part of their crops. The needs of growers drive Yiannis Ampatzidis to use artificial intelligence to detect pathogens early and accurately. One such disease, …