Strawberries

Another Fine Article on the Future of Farm Labor for California

An excellent article by the "Agricultural and Resource Economics Update" from the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics of the University of California regarding the future of farm labor for California growers and beyond:

http://giannini.ucop.edu/media/are-update/files/articles/V16N4_1.pdf

Following the statement summarizing the author's research showing that the era of farm labor abundance is coming to an end, arrives the money line:

"This means that immigration policy will cease to be a solution to the U.S. farm labor problem in the long run and probably sooner.  In fact, we already may be witnessing the start of a new era in which farmers will have to adapt to labor scarcity by switching to less labor intensive crops, technologies, and labor management practices."

Seriously recommended reading for those in the berry business.

 

 

LBAM Training Meeting

 This is an announcement for a light brown apple moth (LBAM) training meeting to be held this coming May 9 at 40 Zils Road in Watsonville.  The purpose of the meeting is for growers and others to obtain LBAM identification certification in order to be able to implement on-farm Integrated Pest Management practices to meet San Benito, Monterey and Santa Cruz County quarantine area compliance agreement requirements for export.

 

Everyone planning to attend the meeting must RSVP for this meeting by contacting Sofia Hernandez of the California Strawberry Commission at shernandez@calstrawberry.org, (831)724-1301 or Hillary Thomas, hthomas@calstrawberry.org, (831)254-1184.

 

The link for the meeting announcement and agenda is:

http://ucanr.edu/lbam_training

Watsonville Strawberry Pomology Field Day, Tuesday May 7

The annual Watsonville Strawberry Pomology Field Day will take place this year on Tuesday, May 7.  Talks will feature performance updates of recently released cultivars, research on soil diseases and a general pest management update.

Agenda is posted below.

Understanding Spray Adjuvants

Anybody who knows me or who has been reading this blog for some time knows that I am a HUGE advocate of the correct use of spray adjuvants.  And so here is a top to bottom description of these materials for anybody involved in spraying or making decisions on the use of pesticides.

//ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=9504

Really great work by colleague Franz Niederholzer. 

Surviving in Agriculture Risk Management Workshop

The USDA's Risk Management Agency and the University of California
Cooperative Extension in Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Clara Counties invite you to join them on Thursday, May 2 in "Surviving in Agriculture", a risk management workshop that will help your farm thrive in today’s challenging environment. The workshop is designed to help you gain a better understanding of how to manage risk in your farm operation.

Click on the link below to see the flier for more information.

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