Organic Farmer - June/July 2020

June/July 2020

The Care and Feeding of Soil Microbes Carbon Farming Offers Benefits to Plants, Soils and Climate Bats are Beneficial Too! A Look at Common Hemp Pests, Problems and Diseases

PUBLICATION

Volume 3 : Issue 3

Solutions for the Earth

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PUBLISHER: Jason Scott Email: jason@jcsmarketinginc.com EDITOR: Marni Katz ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Cecilia Parsons Email: article@jcsmarketinginc.com PRODUCTION: design@jcsmarketinginc.com Phone: 559.352.4456 Fax: 559.472.3113 Web: www.organicfarmingmag.com

IN THIS ISSUE 4

The Care and Feeding of Soil Microbes

10

Carbon Farming Offers Benefits to Plants, Soils and Climate

10

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS & INDUSTRY SUPPORT Danita Cahill

14

Contributing Writer

Bats are Beneficial Too!

Kathy Coatney

Contributing Writer

18

Rex Dufour

A Look at Common Hemp Pests, Problems and Diseases

National Center for Appropriate Technology

Leta Fetherolf

22

Fixing the Water Cycle: Managing Soils for Water Efficiency

32

Biochar: The Permanent Compost

Organic Seed Alliance

National Center for Appropriate Technology

Neal Kinsey

President of Kinsey Agricultural Services

Rachael Long

UCCE Farm Advisor, Yolo County

Kelpie Wilson Wilson Biochar

14

UC COOPERATIVE EXTENSION ADVISORY BOARD Kevin Day

36

Martin Guerena

County Director and UCCE Pomology Farm Advisor, Tulare/Kings County

The Role of Magnesium in Improving Crops and Yields

Kris Tollerup

UCCE Integrated Pest Management Advisor, Parlier, CA

Steven Koike

Director, TriCal Diagnostics

Organic Plant Breeding

Regional Food 40 Supports Systems Controlling Pacific

Borer in 44 Flathead Agricultural Crops

32 June/July 2020

The articles, research, industry updates, company profiles, and advertisements in this publication are the professional opinions of writers and advertisers. Organic Farmer does not assume any responsibility for the opinions given in the publication.

www.organicfarmermag.com

3

The Care and Feeding of Soil Microbes

Supporting microorganisms in the soil is a key part of organic plant nutrition and disease management.

By DANITA CAHILL | Contributing Writer One tablespoon of healthy soil contains around 50 billion microbes (photos by D. Cahill.)

F

eed the soil to feed the plant. This “Soil is a living being, and it’s filled tried-and-true saying points to the with microenvironments and niches,” importance of taking care of the soil. said Kate Scow, UC Davis Professor of Caring for the soil also includes caring Soil Science and Microbial Ecology. for the many diverse colonies existing within the soil.

Symbiotic Relationships Soil microbes, or microorganisms, Plants and microorganisms are inare the mediators that convert the bigvolved in important symbiotic relationger organic pieces, such as plant matter, ships. The roots of plants release chemiinsect skeletons and worm castings, cals and slough off cells, providing food into the ammonium and phosphate such as sugars, starches and amino that the plants can take up and use. acids for microorganisms. In turn,

microorganisms decompose organic matter, which allows plants to more easily take up nutrients. Mycorrhizal fungi concentrate phosphorus and other minerals at the roots of plants.

The rhizosphere, or area immediately around the root zone of plants, is teeming with microorganisms. Many times, these microbes are single-cell organisms, but they also may group together to form colonies of cells.

“Soil is very diverse,” Scow said. “It is

Continued on Page 6 4

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June/July 2020

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Facts About Microbes

•There are 50-billion microbes, give or take, in one tablespoon of soil.

•Soil microorganisms are the source of many antibiotic medicines humans use to treat infections and disease.

•Food sources for microorganisms are plentiful in topsoil and more microorganisms live there than in the deeper subsoil.

Continually feeding the soil with organic material supports the beneficial bacteria, fungi and nutrients plants need and use.

Continued from Page 4 home to a variety of communities that do a tremendous amount of work.”

Scow compares these various soil communities to guilds whose members specialize in different skills—the silver smith, the candle maker, the black smith. In the case of soil, these groups are defined by their ecological functions. Some of these groups include: • Decomposers of organic materials—Without the decomposers, such as microbes, along with earth worms and arthropods (centipedes and millipedes,) all the rich organic material would just sit there. It wouldn’t break down into components that plants can utilize.

• Nitrogen mineralizers—help turn organic matter into the minerals that plants need. Nitrogen mineralization is the process of microbes decomposing organic N from 6

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June/July 2020

organic matter into ammonium that plants can then use.

• Plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB)—These organisms live in close association with plants and can enhance plant growth and protect them from disease and other stresses.

Scow compares healthy human bodies with good immune systems to what’s going on in healthy soil. Both support beneficial microorganisms that are good at boosting immunity and defeating disease.

“If we’re healthy, we’re less likely to get disease. Healthy organic soils have a lot of capacity to suppress diseases in plants. They don’t give diseases much of a chance to get a foothold,” Scow said.

Continued on Page 8

•Growers often add supplemental organic phosphorus fertilizers to the soil to adjust for crop needs.

Treating seedling roots with endo-mycorrhizae helps increase the plants’ ability to absorb phosphorus in the soil.

•The hair-like hyphae of fungi can spread for hundreds of feet underground. In undisturbed forests, these hyphae can stretch for acres and acres.

•The largest living organisms are fungi. Underground fungal networks can transport nutrients throughout the hyphal system.

•Microbes can help plants send signals to other plants, warning about pests or disease.

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Conventional Soil vs. Organic Soil

With conventional farming, the grower is giving the plant what it needs as far as Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K), most often with the use of chemical fertilizers. But that doesn’t provide all that is needed by the soil and the microorganisms that live in it. The soil can starve if organic matter isn’t going back in, because it’s missing the carbon.

“An important part of organic inputs is the carbon,” Scow said. “Like our bodies, soil needs to eat, or be fed.”

“Soil in intensive agricultural systems, i.e. growing food, loses carbon in the plant material that is removed during harvest and which is often not replaced,” Scow said.

Adding back the organic matter with compost, manure, blood meal etc., gives back to the soil the nutrients and organic material that is taken away with harvest. Continually feeding the soil with organic material supports the beneficial bacteria, fungi and nutrients plants need and use. A “bank” of nutrients, organic matter is like a continuous smorgasbord for growing plants.

Organic material also rights a lot of wrongs. It not only helps the soil microbes, but it tends to regulate soil acidity levels. It also helps problem soils: clay soil with drainage, and sandy soils with retaining moisture and nutrients. Organic matter helps feed the organisms that create aggregates— sand, silt and clay joining together to form larger-sized granules. Larger granules create crumbly soil, which

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“IF WE’RE HEALTHY, WE’RE LESS LIKELY TO GET DISEASE. HEALTHY ORGANIC SOILS HAVE A LOT OF CAPACITY TO SUPPRESS DISEASES IN PLANTS. THEY DON’T GIVE DISEASES MUCH OF A CHANCE TO GET A FOOTHOLD.”—KATE SCOW, UC DAVIS improves root growth and provides a beneficial habitat for soil organisms.

Organic soils have much higher microbial mass than equivalent conventionally managed soils, according to Scow. If you could actually weigh the microbes, you might find twice the weight in organic than in conventionally-farmed soil, she said.

Organic farmers have long relied on microbes and their symbiotic relationship with plants to get their fertility.

“Growing organically requires you to think about the life in the soil and to take care of it,” Scow said.

For both organic and conventional growers, cover crops are beneficial.

They add nutrient-rich organic matter back into the soil. The cover crop collects the rays of the sun, powering photosynthesis. The plants take in carbon dioxide from the air, which produces food for the plants, as well as for the microorganisms living in the root zone. During this same process clean oxygen is released back into the atmosphere.

Additional Benefits of Microbes

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June/July 2020

Mycorrhizal fungi help extend plant roots so they can access a much larger volume of the soil. Hyphae, which are tiny hair-like fungi strands,

can reach into the tiny nooks and crannies in the soil to reach pockets of nutrients that plants couldn’t get to by themselves.

Microorganisms also help rid soil of toxins. If there are organic toxins in the soil, such as gasoline, and some of the pesticides, there are microbes that can actually utilize them as food.

“Some of these chemicals are toxic to higher organisms like humans, but not to microbes,” Scow said. “Through bio degradation, microbes eat them, grow new cells and release harmless by-products. Microbes, such as fungi, can also accumulate heavy metals and hold them there in their hyphae.”

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9

CARBON FARMING OFFERS BENEFITS TO PLANTS, SOILS AND CLIMATE

By KATHY COATNEY | Contributing Writer

Piles of biochar to be applied at UC Davis’ Campbell Tract site (photo courtesy Iris Holzer.)

C

arbon farming is a form of agriculture that sequesters atmospheric carbon into the soil, crop roots, wood, and leaves. Increasing soil's carbon content can aid plant growth, increase soil organic matter, which in turn, can improve yields, soil water retention capacity, reduce fertilizer use, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon Farming Research

UC Davis Professor Benjamin Houlton, director of the university’s John Muir Institute, is conducting research on carbon farming on croplands and working rangelands across the state, including the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) center sites.

“We have a UC Davis site which is right near campus, and that’s where we’re doing a lot more of the fine tuning on the detailed science,” Houlton said, adding he is also working with a tribal partner near San Diego.

“When you farm carbon, you’re helping to reduce global climate risks. The greenhouse gases that are piling up in the atmosphere need to be aggressively removed to reduce dangerous impacts on agriculture, people and the planet,” Houlton said.

Crushed Lava Rock

There are several different techniques for carbon farming that go back hundreds of years, and one of the techniques Houlton is looking at is a type of lava rock material that is very finely ground and applied to the soil. Not only will this process sequester carbon, but it can also regenerate a lot of the nutrients into the soil and build the mineral structure of the soil. Research is finding that it also 10

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increases crop yields by about 40 percent, and it helps with water and nutrient use efficiency.

Besides having benefits for farmers, the carbon being stored benefits society, so it’s a win-win, Houlton said. If this material were applied to all of the world’s cropland (11 percent of the Earth’s surface) it is estimated there would be approximately 10 billion tons of CO2 sequestered each year.

“There’s nothing harmful about the rock. In fact, it’s loaded with nutrients like potassium and micronutrients, which is especially important for almonds in tree crops, so I think we’re going to find a lot of benefits from the rock additions,” Houlton said.

The materials being used in the research are a byproduct donated from a mine located outside of Sacramento.

“We’re taking their byproduct and then turning that into a commercialized product through this process,” Houlton said.

There is already enough of this rock dust currently generated to deliver material to crops across the entire planet for 10-15 years without additional mining, Houlton said.

“The mines we’re working with are super excited because they’ve never been involved in ag technology before, and so it’s creating a new market for them, and we believe our growers will find huge benefits that are pretty cheap,” Houlton said.

The rock material already has Food and Drug Administration approval for organic farming, Houlton said, but he hopes conventional farmers will use it, too.

Continued on Page 12

UC Davis students Nina Bingham, postdoc, and Emily Geoghegan, grad student take soil samples at Bowles Farm in Los Banos, Calif. (photo courtesy Maya Almaraz, UC Davis.)

Soil carbonates form in agricultural soils (photo courtesy M. Almaraz.)

Rock dust applications using existing spreading equipment at Bowles farm in Los Banos, California (photo courtesy M. Almaraz.)

Continued from Page 10

Annual and Permanent Crops

A big question for the research is whether this process works in both annual and permanent crops. Currently, there are 100 acres in the research project with a variety of crops, including alfalfa, corn, tomato in rotation with corn, and tree crops.

“Right now, we’re focused on almonds in California,” Houlton said, but the team is starting to explore avocado, and possibly olive trees.

The research sites are in different regions of the state and have different management practices from organic to conventional farming, to rangeland, tree and row crops.

“We do believe it will provide benefits for all of our crops,” Houlton said.

Replacing Conventional Nutrient Treatments

The most fertile soils on the planet are called Andisols, which are derived from volcanic type rock, especially volcanic ash, that is finely textured and breaks down rapidly to increase fertility.

These soils are rich in phosphorus and other critical nutrients.

“The idea is to take the kind of composition of the rocks that produce the best soil on the planet and see how this can be added back to cropland soils to replicate those conditions,” Houlton said.

This technique has the potential to replace fertilizers and other nutrient treatments, Houlton said, but there is still a lot to learn when it comes to applying additional nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer. When the rock material is applied to the soil, it is used more efficiently because the crops produce more root architecture that is using these nutrients.

That also happens with water, he added.

“When you put this rock material into the soil, it increases the penetration of water throughout the rhizosphere where the roots are growing,” Houlton said, adding this allows the roots to come into 12

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contact with the water more easily.

“The rock we’re dealing with right now is very rich in potassium, which is an expensive fertilizer, and it can completely offset the need for buying additional potassium fertilizer,” Houlton said.

Not just any rock will do, Houlton stressed. “It has to be a volcanic based rock, particularly basalt or meta-basalts.”

Volcanic based rock is also rich in calcium and magnesium silicates, and that’s where the magic happens in terms of the rocks interacting with carbon dioxide in the air, Houlton said. “[Rock] dissolves in the water, and it produces an acid which interacts with the rocks and then forms a carbonate that is secure in the soil,” Houlton said.

“Every time these rocks break down they’re releasing all of their nutrients into the soil itself,” Houlton said.

Application Rates

Houlton is also looking at how frequently, and in what quantity, to apply the rock. He will begin to hone in on questions like: How fine does the rock have to be for the benefits to appear?

How much rock do you need? How often does it need to be applied?

“Those are really important questions for our farmers because they don’t want to spend the money buying it every year if the benefits last five years,” Houlton said.

Biochar and Compost

Biochar, compost and crushed lava rock are all being applied in a variety of combinations to determine: Are there additive benefits? Are there synergistic effects of adding these materials together? Are they multiplicative in terms of their benefits? The last one is a key question that has not really been addressed in the scientific literature, Houlton said, and he wants to determine if using these materials together will have additional benefits.

In conclusion, Houlton said, it's

Researchers will look at the interaction between lava rock and other amendments, such as biochar, applied here to row crops at UC Davis’ Campbell Tract site (photo courtesy I. Holzer.)

Meta-basalt dust (a byproduct of mining for shingle material) to be applied to Bowles farm in Los Banos, California (photo courtesy M. Almaraz.)

important to have healthy soils that are durable and nutrient rich and potentially can provide benefits to farmers, consumers, the environment and society as a whole.

“That’s the sweet spot that we’re shooting for is this sort of win/win and with the environment in mind, with human health and nutrition in mind, with our farmers in mind and then with this kind of greenhouse gas challenge that we’re facing on the planet,” Houlton said.

The research started in 2019, and it is funded by multiple sources including the Climate Research Program—Strategic Growth Council of California, the Almond Board of California, native American tribes, and the mining, biochar and compost industries.

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BATS ARE BENEFICIAL TOO!

THESE VORACIOUS PREDATORS FEED ON BEETLES, MOTHS AND OTHER PESTS OF AGRICULTURAL CROPS

By RACHAEL LONG | UCCE Farm Advisor, Yolo County Myotis little brown bats have voracious appetites for moths and other insect pests (photo credit MerlinTuttle.org.)

B

ats are voracious predators of insects, including many that target crops. Some of their favored prey includes cucumber beetles, stinkbugs, leafhoppers, and moths, the larvae of which are serious pests, like cutworms and armyworms. During the summer growing season, bats scour the night sky for bugs, eating close to their body weight in insects nightly. Studies have shown that bats help control insect pests in cotton, corn, pecans, and macadamia nuts, making them valuable allies in the fight against pests.

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Important Natural Predators

Here in the Sacramento Valley, we found that bats are important predators of key codling moth pests in walnut orchards. These insects are highly damaging as the larvae feed on developing nuts, leading to significant yield losses if left uncontrolled. Bats help control codling moth by snatching and eating adult moths in mid-air, thus preventing egg-laying and potential nut infestations. Bats actively forage in walnut orchards at night, darting around trees and catching bugs. We can’t see

them, but we can hear them using bat detectors, devices that convert their high frequency echolocation calls, used for navigating and foraging, to audible sounds, allowing us to monitor their activity. We also know the species by the frequency of their call, a signature for bats.

Most bats living in California’s Central Valley are migratory, arriving in March, from overwintering grounds further south. They’re faithful to roosts, including barns, tree hollows, or crevices under bridges, as they return

to where they were born every year to raise their own young pups. About the same time that bats return to the valley, codling moth begins to break dormancy with adult moths emerging from cocoons and flying at night, when bats are most active. By October, when temperatures begin to cool and insect numbers decline, codling moth pests go dormant and bats begin their migration south for the winter.

To determine the economic impact of bats on codling moth in walnuts we analyzed their guano pellets genetically for the presence of this pest through DNA testing. To collect bat guano, we trapped live bats in walnut orchards, using nets stretched across tree rows (with permits from U. S. Fish and Wildlife). We gave bats time to forage for codling moth, then opened our nets about midnight. Over three days, we trapped 36 bats, not easy, as bats ‘see’ so well in the dark via echolocating

that most darted up and over the net, ing in other crops, including alfalfa avoiding it. For each bat trapped, we re- and rice, where they’re hopscotching moved them from the nets, taking great around fields, chasing insect flights care not to injure their delicate wings, and helping to control pests, just like and put them in cloth sacks. When swallows, but on night patrol. they defecated, we released them and To attract bats to farms one can collected their guano for genetic testing. install bat houses, similar to bird boxes, Our data showed that 5 percent of but with the opening on the bottom for the bats, about 150 bats from a nearbats to fly in and out. Bat houses work by colony of 3,000 roosting in a barn, best on structures like barns, at least consumed at least one codling moth 10-feet high, and where there’s morning per night. We calculated 30 nights per sun and afternoon shade (north or east moth generation and four generations facing). Houses on poles are seldom per year, with each female laying 60 used in the Sacramento Valley because viable eggs on individual nuts. Given they cool down too much at night for current walnut yields and prices and the pups when their mothers leave the potential for each moth to infest at night to forage (they’re born bald). nuts, we determined that bats can help Those placed in trees almost never work protect about 6 percent of the walnut because predators, like raccoons, can crop, giving a value of $10 per bat for climb up trees and nab them as they codling moth control services to walleave the box. Most of the bats using nut growers over the growing season. bat boxes are Mexican free-tailed bats, Although most of our work has been in Myotis bats (little brown and Yuma), walnut orchards, we find bats foragand the occasional pallid bat. Mothers

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Continued from Page 15 and their young roost together while males generally roost separately and often independently. Bats live for 12 to 15 years, so watch and expect them to return every spring for years. Bat boxes can be purchase from various companies or built following designs online at batcon.org.

Sometimes bats roost where they

are not wanted. If this occurs, excluding them from the area with a one-way door is the best way to remove them.

However, this should not occur between June 1 and September 1 in the Central Valley, when bats are raising young. Bats generally have one young pup a year and it takes at least 6 weeks for them to mature enough to fly.

Excluding them during the breeding season means mothers cannot take

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care of their young. For information on excluding bats from buildings contact the UC Cooperative Extension office in Yolo County.

Injured and orphaned bats are occasionally found on the ground.

Never touch a bat with bare hands as they can carry rabies and will bite in self-defense, as we learned from trapping bats; they’re mean when scared!

If one is found on the ground outside, use gloves or a dustpan and broom to gently pick up the bat and put it in an open area away from predators such as cats or dogs. The bat will usually fly away at some point; it might just be tired and resting, from migrating thousands of miles. If a bat is obviously injured or sick, contact the California bat rescue unit (batrescue.org) and someone will come to get the bat to try to nurse it back to health to release it back in the wild.

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17

A LOOK AT COMMON HEMP PESTS, PROBLEMS AND DISEASES

By DANITA CAHILL | Contributing Writer

A

ccording to results from a 2019 Specialist and Researcher. DiPel® is UC Cooperative Extension survey a biological insecticide containing of cannabis growers, there are 14 the natural microorganism Bacillus different insect pests, 13 diseases and thuringiensis subspecies kurstaki (Btk). nine vertebrate pests that pose a chal“Cutworms or armyworms may lenge to growers. As for the most comattack young plants soon after plantmon diseases and insects, California ing,” Rondon said. “Corn earworms can growers reported concerns with powmove into flowers. Wireworms attack dery mildew, mites, thrips and aphids. the plant roots and can kill the entire In the Pacific Northwest, growers plant.” often battle mold, along with the resultThere are naturally occurring paring bud rot. Caterpillars and aphids are asitic wasps that can control worms, some of the most troublesome insect Rondon said, adding that the wasps pests. prefer mild weather—not too hot, nor Cross-pollination has also become too cold. “They have to have a perfect a serious issue for hemp growers across range to be successful.” the country.

Aphids: Aphids make a sticky mess Expecting the best but planning for on plants. Ants farm aphids for the the worst is a good way to meet many white juice they secret, and this aphid hemp growing challenges head on. “milk” tends to create mold. Spraying Planning ahead may involve helping organic pesticides kills the aphids, but educate other growers, mulling over the their dead bodies also create mold. possibility of moving growing operaInstead of trying to remove infested tions under cover, and being willing to plants—a likely way to drop aphids sacrifice a few badly infested or infected that will then attack other plants— plants for the good of the entire crop.

Knox suggests using a plumber’s torch turned on low, or a weed torch to burn Insect Pests aphid-infested plants to ashes in place.

Caterpillars and Worms: Many Leafhoppers: Leafhoppers tend to types of moth and butterfly larvae attack plants during hot, dry weather adore hemp plants. They tunnel down when they are thirsty. They suck plant into hemp flower buds, eating out the sap, leaving white spots on leaves. centers and leaving behind copious Damage generally appears in clusters. amounts of caterpillar feces, which The white spots turn brown with time.

James Knox said creates mold. Knox is Severe infestations can make leaves yelthe owner of KLR Farms, a multi-state low and die. Control with Spinosad®, an business that commercially breeds and organically certified, natural substance sells feminized hemp plants and seed. made from soil microbes, can be effecCaterpillars and worms are tough to tive for leafhoppers, thrips, leafminers, control, although applications of DiPel® spider mites and ants. It works by disare effective if applied when the larvae rupting the nervous system. Spinosad® are small, according to Silvia Rondon, is most effective at treating the larval Oregon State Extension Entomology stage of insects. Use with caution. For 18

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the first three hours after spraying, the bacterium can also harm honey bees.

After the product dries, it is then safe for pollinators.

Thrips: Thrips are so tiny they can’t be seen by most human eyes unless they are in a cluster. Often found on the underside of leaves, thrips pierce surface cells of leaves and suck out the cell contents. They leave behind a stippling injury. Low population levels don’t cause a problem in hemp crops, but high populations can cause extensive leaf distortion and damage. Thrips often pose a problem for crops grown indoors.

Rondon said when hemp is grown in an area with other surrounding agriculture crops, thrips are more likely to move in.

Continued on Page 20

Oregon State University Entomologist Silvia Rondon taking samples of corn earworm (all photos courtesy OSU Irrigated Ag Entomology Program.)

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Corn earworm on hemp.

Mite damage on hemp plant.

Continued from Page 18 Water stressed plants attract thrips, so in places like Central California and Eastern Oregon, thrips can become a real problem.

“Any location that is hot and dry thrips really thrive,” said Rondon. “The most common ones have a large territory. They reproduce fast so numbers can be high pretty soon.”

Good irrigation practices are the best way to make your hemp crop less attractive to the tiny pests, according to Rondon.

Biological control includes the minute pirate bug, which is a generalist predator. Thrips are one of the minute pirate bug’s favorite meals. The small, oval, black-and-white patterned pirate bug is commercially available for release.

Mites: Like aphids and thrips, mites are a piercing, sucking pest. And like thrips, they are so tiny it takes a microscope to see them well. Minor mite populations pose little risk to hemp crops and likely won’t even be noticed.

Unlike spider mites, hemp russet mites leave no webbing. High populations of hemp russet mites cause leaves to lose color, appearing dull with a grayish or bronze tint (russeting). Foliage may become brittle and buds may show damage. Mites generally start feeding on the bottom leaves and work their way up to the top of the plant.

Growers can fight mites with mites.

Predatory mites that attack and eat 20

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plant-sucking mites can be purchased commercially.

Mold

In 2019, mold and the ensuing bud rot was brutal for hemp growers, according to Knox. “Mold was a real thing last year. Not just for Oregon, but across the country.”

Oregon hemp, in particular, was hard hit with mold. The Willamette Valley had few really sunny days in the summer, but many partly cloudy, somewhat hazy days compared to previous years in recent history. Then the rains came, followed by freezing temperatures. Other regions of the country were drought-stricken, which created extreme insect issues. It all added up to a very challenging year for Pacific Northwest hemp growers.

Because of mold issues, “Early rain in September was the beginning of the end” for many Oregon hemp growers’ crops, Knox said.

Buying mold-resistant plants and seeds are the best bet against mold issues. Crop rotation may help. Cleaning fields of plant stubble after harvest is also good sanitation practice.

When powdery mildew is noticed, prune infected plants. Quarantine or discard severely infected plants.

Cross-Pollination Problems

One of the most troubling issues facing hemp growers today is cross-pol-

lination. In 2016, the cross-pollination issue was disastrous for hemp growers.

“Some were so disheartened from it that they got out of the industry,” Knox said.

In the last two years, Knox has watched the growing despair of his customers over the spread of pollen from other growers’ fields.

When pollen blows in from plants not grown from feminized seed, it makes outdoor-grown hemp plants set seed. This drastically lowers the plants’ production value. When an annual plant sets seed, it uses up a tremendous amount of energy to create that seed—energy it could be putting into growth, flowering and chemical production. When a hemp plant seeds out, two-thirds of the chemicals (CBD and others) are taken away from the plant, Knox said. A seeded-out crop is not something that any hemp grower wants.

Knox encourages experienced hemp growers to be promoters for feminized seed and plants and help educate others.

“If you don’t know what you’re doing, you may be affecting other growers.

Maybe catastrophically,” Knox said.

Growers can’t control the wind or the humidity. When the weather is hot and dry, that’s when pollen drops. Any prevailing wind can carry the pollen for miles.

“No one really knows how far the pollen can travel,” Knox said.

Wire worms attack the roots and can kill the entire plant.

Hemp plants create a lot of pollen for bees to eat, important in helping boost the declining pollinator numbers.

But if growers allow male plants to flower, bees can also carry that pollen into other growers’ neighboring fields.

Wire worm pest in the field.

Although Knox doesn’t necessarily consider himself an advocate for growing under cover, he says that’s the best way to guard against pollen contamination. In the case of KLR Farms seed crops, all are grown indoors, under

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21

Fixing the Water Cycle:

Managing Soils for Water Efficiency

By REX DUFOUR AND MARTIN GUERENA | Sustainable Agriculture Specialists National Center for Appropriate Technology

F

ixing the water cycle—easier said than done, with so many demands on water resources around the world. In the U.S., many areas are starting to feel the pinch of reduced water quality or quantity, or both. We are placing unprecedented demands on both surface and ground water supplies.

Depleting ground water supplies is especially worrisome, because recharging water tables can be a lengthy process, depending on the type of aquifer.

Underground water storage not only is much cheaper than building dams and reservoirs, evaporation is not an issue.

Annual evaporation from Lake Mead and Lake Powell represents 15 percent of the annual upper basin allocation of water resources among the Colorado River basin states, and this rate may be increasing with climate change (Friedrich, K, et al, 2018).

In many areas of the country, including the humid south, the Ogallala, and the Western U.S., we are over drafting our ground water supplies.

The overdraft problem is exacerbated by the way we manage our soils. Most of the soils in our country are degraded (Dregne and Chou, 1994), and are so dysfunctional that they don’t allow most water to even get past the soil surface. It runs off, carrying soil and nutrients, impacting downstream surface waters, and can contribute to flooding. The thrust of this article is how to go about changing this situation, by acknowledging that soil is a complex ecosystem and must be managed with a focus on feeding the microbes which 22

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June/July 2020

drive much of the function of the soil ecosystem.

Worldwide, water is becoming scarcer and more expensive due to the effects of climate change. Significant adaptation will be needed to ensure adequate supply and efficient use of what is a diminishing resource. This reduction in the supply of water will affect agriculture and will require a change in focus from increasing productivity of land (yield per acre) to increasing productivity per unit of water consumed. The need for increased water use efficiency will be taking place in a changing climate that will create abrupt

fluctuations of temperature, precipitation patterns, drought, heat waves, stronger storms, flooding, wild fires and pest outbreaks. Our soils, and our soil management, are not ready to meet these additional stresses. Too often, the approach of dealing with water deficits has focused on better technology— deeper wells, better drip emitters, more efficient micro-sprinklers, soil moisture monitoring devices, and variable speed drives on pumps—all of which are important. However, a different approach in dealing with the oscillation between too little and too much water uses an appropriate technology that

Well aggregated, healthy soil, at left is the result of regular additions of organic matter and diverse rotations. The aggregates consist of sand, silt, and clay particles held together by fungal and bacterial glues. The soil aggregates allow water and air to infiltrate into the soil. In contrast, a soil with little or no aggregation, right, shows how the fine clay particles were not held in soil aggregates, and with rainfall (or irrigation droplets) the clay particles form a seal on the surface layer, preventing infiltration of both air and water. This farmer keeps his orchard floor clean and does not provide regular additions of organic matter (all photos by R. Dufour, NCAT.)

This Georgia cotton farmer chem-killed a small grain cover crop and no-tilled cotton into it. The mulch adds organic matter, protects the soil from rains, and reduces water usage.

focuses on maintaining healthy soils through following five basic principles to be discussed in detail in the following sections.

Raised beds with vetch cover crop, which protects the soil and provides N. This California farmer protects his soil from heavy winter rains by planting vetch cover crops on raised beds. In the spring, he’ll mow the cover crop, and lightly incorporate the residue and transplant processing tomato seedlings into the beds.

FREE online information

on soil health, produce safety, water management and more

Attaining Healthy Soils

Healthy soil, with its thriving biological activity, creates a system of air and water pores that both allow water to infiltrate the soil and to hold that water in place. These pores help plant roots grow deep, holding soil in place while allowing water to infiltrate deep into the soil profile. As the amount of organic matter or carbon in the soil increases, so does the ability of the soil to hold water, release nutrients to the crop, improve soil structure, and prevent erosion (Funderburg, 2001).

Soil experts across the country, including land grant universities, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), soil consultants, and farmer activists, have come to broad agreement about some general principles for restoring and maintaining soil health. These principles, when conscientiously applied to most farming systems, will improve soil health and function, and likely reduce inputs.

Water infiltration into soils, as well as the soil’s water storage capacity are also improved—important qualities when considering increasingly extreme rainfall patterns. Here we present five general principles for soil management that are responsible for increasing soil health and function.

attra.org/publications Help line: 800-346-9140 How can ATTRA help you?

Trusted technical assistance for over 30 years

Continued on Page 24 June/July 2020

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Continued from Page 23 Protect the soil surface. Some folks call this “soil armor”.

This includes the use of cover crops and mulch, which provide many benefits for the land, including: • Wind and water erosion control. Cover crops and mulch protect the soil as wind or water move across the soil surface, holding the soil in place, and allowing increased water infiltration, not to mention providing organic matter and nutrients to the soil.

• Mulch reduces evaporation from the soil surface, reserving more moisture for plant use.

•

Soil temperatures are moderated with cover crops and mulch, which act as a buffer, shielding the soil from extreme temperatures. The soil food web functions better when not subjected to extreme temperatures and humidity.

•

Soil aggregation is preserved when rainfall hits the cover crop or mulch, dissipating the raindrop’s energy. When rainfall hits bare soil, soil aggregates are destroyed, erosion by wind and water is increased and the soil is starved of oxygen and water. Fine clay particles seal the soil surface, dramatically reducing water infiltration and oxygen exchange into the soil.

• Weed growth is suppressed through competition with the cover crop and/or smothered with mulch.

• Habitat is provided by cover crops for beneficial insects and pollinators. Biological mulches/plant residue provides habitat for spiders, an important predator of agricultural pests.

Minimizing soil disturbance of all kinds. Both physical (tillage) and chemical (overuse of fertilizers and pesticides)

Soil physical disturbance, tillage, is hard on the soil ecosystem.

Farmers that minimize tillage not only save money on labor and equipment wear and tear, they’re also taking a step toward healthier soil. Chemical disturbance can be equally detrimental to soil health.

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can disrupt the soil food web. Continuous tillage over time, without regular and significant additions of organic matter to the soil, degrades soil function and reduces soil pore space, which in turn restricts water infiltration and destroys the biological glues that hold soil together. Tillage in combination with overuse of fertilizers is like throwing gas on a fire. The excess nitrogen feeds bacterial populations, which explode when exposed to oxygen through tillage.

The problem is, the bacteria are feeding on the organic matter, which reduces organic matter levels unless significant crop residues, compost, or cover crops are added to the soil on a regular basis. Repeated tillage and overuse of chemical N, season after season, degrades soil structure and causes soil aggregates, which hold sand, silt and clay together, to fall apart, for lack of biological glues. This makes the soil an easy target for both water and wind erosion. Clay particles, released from the soil aggregates by rainfall or irrigation droplets, will form an effective seal on the soil surface, preventing water infiltration to the root zone (or water table), increasing run-off, and also creating anaerobic conditions in the root zone.

Plant diversity. Original landscapes in which soils were built over geological time consisted of a varied plant diversity which was largely replaced by an annual (or perennial) monoculture when Europeans arrived. The soil food web used to receive carbon exudates (food) from the roots of a diverse group of perennial and annual plants. Each species of plant provides a unique set of root exudates, which in turn host a microbial community with some unique members, so a diverse plant community above ground provides for a very diverse microbial community in the soil. In most cases, soils now receive root exudates from only one species of annual or perennial plant at a time. By using crop rotation, or rotating alley crops in orchards, we can start to better mimic the original plant diversity that benefits the soil food web. This in turn improves rainfall and irrigation water infiltration and nutrient cycling, while reducing disease and pests. Di-

Continued on Page 26

A diverse cover crop of over a dozen species of grasses, legumes and mustards helped this walnut farmer in Northern California reduce his lesion nematode population from a count of over 5,000, to “undetectable” over 5 years.

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Continued from Page 24 verse rotations in annual crops, which provides plant diversity over time, can keep soil healthy. For perennial crops, it’s important to rotate your cover crops in alleys, as that will help ensure a healthy soil ecology, and help prevent the build-up of soil pathogens. In pasture and rangeland, carefully managed grazing encourages plant diversity.

Continual live plants/roots in the soil. The native vegetation in converted agricultural areas consisted of continuous stands of perennial and annual grasses and broadleaves providing carbon exudates to the soil food web during most of the growing season.

Today’s croplands typically grow annual crops with an extended cropfree period of bare soil before planting or after harvest. It is extremely rare in nature to see vast expanses of bare soil.

Bare soil does not receive any root exudates, which starves the soil microbial community. Cover crops are able to fill in this crop-free period, providing cover to the soil and root exudates to the soil’s food web. Cover crops address a number of resource concerns already listed, and also provide an opportunity for livestock integration into cropping systems. In pasture systems, a diverse mix of warm and cool season forage plants lengthens plant productivity over the course of the year, maximizing root exudation.

Livestock integration. Animals, plants and soil have played a synergistic role together through geological time. Animal roles have been reduced recently due to fewer farms including animals as part of the operation and the development of confined animal operations.

Returning animals to the agricultural landscape can contribute to soil health by adding some biology to the soil, especially if the land hasn’t had grazing animals on it. Livestock also convert high carbon annual crop residue to low carbon, high nitrogen organic material, i.e., manure, which is beneficial to the soil. Some cover crops can be grazed without damage.

Conversely, livestock can be used to manage an overly vigorous cover crop.

Thoughtful integration of livestock onto 26

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Sheep grazing in a walnut orchard, which are essentially servicing two crops: grass and walnuts.

This provides the grower savings on orchard floor management, as well as providing his trees additional nutrients.

cropping land can reduce weed pressure, reduce herbicide use and reduce livestock waste associated with confinement thereby improving water quality and nutrient management concerns.

Soils, Organic Matter and Water

Organic matter in the soil is made up of living, dead and decomposed organisms. The living organisms in the soil, which represent roughly 15 percent of the total organic matter in the soil, vary from microorganisms like fungi, bacteria and viruses to insects, plant roots, earthworms and mammals.

The dead organisms are made up of recently deceased microbes, insects, earthworms, decaying plant material and animals.

The living organisms feed on both the living and the dead organisms, releasing proteins, sugars, and amino acids that feed plants and decomposers. The decomposition process and its various by-products also produce substances that hold sand, silt and clay particles together to form aggregates and give it structure. This structure allows for efficient infiltration of rain and irrigation water into the root zone, and ultimately, into the water table.

The smallest organic matter particles in the soil are called humus. Humus is a relatively stable part of the soil, a complex component that can buffer the plant from exposure to harmful chemicals, reduce the effect of compac-

tion, improve drainage in clay soils and improve water retention in sandy soils (Magdoff and van Es. 2009). This stable organic matter has surface charges that allows water to adhere to the surface.

In addition, organic matter, being generally negatively charged, attracts positively charged ions (cations), many of which are important plant nutrients.

Earlier research demonstrated that a silt loam soil with 4 percent organic matter holds more than twice the water of a silt loam with 1 percent organic matter (Hudson 1994). Further recent research has shown that there have been overestimations on the relative contribution of soil organic matter to water holding capacity and it is influenced greatly by the soil physical properties (particle size, texture, and bulk density) and mineralogy. The increase of water holding capacity as levels of organic matter increase was more pronounced for sandy soils than for loam and clay soils (Minasny, B. and A. B. McBratney. 2017) (Libohova, Z. et.al.

2018). This more recent research still suggests that for every 1 percent of soil organic matter (SOM) in the top six inches, the soil will be able to store an additional 10,800 liters of water in the top 6 inches. But regardless of the soil type, adding organic matter to soil is beneficial for the numerous functions it provides besides increasing the soil’s

Continued on Page 28

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ATTRA Irrigation Resources

Strategies to Reduce Crop Water Use

The Irrigator’s Pocket Guide was created with input from irrigation experts in over 20 states. It is a take-to-the-field guide that demystifies the art of irrigation management, explains soil moisture and crop water use, and shows how to optimize crop yields while conserving water, soil, and energy. More than 30,000 copies have already been sold.

The Equipment Maintenance half of the book features exceedingly clear and detailed maintenance and troubleshooting procedures for pumps, motors, engines, control panels, and distribution systems.

The Water Maintenance guide provides a step-by-step guide to irrigation water management for sprinkler, surface, and micro-irrigation systems. The $10 book is 158 pages long, has durable waterproof covers, and measures 4"x 6½”. It includes 44 diagrams and tables, 14 pages of handy conversions and formulas, and irrigation guidelines for over 30 common crops.

Soil Moisture Monitoring: Low-cost Tools and Methods provides a good overview of soil moisture monitoring devices. Irrigators who monitor soil moisture levels in the field greatly increase their ability to conserve water and energy, optimize crop yields, and avoid soil erosion and water pollution. This publication explains how soils hold water and surveys some low-cost soil moisture monitoring tools and methods, including a new generation of sophisticated and user-friendly electronic devices.

Additional resources can be found on the ATTRA website.

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• Maintain healthy, water-absorbent soils, following the five principles set out earlier in this publication • Plant genetics- varieties, growth characteristics and tolerances (heat, salinity, pests, drought, early maturing etc.) matched to specific conditions • Replacing high water consuming crops with water efficient crops • Implement cultural practices: conservation tillage, planting densities, double cropping, intercropping, and crop rotation • Improved irrigation timing through scientific irrigation scheduling, a systematic procedure that calculates precise water requirements over a short period of time to meet crop needs • Manage deficit irrigations • Irrigation technology-sensor devices, probes computer technology • Low volume irrigation systemsdrip irrigation and micro sprinklers, surge, and sprinkler • • • •

Irrigation at night Weed control Mulches Reduced tillage

Continued from Page 26 water holding capacity. Farmers investing in their soils by increasing organic matter and improving soil health will find that their soils will better support plant health, especially during times of drought and flooding.

You Can’t Manage What You Can’t Measure

Measuring irrigation distribution is important, and especially effective when used in combination with practices that support a healthy soil.

The moisture content of the soil regulates the moisture levels in the plant. Overly dry soil, or overly moist soil stresses the plant and can induce diseases and reduce future seasons’ yields.

This is why it is important to monitor soil moisture in order to schedule irrigation and provide the crop with adequate water to achieve ideal growth and yields.

Soil moisture monitoring devices use sensors and probes located in the soil root zone. Combined with information about temperature, evapotranspiration (evaporation from the soil and transpiration from the plant), and water requirements of the crop, these devices are able to provide the farmer with information that can be used to properly schedule irrigation.

Another important component in managing soil moisture is irrigation distribution uniformity.

This measures how evenly water is applied across a field to a crop during irrigation. Micro-sprinklers often get plugged, as do drip emitters. Sprinkler heads get worn, and leaks in the system all effect distribution uniformity, not to mention human error (a worker forgot to turn a valve, etc.)

All these can significantly affect water distribution, and fertilizer distribution if the farmer is fertigating. If water distribution is uneven in a field, it will

negatively affect yields. Inspecting and performing distribution evaluation in your irrigation system will identify the causes, and corrections can be made to eliminate plugging, minimize variation in pressure, thereby correcting flow rate, infiltration time, spacing, set duration and land grading.

Soil Health and the Future of Farming

Farmers across the country are operating in an era of uncertain weather and uncertain markets. Many farmers have reduced their input costs and increased their bottom line by choosing to invest in their soil health, just as they would in new machinery and maintaining farm structures. Healthy, living soils can better sustain the increased demands we’re placing on them to grow healthy food and maintain clean water and air. It is important to build and maintain soil health before drought or flood conditions appear. Healthy soils can better withstand climatic stresses of drought and floods and in some

cases, can help mitigate these stresses.

All this requires an increased understanding of how to manage the soil as an ecology. Investments, such as adding organic amendments, practicing no- or reduced tillage, leaving crop residue, planting cover crops, and diverse crop rotations—these practices will help the soil to efficiently cycle both water and nutrients to sustain plant and animal productivity, and maintain or improve water quality. The return on soil health investments will pay off year after year after year.

Some portions of this article are adapted from the ATTRA Program’s publication, Managing Soils for Water: How Five Principles of Soil Health Support Water Infiltration and Storage, written by Martin Guerena and Rex Dufour. The publication is available in English and Spanish on the ATTRA website at attra.ncat, or by calling the ATTRA Hotline at (800) 346-9140.

Resources

ATTRA Resources https://attra.ncat. org : • Building Healthy Pasture Soils

By Lee Rinehart, NCAT Program Specialist Published October 2017 • Drought Resistant Soils By Preston Sullivan, NCAT agriculture Specialist Published November 2003 • Measuring and Conserving Irrigation Water By Mike Morris and Vicki Lynne NCAT Energy Specialists 2006 •

Soil Moisture Monitoring: Low-Cost Tools and Methods By Mike Morris NCAT Energy Specialist 2006

• Tipsheet: Assessing the Soil Resource for Beginning Organic Farmers By Rex Dufour, NCAT Agriculture Specialist Published July 2015

Continued on Page 30

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Continued from Page 29

•

• Tipsheet: Compost By Thea Rittenhouse, NCAT Agriculture Specialist Published July 2015 Additional Resources: •

Crop Management and Drought. https://cropwatch.unl.edu/ crop-management-drought

Soil Moisture Measurements and sensors for Irrigation Management.

By Tiffany Maughan, L. Niel Allen, and Dan Drost. October 2015.

• USDA. Natural Resources Conservation Service. Soil Health Literature-The Science Behind Healthy Soil.

•

Soil Aggregate Stability: Visual Indicator of Soil Health

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References

Dregne, H.E. and Chou, N.T. 1994.

Global desertification dimensions and costs. In: Degradation and Restoration of Arid Lands, ed. H.E. Dregne. Lubbock: Texas Technical University.

Hudson, B.D.. 1994. Soil organic matter and available water capacity. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation March/ April 1994 vol. 49 no. 2 p.189-194.

Friedrich, Katja, Robert L. Grossman, Justin Huntington, Peter D. Blanken, John Lenters, Kathleen D. Holman, David Gochis, Ben Livneh, James Prairie, Erik Skeie, Nathan C. Healey, Katharine Dahm, Christopher Pearson, Taryn Finnessey, Simon J. Hook, and Ted Kowalski. 2018.

Reservoir Evaporation in the Western United States. Current Science, Challenges, Future Needs. American Meteorological Society. January. pg. 167-187.

Ketterings, Q., Reid, S.,and R. Rao. 2007. Cation Exchange Capacity (CDC) Fact Sheet 22.

Libohova, Z., C. Seybold, D. Wysocki, S. Wills, P. Schoeneberger, C. Williams, D. Lindbo, D. Stott, and P. R. Owens. 2018.

Reevaluating the effects of soil organic matter and other properties on available water-holding capacity using the National Cooperative Soil Survey Characterization Database. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 2018 73(4):411-421.

Magdoff,F. and Harold van Es. 2009.

Organic Matter: What It Is and Why It’s So Important.

Minasny, B. and A.B.McBratney.

2017. Limited effect of organic matter on soil available water capacity. European Journal of Soil Science. Volume 69, Issue 1, Oct. 6, 2017.

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This photo shows how the flame stays in a “cap” on top of the kiln. All combustion air is drawn from above, which helps hold the heat in for faster biochar conversion. The workers are Butte Community College students helping with cleanup from California’s devastating 2018 Camp Fire. rganic growers know the value of soil carbon very (all photos courtesy K. Wilson.)

well. We know that it holds water and nutrients and supports soil microbial life—the foundation of healthy soil. As a dedicated gardener who grows food for two families, I have spent a lot of time hauling compost and manure, so when I first heard about biochar, I thought, “Aha! Permanent compost!” I say permanent because one of the secrets to the power of biochar is that it does not break down easily.

Once in the soil, it tends to stay.

Biochar is just charcoal, and charcoal is just the carbon that remains in a piece of wood or straw after you heat it up and drive off the hydrogen and oxygen in the lignin and cellulose. The remaining carbon atoms link up into hexagonal rings, otherwise known as aromatic carbon molecules.

While not quite as stable as a diamond, this aromatic carbon is very hard to break down. Yet it still performs many important functions in soil by grabbing onto nutrients and water and holding them in the root zone. Biochar in soil ends up promoting the formation of soil humus with all of its benefits.

A few years ago, I linked up with some other biochar enthusiasts here in Oregon and we applied for a Conservation Susan Willow and Lanita Witt of Willow Witt Ranch appreciate the biochar Innovation Grant to work with small farmers who had both they made from waste wood on their property. woody debris that could be turned into biochar and livestock that created a manure management problem. We proposed to combine these two waste streams to create a valuable soil barn gets cleaned out twice a year, when the ammonia starts amendment, and the NRCS funded our program. to get overwhelming. The smell is bad enough, but ammonia We designed and manufactured kilns that could turn represents a loss of valuable nitrogen, and it’s not so good for slash piles into biochar black gold without making smoke. respiratory systems of humans or goats.

We added biochar to barns, pens, coops, and manure piles, We started adding biochar directly to the barn. Once a and monitored the compost process and results. We did week, two 5-gallon buckets of biochar are spread on top of greenhouse trials and field trials. After three years of work, bedding in the wettest part of the barn—an area of about we produced a set of biochar practice guidelines for farmers 250 square feet. On top of that is sprayed half a gallon of to share everything that we learned. These are free to downinoculant that includes lactobacillus. We used EM-1 from load on my website at WilsonBiochar.com, but I’ll share Teraganix. This acidifies the bedding and helps to prevent the some of our results with you here: formation of ammonia, while the biochar absorbs the urea Willow Witt Ranch outside of Ashland, Ore., grows and converts it to nitrate. pastured pork and eggs and has a 20-head goat dairy. The Continued on Page 34 32

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June/July 2020

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Biochar and EM-1 inoculant are added to a pile of grape pomace at the David Hill Winery outside of Portland Oregon. Workshop participants incorporated the biochar and the inoculant was mixed in a tank and sprayed on top.

Continued from Page 32 “We were very impressed by the odor reducing power of biochar,” said owner Suzanne Willow. “It sure has improved our barns. When you dig into the floor, it looks like it’s composting really well. Instead of the plate of waste hay and alfalfa and pee and poop, it’s nice compost.”

Willow Witt continues to use the biochar barn protocol, and now when they don’t have time to make their own biochar, they find it worthwhile to purchase it from a commercial supplier in our area. Paying $125 per cubic yard of biochar, it costs $6.25 a week to eliminate ammonia and improve the compost. The compost is used to grow vegetables for market, so that nitrogen

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is really needed.

Michaels Ranch is a fifth-generation Century Farm that grows grass-fed beef and lamb in Days Creek, Ore. Troy Michaels started adding biochar to the winter feed barn. The manure is scraped and piled each spring and then spread on fields in the fall. Not only did the piles with biochar compost better and faster, but they also ended up with 10 times more nitrate than plain manure.

Producers all over the country are hearing about biochar, and those who can, are making it and trying it themselves. Fraga Farm is a 100-head goat dairy outside of Portland, Oregon that is established on an old Christmas tree farm. The overgrown conifers make perfect biochar feedstock. At a workshop last fall, we made several cubic yards of biochar that were used in the barn. Now the owners want more, but it’s challenging to find the time to cut and process the wood.

One result of our NRCS grant was a new biochar practice that is available through the NRCS Conservation Stewardship Program. This program can help pay for removing woody biomass and for turning it into biochar on the farm. NRCS is working on additional practice standards for adding biochar to soil that will eventually be available through their other programs such as EQIP. For more information on these subsidy programs, contact your local NRCS office.

Commodity boards are also getting interested in biochar. The California Almond Board sponsors biochar

research and sees a lot of potential for converting almond prunings and orchard removals into biochar for soil improvement, especially for organic producers who care about soil carbon.

At a biochar workshop in February sponsored by the Oregon Wine Board, we not only made biochar from grape prunings, but we also added biochar and EM-1 to a big pile of grape pomace at the David Hill Winery.

Bree Boskov, education manager for Oregon Wine, sees a lot of potential for biochar use in vineyards.

“We reached a lot of vineyard managers though the biochar workshop,” she said. “I have heard from many of them about how excited they are to have this tool for whole farm management to bring the prunings and compost back to the soil. Biochar is an important practice for regenerative agriculture and for our organic and Demeter certified wineries.”

Perhaps the biggest issue for growers who want to make biochar from farm waste is what technology to use. Large

air curtain burners are available that can make biochar from orchard removals or land clearing, but air quality regulators have not finalized permitting procedures for them. They can also be expensive to operate.

Smaller biochar kilns can be operated under current open burning regulations for agriculture. The technology is simple enough that farmers can make their own from still useful “junk” that might be lying around. All that is needed is a simple steel container. Farmers have made biochar kilns from old water tanks, trailers, dumpsters and similar containers.

The method for making biochar in an open container is called the Flame Cap method. It works like this: you make a fire in a container that is closed on the bottom. All the air for combustion comes from the top. When the first pile of wood or prunings burns down to the glowing coal stage, you add another layer. Slowly add more layers until the container is full of char and then put it out with water. It works

because each layer cuts off all the air to the char layers below. There is no air coming from the bottom to burn up the char to ash.

Biochar is a new industry that is just getting started. It holds a lot of promise for soil improvement, especially for organic producers. Biochar is an approved soil amendment under OMRI rules and you can find lots of organically certified biochar on the market in California, Oregon and Washington.

For more information about biochar and where you can get it, visit the US Biochar Initiative website at www. biochar-us.org. For more information about how to make your own and use it, see my website at WilsonBiochar.com.

There you will find practice guidelines and shop drawings for biochar kilns that are free to download. You can also purchase my Biochar Cookbook ebook and learn all about my own personal biochar tips and tricks.

Comments about this article? We want to hear from you. Feel free to email us at article@jcsmarketinginc.com

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35

THE ROLE OF MAGNESIUM IN IMPROVING CROPS AND YIELDS

By NEAL KINSEY | President of Kinsey Agricultural Services

A

sufficient amount of nutrient-available magnesium is needed in every soil so that plants can take up adequate amounts to most efficiently utilize nitrogen for chlorophyll production. Providing essential amounts of magnesium for each soil also affects phosphate metabolism, which is needed for optimum plant growth. When the soil is deficient in magnesium, it requires more nitrogen and phosphate to produce the best yields. These are well recognized and accepted principles of biological science which should especially be considered when magnesium is deficient in any soil or crop.

One of the biggest issues facing

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organic farmers and growers right now is that of supplying a sufficient amount of nitrogen and phosphorus for crop production while governmental agencies at various levels are looking at how to reduce or restrict their use due to nitrates and phosphates building up in the water supply. Measuring and using magnesium effectively and efficiently can provide a definite benefit for both camps.

However, there is an even more widespread problem that is not generally recognized when dealing with plants that are deficient in magnesium. There are soils that have too much available magnesium as well as those that have too little. And though there are pre-

dominantly more soils in the world that actually contain excessive amounts of magnesium they still fail to supply sufficient amounts of it to the plant for proper nitrogen and phosphate utilization by the crop growing there.

The problem has long been shown in field production on individual farms but has only recently been scientifically demonstrated through randomized, replicated university research plots focused on magnesium requirements. Though trials are limited to this point, that research has begun to provide the needed substantiation required for building up and maintaining the proper amount of magnesium needed for higher values and better fertility levels in crop production.

The conclusions are fully applicable for use even in certified organic agricultural production.

The Role of Magnesium

Since the middle of the 20th century and perhaps longer, there has been considerable disagreement between research agronomists in the agricultural and land grant universities as to the role of magnesium in soil fertility management and how it affects both the soil’s physical structure and its influence on soil chemistry. Most agronomists maintain that magnesium is not a serious problem for production agriculture. This situation has developed due to several assumptions from past experiments which have resulted in a number of misconceptions about the specific needs for magnesium in soil fertility. These concepts have long hindered recognition of the correct needs for magnesium and its proper utilization for both soil health and crop growth.

The definitive work on magnesium requirements for agricultural operations in both government and university research was basically considered complete some 40 to 50 years ago.

That research was based on a wide variation of soil testing methods that were assumed to represent the norm. In fact, those tests were far from representing the accuracy of the testing and measured

Continued on Page 38

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37

Continued from Page 36 response to needed magnesium applications that are possible to understand on individual farms by use of current GPS technology. With this present technology, it is now possible to obtain needed and valuable information concerning the magnesium required for benefiting both soil and plant health.

Detailed clarification using present technologies can be used to prove the actual needs and availability of magnesium in agriculture. These techniques can now demonstrate the value of magnesium for maximizing nutrient use as well as for optimizing quality and yield performance.

Past conclusions have been based on just using pH values and magnesium’s presence measured only in pounds per acre to conduct the research. Rather than determining actual magnesium percent saturation levels, which have been both scorned and shunned by most in soil agronomy, the true needs for more magnesium use have been overlooked by many working with soil fertility. New research based on soils with and without the properly determined base saturation of magnesium is now showing that efficiently supplying the needed magnesium for the benefit of growing crops can help to increase its effects. This is true for providing better fertilizer use, crop growth and yield, thus helping to benefit those farmers who face environmental limitations to better meet their production needs.

Marked differences in results from on-farm research have shown that firm conclusions should only be based on specific yield results from each field using the very same lab for testing of TEC and base saturation percentages time after time. Only such a consistent type of testing for doing research will provide farmers and growers with an avenue to more correctly utilize nitrogen applications by incorporating sufficient magnesium with it. Until that time, farmers and growers would do well to find someone who can work from soil tests based on field experience to help in that regard.

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Examples for Organic Growers

There is an old rule of thumb that everyone should keep in mind. Use a soil test to determine what to do to a soil and a plant test to determine what to do to a plant. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule, and under specific circumstances, magnesium is one of those exceptions. Always remember, for food and feed crops, when the soil shows a true magnesium deficiency the plants will not get enough unless the grower takes steps to change that.

A crop that clearly demonstrates when a soil test is accurately reporting whether there will or will not be a serious magnesium deficiency is carrots. On the test we advocate, when a soil has less than 10-percent magnesium base saturation, the tops of the carrots will always die prematurely. This is true for both organic and conventional growers from coast to coast in both the U.S. and Canada, and in Europe and many other areas of the world where carrots can be successfully grown. Working since 1973 on magnesium deficient soils there are only two notable exceptions that have come up thus far. The first is when the soil sample is not correctly taken. The second is when 10 percent on the test considered here is reported as a different number on testing from another soil laboratory.

In other words, when the magnesium test shows 10 percent, some other labs actually show that soil has 8 percent magnesium. Obviously, when that soil analysis shows to be 10 percent, the carrot tops do not die prematurely since it would likely need to be two points lower to have the same results. So 10 percent is not the correct answer from every soil laboratory where a soil test may be sent for analysis. On other soil lab reports, their number may also be higher rather than lower when magnesium would measure 10 percent on the test mentioned here.

The concept is not wrong, it is just that different labs report different numbers for the same level due to how they have set up their testing equipment.

A possible approach when using some other laboratory for testing soils used to grow carrots that have the problem, is just watch the crop. When you see the

first areas start to show the signs, take a sample in that area and send it in to see what the base saturation percent of magnesium is there. But remember this may only be the worst of the worst, and if so, those areas will continue to get larger.

Once the problem has run its course, then go to the edges and pull a sample where the problem exists and where it still does not. When you find that true line, then a test done in that bad area should show as being below 10-percent base saturation of magnesium on the test we use.

Magnesium deficiency in carrots

when the soil does not have enough provides an example of using the soil test to determine what the soil requires.

But be sure what you add is only what the soil actually needs. Because there is another problem when the magnesium base saturation on the test exceeds 12 percent on heavier soils (8.70 or higher TEC). Once those soils contain above 12-percent magnesium, plants growing there will have trouble taking up enough for their own use. In other words, too much magnesium in a soil means that without some additional help the plants there will not be able to get enough.

However, when plants are growing in a soil that shows to have too much magnesium expect that testing of the plant leaves will still show them to be

magnesium deficient. Visually, the plants seem to look fine. Normally the deficiency is there, but only as a form of “hidden hunger” which will not usually be evident. Growers can be easily fooled unless plant or leaf testing is done. In such cases a plant analysis should be used to verify that the crop actually needs more magnesium.

When plant testing that does not provide guidelines for magnesium or to use as a back-up, a good reference is Plant Analysis Handbook III, by Bryson, et al., published by Micro-Macro Publish-

ing, Inc., Athens, Georgia. Then once verified, and to the extent possible, use an effective foliar magnesium to help treat the problem since adding more magnesium to the soil may only serve to increase the excess that is already causing the problem.

There is a simple experiment that organic growers can easily try that helps show the value of adding foliar magnesium for growing crops. Legumes are some of the most sensitive crops to adequate amounts of magnesium. They respond negatively when the base saturation percentage is above 12 percent and very positively when magnesium drops just below 12 percent and remains in the 10-percent to 12-percent range – keeping in mind about how numbers on reports

from different labs may vary being either higher or lower than those stated here.

Correcting Mg Deficiency Through Foliar Applications

Green beans can be used as a good test to show the value of magnesium on soils that already have too much–anything higher than 12-percent Mg base saturation on soils with a TEC of 8.70 or more. Once the beans come up, keep watching the leaves. The day the first holes are eaten in the leaves it is time for a foliar spray application. In a small pump-up sprayer mix one tablespoon of 11-percent Epsom salts in a gallon of water and mist the plants with it as a foliar.

Just use enough to get the leaves wet, but not so much that the spray drips off the leaf. Leave at least some that you do not spray as a comparison.

Watch what happens in the next three days. First of all, no new holes are being eaten in the leaves of the green beans.

Also, in two to three days, the beans will become darker green in color. This is because the plants were deficient in magnesium in spite of the fact that the soils correctly show too much. (Too many people forget this – when the soil has too much magnesium, the plants will not get enough.) Now the green beans are able to use the added magnesium and efficiently utilize more of the soil’s available nitrogen to make chlorophyll.

Keep an eye on the leaves of the beans as they grow. Spray again when the plants run low on magnesium - which will happen in about three to four weeks on medium to heavy soils where testing has shown magnesium to be too high. Now the magnesium is again too low in the plant as another plant test will show— more holes will begin to appear in the plant leaves at this time and it is time to spray again with Epsom salts. Wait at least three to four weeks between foliar applications of Epsom salts as using it too often can severely dry out the plants.

When considering this, just keep in mind that the other plants being grown in such soils are suffering from magnesium deficiency too. Use that same foliar mix on them and watch the change in green color over the next two to three June/July 2020

days. One tablespoon of Epsom salts in a gallon of water works out to about 5 pounds of material per acre applied with at least 10 gallons or more of water as a foliar application. It works well about every three to four weeks for plants growing on soils that have excessive magnesium base saturation levels.

In regard to the use of magnesium as a nutrient, by utilizing more up-todate methods now at the disposal of the industry, it can be shown from field data how magnesium requirements, when supplied as needed for the plant, can optimize agricultural production programs.

Considering field studies and the analytical methods presently available for nutrient management applications, combined with the technical advancements in GPS technology, correctly implementing the proper methods of research for better utilization of magnesium can now competently show the advantages of correctly supplying it to benefit both crops and soils. This includes more efficient fertilizer use, better plant growth, higher nutrient values and increased yields.

Consequently, it can now be conclusively shown when and how the absence of adequate magnesium affects soil structure and chlorophyll production and phosphate metabolism in the plant and how its favorable use can affect nitrogen and phosphate utilization in growing plants.

However, because the needs vary widely and these needs have not been clearly defined, research is needed to prove and verify when magnesium is or is not applicable as a solution to soil nutrient problems. How much magnesium is enough in the soil? If you have too much, can you get rid of the excess?

Is that even possible and even if so, is it worth the time and the effort? That along with other considerations about magnesium and its effect on soil fertility will be considered next time.

Neal Kinsey is owner and President of Kinsey Agricultural Services, a consulting firm that specializes in restoring and maintaining balanced soil fertility.

Comments about this article? We want to hear from you. Feel free to email us at article@jcsmarketinginc.com

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39

Organic Plant Breeding Supports Regional Food Systems

By LETA FETHEROLF | Organic Seed Alliance

I

n the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, farmers across the U.S. are finding themselves on the front lines of ensuring food security and community resilience. With restaurant closures and the cancelations or postponements of farmers markets, producers are facing unexpected financial losses. Meanwhile, there is an unprecedented demand for seed and local produce. The COVID crisis highlights that the long-term stability of organic food systems depends on access to organically grown seed bred from the beginning to be successful on organic farms.

The performance and resiliency of vegetable varieties begin with genetics.

Plant breeders select desirable traits from crops growing under organic conditions. However, the field of organic plant breeding is still in its infancy, and the organic seed supply is still growing to meet demand. In 2002, the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) jumpstarted demand for organic seed by creating the first requirement for certified growers to use certified organic seed. This regulation states that certified organic producers must use organically grown seed except “when an equivalent organically produced variety is not commercially available.”

Sourcing organic seed can be a challenge for some organic farmers.

Lack of specific varieties, insufficient quantities, and scarcity of organic seed producers all play a role. Most producers rely at least partially on conventionally produced seed to meet their needs.

Some of these seeds are grown using synthetic inputs for pest, disease, and weed control, as well as plant nutrition.

This system proliferates plant varieties that are dependent on chemical inputs, increasing the carbon footprint of our seed.

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Conversely, organic plant breeding focuses on plant genetics—such as disease resistance and regional adaptation—that enhance performance under organic conditions, where the use of synthetic chemical inputs is prohibited.

Since organic farms vary a tremendous amount in terms of size, management and cultivation strategies, and the diversity of crops produced, it is important that plant breeding addresses region-specific needs as well the needs of organic agriculture in general.

Participatory Approaches to Plant Breeding

Organic plant breeding often embraces a participatory model, engaging farmers, university plant breeders, and chefs and other food system stakeholders to set breeding priorities and evaluate results. In this way, participatory plant breeding combines the practical experience of farmers with the technical expertise of formal plant breeders, resulting in more high-quality organic varieties and an increased number of farmers with skills to develop or improve their own varieties.

Organic Seed Alliance (OSA) is a mission-driven organization based in Port Townsend, Wash., that works to ensure farmers have the organic seed they need to be successful. OSA organizes and conducts participatory plant breeding projects, regionally and nationwide, to identify gaps in the food system, generate new varieties, and train farmers in improving their own varieties.

An example of OSA’s work in generating regional seed solutions through plant breeding is a project that is supporting sweet corn growers in Washington State. As a southern species domesticated in Mexico 10,000

Dr. Bill Tracy, a sweet corn breeder at University of Wisconsin, Madison, discusses the Olympic Peninsula sweet corn breeding project (all photos courtesy Organic Seed Alliance.)

years ago, most corn varieties prefer more heat and a longer growing season than the maritime Pacific Northwest climate provides.

Currently, the demand for locally grown organic sweet corn exists but is difficult to supply. Pacific Northwest producers looking for ways to tap into the sweet corn market don’t have many options for seed. The best varieties are hybrids bred for conventional systems.

For some of the region’s growers, these varieties are optimal. For many others, the desired choice is certified organic seed that is open-pollinated and has been adapted to their region’s climate and for organic systems.

Sweet Corn for the Pacific Northwest

In 2008, OSA was invited to participate in a breeding project to develop a new open-pollinated sweet corn variety that exhibited superior flavor and good yield in Northern climates across the country. Because the variety is open-pollinated, farmers can save the seed and adapt the genetics to their own farm. Other partners included Bill

Continued on Page 42

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OSA's Micaela Colley, left, tastes sweet corn with Nash Huber of Nash's Organic Produce in Sequim, Wash.

OSA’s Laurie McKenzie, left, and Katie Miller lead a field day featuring the Olympic Peninsula sweet corn breeding project.

McKenzie tastes sweet corn from the Olympic Peninsula breeding project.

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Tracy, a public sweet corn breeder at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and organic farmer Martin Diffley in Minnesota.

This participatory breeding project began by accessing, crossing, and selecting high-quality breeding material from Dr. Tracy’s collection. The project was supported in part by the USDA’s Organic Research and Extension Initiative through the Northern Organic Vegetable Improvement (NOVIC) project. In 2014, the team released ‘Who Gets Kissed?,’ an organic variety that is still commercially available and grown in more than 40 states.

This breeding success led OSA, in collaboration with Dr. Tracy and NOVIC partners once again, to further adapt the sweet corn population to Pacific Northwest growing conditions, specifically the Olympic Peninsula. In the cool, wet spring soils of the Peninsula’s maritime climate, sweet corn is especially prone to fungal and bacterial rot prior to germination. This has led growers to transplant sweet corn instead of direct seeding once the soil has warmed for reliable and robust crop growth. The ability to direct seed is preferable, as transplanting requires additional labor and materials.

Two organic farms on the Olympic Peninsula hosted the breeding work: Nash’s Organic Produce in Sequim and the Organic Farm School on Whidbey Island. Three breeding populations were divided among the two farms and OSA’s Research Farm in Chimacum. Each farm uses a slightly different approach to the breeding and selection process.

The plot grown at Nash’s is advanced through mass selection – wherein seeds are saved from the most desirable individuals in the population and used to grow the following year’s crop. At the Organic Farm School, seeds are saved and planted based on a strategy called “ear to row.” Using this strategy the seeds from each ear that is selected are grown out together in a row the following year, which allows the breeders to see the genetic similarities and differences among each row.

Putting Varieties to the Test

Taste testing is an important part of selecting the best ears in the corn patch. In order to conduct taste tests in the field without harvesting the ears (the ears need to be left on the plant in order for the kernels to fully mature for seed harvest), farmers pull back the husk to expose the top half of the ear and either take a bite from the ear while it’s still on the plant, or cut the tip of the ear to get a taste. Ears with superior flavor and robust production are tagged and marked for seed production and left on the plant. Seeds are then saved separately from individual ears and planted in corresponding rows the following year. Since each kernel of corn is individually pollinated, this ensures that each row shares maternal genetic material, which helps the farmers and breeders to distinguish which plants harbor good genetics.

With the mass selection strategy, the farmers and breeders may be selecting plants that look and taste good but may actually be genetically weak plants that happened to look good. This can be due to an environmental response rather than a genetic one – for instance, the plant may have been in a favorable surround-

ing microclimate where it may have happened to have gotten a little extra fertilizer, or extra water, or less pest pressure than its neighbor, rather than because it has strong, desirable genetics.

Shuttle breeding is another breeding method used at the OSA Research Farm. Each year the OSA team grows out 200 plots of genetically related sweet corn lines produced by our partners at UW-Madison, similar to the “ear to row” strategy, and evaluates and tastes them all for production and eating quality. From these 200 plots, around 15-20 of the best are selected for further breeding.

The seed for these plots is produced in Argentina, at Dr. Tracy’s winter nursery and only about half of the seed produced is sent to OSA to grow. Once the OSA team has selected the best plots each year, Dr. Tracy and his team go back and pull out seeds from each

of the selected plots and send them store, and the Co-op offered support in down to their South American winter exchange for the opportunity to engage nursery for seed production. Since each their community in naming the variety. kernel on an ear of corn is pollinated Seed from this new variety will be reby a separate grain of pollen, each ear leased to Olympic Peninsula sweet corn can contain the pollen from numerous growers within the next couple of years. other plants. The shuttle breeding stratBecause the variety is open-pollinategy allows for production of seed from ed, OSA has a number of resources on only plants that have been selected and its website to support these growers in deemed to be genetically superior. The adapting this variety to their own farm seed produced at the winter nursery conditions, including an on-farm plant in South America is then returned to breeding guide for sweet corn that is Washington for planting the following also available in Spanish. To find these spring. This process allows OSA and Dr. and other resources on on-farm plant Tracy to make faster genetic progress in breeding and organic seed production, the breeding process. visit https://seedalliance.org/all-pubAs an excellent example of food lications/. Or contact OSA’s research system collaboration, a local organic team at (360) 385-7192 or info@seedalgrocer on the Olympic Peninsula, the liance.org.

Port Townsend Food Co-op, funded the inception of this regional breeding Comments about this article? We want effort. Local farms agreed to produce to hear from you. Feel free to email us at enough sweet corn to feature in the article@jcsmarketinginc.com

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43

Controlling Pacific Flathead Borer in Agricultural Crops

By DANITA CAHILL | Contributing Writer

P

acific flathead borers (PFB), Chrysobothris Mali Horn, are a serious agricultural pest throughout much of the United States and into Southern Canada. The borer larvae girdle trunks and lower branches, weakening or killing trees and shrubs. It only takes one borer to kill a small tree.

Borers are tough to control. One of the most important things growers can do to battle borers is to protect trees from stress. There is also a simple trick to help keep the pests in check— pay careful attention to positioning when planting new trees. Ac-

cording to Oregon State University (OSU) Extension Orchard Specialist Nik Wiman, PFB tend to target the graft union.

“We’ve really been able to control borers by clocking the union to face away from the sun,” Wiman said.

Borers Target Weakened Trees and Shrubs

Although borers are most often attracted to newly planted, stressed or weak young trees, they can also damage older trees. They attack trees that are weakened by damage from sunburn, sprays or equipment, or by diseases such as blight.

Borers affect the structural integrity of a tree. Trees damaged, but not killed, by borers are more susceptible to later breakage by snow, wind, or heavy crop loads.

There are more than 200 known host plants for PFB. Besides fruits, nuts and berries, borers also infest soft-wood trees such as alder, dogwood, hawthorn, shadbush, mountain ash and willow. OSU is doing further studies looking for other wild hosts.

Among the agricultural trees and shrubs targeted by PFB are apple, apricot, blueberry, cherry, hazelnut, peach, pear, plum, prune and walnut. The borers have caused damage to shade

trees, such as maples, as well. Borers are becoming an increasing problem in Oregon hazelnuts and California walnuts.

Thomas Valenta raises blueberries in the California Central Valley. Valenta has battled PFB in his blueberries for over 15 years but said the insects were especially bad in 2019.

“I try to remove infested canes in the early fall as they show fall colors before the healthy ones do,” Valenta said.

Valenta has noticed that the borers tend to infest and damage some of his blueberry plants more than others, specifically attacking the less vigorous varieties.

Wiman has noticed the same thing in hazelnuts—branches with yellowing leaves tend to be the ones with borers.

In Oregon, PFB has affected blueberries a little bit, according to Wiman.

He said it’s likely the same sort of thing, where the borers are attracted to weak plants. Borers are attracted to stress signals emitted by weakened trees. The insects are especially drawn to sunburn, Wiman noted.

“Borers see well. If the bark is dead, it could be a visual clue,” Wiman said.

Preventive Measures for PFB

Besides facing the graft away from the sun and pruning away diseased or

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Adult Pacific flathead borders are ¼ to ½ inches long with a wide, flat body and large eyes. The brown-colored beetle has distinct grey markings and an overall coppery sheen and a brilliant green color on its back under the wings (photo by Chris Hedstrom, OSU.)

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Continued from Page 44 weakened branches, other preventative methods to keep borers at bay include: • Paint trunks with white chalk paint or other organically-certified trunk paint with water added, to avoid sunburn. This also helps protect trees against other boring insects, as well as chewing rodents and rabbits.

•

Give trees and shrubs enough water and adequate nutrients to prevent stress.

• Avoid injuring trees with sprays, tools and equipment. Injured wood is an open invitation to borers.

Borers are attracted to stress signals emitted by weakened trees and appear especially drawn to sunburn damage (photo courtesy N. Wiman, Oregon State University.)

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• Keep weeds and grass away from the base of the trees. This allows for easier detection of borers. It also exposes the insects to natural predators such as birds.

The borers do have a biological control: the ichnumonid wasp. Instead of stingers, the female wasps have long, specially adapted ovipositors.

“They can sense the larvae inside a branch, probably through vibration.

They can unfurl this ovipositor, pierce the wood and deposit an egg inside the larvae,” Wiman said.

The wasp egg develops inside the borer larva and then the wasp chews its way out of the wood. The downside is that the larvae of both the wasp and the borer cause damage to the wood of the host plant. But, Wiman said, the wasps can help keep borer populations in check.

Other natural predators are carpenter ants, which will feed on both the larvae and pupae, and woodpeckers, which will use their long, sharp beaks to jab the borer grubs inside the wood. There is also a parasitic mite that attacks the adult beetles.

Insect Identification

The Pacific flathead or flatheaded borer got its name from the appearance of the larvae. The grubs are fairly large in size, about ½-inch long with a wide,

flattened head. The larvae start out a pale-yellow color, later darkening to brown.

The adult PFB is a wide, flat beetle with large eyes. It is ¼-inch to ½-inch long, colored brown with grey markings and an overall coppery sheen.

Underneath the hard wing covers, the borer’s back is a brilliant green.

Life Cycle

The females lay eggs in early June to July. They generally choose weakened, sickly or dying trees or branches, depositing their eggs in crevices in the tree bark. They tend to lay eggs on the sunny side of the trees, low on the trunk, below the lowest branches.

Eggs hatch from mid-June to mid-August. After egg hatch, the young larvae burrow into the trees. They begin feeding between the bark and the sap wood. Burrows are broad and irregular. According to Washington State University researchers, borer grubs throw out very little frass (excrement

and wood bits.) Injured spots on the tree can be detected by a dark-colored indentation in the bark and by cracks in the bark. Little frass shows through the cracks.

The grubs continue feeding until mature, when they burrow a little further into the wood, build cells and overwinter. They pupate in the spring.

Adults emerge about the time apple trees blossom.

The emergence holes are oval shaped and about ¼-inch in diameter. These holes in the tree are generally found near the base.

While small trees may be killed by borers, on larger trees, the damage is usually confined to the sunny side of the tree. New borer damage shows up as raised ridges encircling the trunk or branches. Old borer damage shows up as bark peeling from the trunk.

Borer Notes and Research

Wiman and his team are doing borer field research at OSU North Willamette

Research and Extension Center. They planted a new apple orchard in early 2020.

“We’ve noticed a lot of borer damage,” Wiman said.

Cherry trees are also especially susceptible. According to Wiman, one cherry orchard farmer lost a whole planting – about $50,000 in damage.

“Every single tree had at least five borers in it,” Wiman said.

As far as the future of US borer damage, it’s likely to continue.

“PFB really like drought-stressed and climate-stressed trees. I think we’re going to see more problems with borers,” Wiman said.

There is light at the end of the borer tunnel. If the host tree is full of sap and growing vigorously, the borer grub cannot thrive inside the growing tissue.

It will most likely either die or stop developing and growing.

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