Last Thursday (July 19th) was the 56th annual UC Weed Day at the Davis campus.
We had a really good turnout again this year with just under 150 participants including weed science researchers, students, farmers, land managers, pest consultants, and government agency people in attendance. Cooperative Extension Specialist Tom Lanini organized the morning field tour and afternoon presentation session and ordered up really great weather for the day.
We started out on campus for registration and signing up for various continuing educaton credits before heading out on two buses and a parade of trucks and vans to the nearby research station.
1. The first stop was a discussion of preharvest burndown treatments for nut orchards. This was part of a series of field trials that my group put out to investigate low VOC treatments during the summer "ozone season".
2. We then stopped at a herbicide symptomologydemonstration to compare the visual damage caused by simulated drift of herbicides on a variety of annual crops. Not everybody gets a chance to torture plants on purpose, so this is always a helpful demonstration when those of us in agriculture get questions about suspected injury cases.
3. Rachel Brownsey (grad student, DiTomaso lab) discussed her research related to understanding the rooting biology of several invasive weeds including Dittrichia, tarweed, and yellow starthistle.
4. The next stop at the USDA-ARS Aquatic Weed Research facility is always very popular; partially due to the interest and problems around California and the western US and partly because that's the stop with the restrooms and donuts! Brenda Grewel and Patrick Moran spoke about some of the aquatic weed work going on at the facility as well as in other areas of the state.
5. Finally we made two field stops to take a look at some of Tom Lanini's herbicide research plots in tomato and melons. This work included crop safety and weed control efficcy evaluations with clomazone and sulfentrazone and included an experiment dedicated to field bindweed control.
After the field portion of the day, we returned to campus for lunch and open discussion before the afternoon slate of speakers
6. Joe DiTomasso made a few remarks about the information and weed tools that are available at the UC Weed Research and Information Center (WRIC) and discussed a nearly-ready-to-be-published book on biology and control of invasive western weeds (coming soon to WRIC and Cal-IPC, among other places). I also made a few comments about this blog - we are generally about the #5 or 6 most read UCANR blog now!
7. During the field tour, participants had a chance to sharpen their weed ID skills on 17 weeds that Ellen Dean had marked at the various stops. Ellen opened up the afternoon by identifying the marked weeds - I think the best person only got about 14 of 17 correct - and we handed out a number of "fabulous prizes".
8. Lynn Sosnoskie (UCD Weed Research Project Scientist) spoke about tree and vine research with mesotrione.
9. Christiana Conser (grad student, DiTomaso lab) spoke about their work with a risk assessment model for the ornamental plant industry
10. Marcelo Moretti (UCD grad student, Hanson lab) spoke about herbicide performance in almond orchards.
11. Mike Pitcairn (CDFA) gave an update on state weed management programs.
12. Martin Guerena (City of Davis) gave an interesting overview of the sustainable and non-chemical approaches the city is taking to managing weeds.
13. Steve Fennimore (UC Davis, in Salinas) spoke about the opportunities and need for precision mechanical weed control in vegetable and other specialty cropping systems.
14. Hagai Yasuor (formerly with UCD, now with the Ag Research Organization of Isreal) talked about the herbicide resistant Echinochloa work that did with Albert Fischer.
15. Lucho Boddy (formerly UCD Fischer lab, now with Marrone Bio Innovations) talked about watergrass emergence biology.
16. Finally, Guy Kyser (UCD Weed Research Specialist) gave an interesting overview of the effects of aminopyralid (a broadleaf herbicide) on the invasive grass, medusahead. (also discussed in this blog post)
Weed Day is a great opportunity to discuss current research and weed science issues and meet up with others in the industry. The Department of Pesticide Regulation granted 6 hours of continueing education credits for this program which is always appreciated by those of us with applicator licenses.
This is a big undertaking each year and is possible due to the efforts of weed science students, staff, and colleages both on and off campus, the plant sciences farm crew, and the heroic efforts of the WRIC program representative, Gale Perez. The event was partially sponsored by Target Speciality Products, Agrichem Services, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSceicnes, DuPont Crop Protection, FMC Corporation, Marrone Bio Innovations, Monsanto Company, Syngenta Crop Protection, Blankinship and Associates, and the Tremont & Lyman Group. THANKS!
We hope to see you next year at the 57th Annual Weed Day on July 11, 2013 or at one of our other weed science events, shortcourses, or UCCE presentations during the year.
Brad