California’s nursery industry is the largest in the nation and is highly concentrated in our central and south-coast counties. In Ventura County, nursery stock and cut flowers are high value crops generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
The Ventura County Cooperative Extension office has been working with growers for many years to prevent pesticides and fertilizers used in production from entering our water supply.
The current issue of California Agriculture highlights one of our recent projects – investigating adoption of best management practices to protect water quality by Ventura County nurseries. Best practices were categorized into management of irrigation, leaching, runoff, field soil, container media, nutrients and fertilizer, pests, and general property.
From the abstract
“There were significant increases in every category of practices surveyed, and significant changes in the adoption of 38 specific practices. This suggests that nurseries are amenable to adopting management practices within a short time span in areas where there is increased governmental oversight and educational opportunities for growers.”
You can read the entire article by following this link.