I thought I share a rundown of last week's 57th Annual Weed Day hosted by the UC Davis Weed Science Program and the UC Weed Research and Information Center. 

This year the program was organized and (mostly) hosted by CE Weed Specialist Joe DiTomaso.  We had a great turnout (about 140 total) and an awesome day with temps in the low 90's - not bad for July 11th in the Central Valley!  I will try to follow suit temperature-wise next year when my turn to organize Weed Day rolls around...

As we have done in the past few years, this year's Weed Day started off with a half day field tour of research plots near the UC Davis campus. Our first couple of field stops were annual crop herbicide experiments and demonstrations.  First, Lynn Sosnoskie discussed her herbicide evalutions in cantalope, watermelon, and honeydew melons. 

We took our morning break at the USDA-ARS Aquatic Weed Research Facility and Brenda Grewell, (USDA-ARS) discussed the new facility and some of the ongoing work in aquatic invasive weeds.  She also mentioned that the agency is currently in the midst of a search to refill the position held by Lars Anderson who retired in early 2013. 

Our next stop was in near a young almond orchard block.  At this site, Don Stewart discussed the work he does in support of the Western Region IR-4 Program that helps with registration of pesticides in minor crops.  I discussed our ongoing herbicidal efficacy and crop safety testing in orchard and vineyard crops with a focus on this year's large plot statewide demonstrations of residual herbicides.  I also pointed out a demonstration that Lynn and Seth put together showing how growth state of hairy fleabane can impact POST herbicide efficacy.

Finally, at our last field stop, Joe DiTomaso and Guy Kyser discussed drizzle applications and "herbicide ballistic technology" for control of wildland weeds.  The herbicide-filled paintball demo was pretty popular!

After a catered lunch, we had our afternoon session of speakers who discussed their off-campus or laboratory research:

• Ellen Dean and Jean Shepard went through the weed quiz (I think 16/20 was the winner this year)
• Joe DiTomaso talked more about herbicide ballistic technolgy for control of weeds in Hawaii
• Kurt Hembree (UCCE Fresno) outlined crop safety concerns about herbicide persistence in drip-irrigated tomato
• Guy Kyser discussed current research on medusahead and downy brome control in sagebrush rangelands
• Bob Johnson (UCD grad student in my lab) presented herbicide research in prune orchards
• Ran Lati (postdoctoral research in Steve Fennimore's lab) spoke about his thesis research on real time weed detection technology
• Alejandro Garcia (UCD grad student in Albert Fischer's lab) discussed mechanisms of glyphosate resistance in junglerice
• Marcelo Moretti (UCD grad student in my lab) discussed field experiments on the control of glyhosate-resistant junglerice
• Marie Jasieniuk discussed her lab's recent work on the evolution of glyphosate-resistance in hairy fleabane and horseweed
• Finally, Lynn Sosnoskie gave a great talk on weed seed bank biology in the context of post emergence herbicides in orchards.

I'd like to thank our sponsors: Dupont Crop Protection, Monsanto, FMC Corporation, Agrichem Services Inc., BASF, Bayer CropScience, Blankinship and Associates, Marrone Bio Innovations, Syngenta Crop Protection, Target Specialty Products, and Hedgerow Farms.

The next UC Davis Weed Day will be on July 17th, 2014 - see you then!

Finally, I want to acknowledge Dr. Tom Lanini who just retired after a 27 year career as a UC Cooperative Extension Weed Specialist.  If you've been involved in weed science in California you've almost certainly seen Tom speak, seen slides or weed photos that he shares generously with UCCE personnel, and probably heard him tell fish stories (or some combination of those three)! 

Tom, you've had a great career as an Cooperative Extension Specialist - congrats on your retirement!  On a personal note, I've appreciated the mentoring I've gotten from you (I'm in the office next to Tom) and I REALLY appreciate your effort as the chair of the search committee that hired me!

Brad