Inside the Avocado

A new way of looking at plant nutrition?  Frost damage? Disease? Heat damage?

"Laser view" into the avocado: New method reveals cell interior

Research team at the University of Göttingen develops method for recognizing cell properties

Checking whether an avocado is hard or soft by looking at it? This would require recognizing how the plant cells behave behind the skin. The same applies to all other cells on our planet: Despite more than 100 years of intensive research, many of their properties remain hidden inside the cell. Researchers at the University of Göttingen describe in their recent publication in Nature Materials a new approach that can determine the particularly difficult-to-detect mechanical properties of the cell interior by taking a closer look.

Cells are the basic units of all life and their precise understanding is a key factor in the progress made in medicine and biology. Nevertheless, research on them is still challenging because many methods destroy the cell during analysis. Researchers at the University of Göttingen now pursued a new idea: they used the random fluctuating movement that all microscopic particles perform. To do this, they first simulated the expected fluctuations and then checked the predictions using optical laser traps that can precisely control microparticles. Using this approach, the research team was able to analyze the movement of microscopic particles – with precision in the nanometer range and a time resolution of around 50 microseconds. In addition, the analysis also takes into account the history, i.e. past movements. It turned out that many objects always want to return to a certain place after having moved away randomly. The researchers used this tendency to return to a previous position to define a new quantify, the so-called mean back relaxation (MBR).

This new variable now serves as a kind of fingerprint: it contains information about the causes of the observed movements. This makes it possible for the first time to distinguish active processes from purely temperature-dependent processes (Brownian motion). "With MBR, we can obtain more information from the object movements than is possible with the usual approaches," explains Professor Matthias Krüger from the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Göttingen.

In order to make statements about living cells, the researchers applied the method to the inside of living cells. "As our knowledge of the inside of cells is still limited, it was initially unclear whether the MBR could also be used here. When I saw the resulting curves, I could hardly believe my eyes, because the inside of cells could be described very precisely using the approaches we had originally worked out for much simpler situations ," marvels Professor Timo Betz from the Third Institute of Physics, head of the experiments.

"The results show that the combination of a close look and new, intelligent analysis methods can provide insights into whether the inside of cells is soft, hard or liquid," says first author of the study, Till Münker from the Third Institute of Physics. The work was co-funded by the European Union as part of an ERC Consolidator Grant.

 

Original publication: Münker, T. M. et al. Accessing activity and viscoelastic properties of artificial and living systems from passive measurement. Nature Materials 2024. Doi: 10.1038/s41563-024-01957-2.

avocado pit

CA Avocado Acreage

Each year the California Avocado Commission partners with Land IQ to produce a Statewide Avocado Acreage and Condition Analysis report utilizing digital satellite imagery, aerial photography and analytical tools to survey California avocado groves. This data helps the Commission make informed budgeting and marketing decisions and provides industry members with spatial data concerning crop type, location, condition and density. See the full 2023 Report HERE.

According to the report:

• In 2023 there were 52,534 planted avocado acres
• The majority of growing acreage is located in Ventura, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Riverside and San Luis Obispo Counties with a total of 50,818 planted acres
• The five top-producing counties reported 1,059 new/young acres and 3,399 topped/stumped acres

The report also provides acreage data by zip code, county, condition, year planted and density.

The California Avocado Commission's crop estimating team in conjunction with Land IQ uses the latest in remote sensing techniques to assess avocado acreage in production.  As technology continues to advance refinements in our fourth generation of remote sensing techniques were applied to satellite imagery collected during spring and summer months.  The imagery processing techniques include; segmentation into homogenous polygons, retention of tree crop polygons, calculation of average crop canopy moisture and vegetation indices, analysis of change maps from previous inventories, and classification of avocado groves into four categories; producing, topped/stumped, new/young, and abandoned.  Aerial imagery (for a real-world view), and satellite imagery (for spectral and temporal data) are integrated into previously classified avocado acreage and analyzed for current condition of California avocado acreage statewide.

from CA Ag Net: https://californiaagnet.com/2024/07/29/california-avocado-acreage-increases-2023-report-available/

 

avocado berms

Avocado Lace Bug Spreads

There has been a recent expansion of Avocado Lace Bug into parts of the Carpinteria area.  It was more or less located in the San Diego coastal area.  It spreads mainly with people.......

Read about it at the UC-IPM website and the observations of Mark Hoddle, IPM Specialist at UC Riverside. 

https://ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture/avocado/avocado-lace-bug/#gsc.tab=0

1. ALB does better in the slightly cooler more humid orchards in Oceanside when compared to the hotter inland Bonsall orchards.
2. In the lab, under a fluctuating 24 hr temperate cycle similar to an avocado orchard in Escondido, optimal temps for development are a daily average of around 31-32oC (88-90oF)
3. ALB life stage densities tend to be greater on leaves over June-Oct
4. % leaf infestation measures (i.e., the proportion of sampled leaves with ALB lifestages) tend to be peak over fall-winter (Sept-Feb), but ALB densities on leaves are not as high as what are seen over June-Oct, there are basically more leaves with ALB and those per leaf densities are lower that numbers counted over June-Oct.
5. Its hard to predict what the next season's ALB will be as lots of ALB are shed when leaves drop, but like persea mite, some manage to get back onto the new leaves to start the next round of infestations. Adults don't seem to be very flighty, well, at least they don't seem to exhibit mass flight activity that would suggest searching for new hosts as leaves deteriorate.

Keep your eyes open for a future edition of the CA Avocado Commission's magazine - From The Grove - for a more thorough discussion of the pest. 

https://www.californiaavocadogrowers.com/publications/from-the-grove

 images:

Adult

Adults, young, and fecal pellets

Leaf damage

ALB-Low-Res

avocado lace bug

ALB-Leaf-Damage-Low-Res

Avocado Irrigation Workshop - Oct 16, Ventura

Avocado Irrigation Workshop

 

Avocado Irrigation Workshop

 

 

October 16 (Wednesday), 2024

2:00 – 5:00 P.M.

 

UC Cooperative Extension Ventura County (California Room)

669 County Square Dr, Ventura, CA 93003

 

Workshop registration link: Registration

 

2:00 - 5:00 p.m.
2:00 Welcome 2:05 The Other Uses of Water in Avocado Orchards – Ben Faber, UCCE Subtropical Crops Advisor, Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties 2:35 Crop Water Use of Avocado Orchards – Ali Montazar, UCCE Irrigation and Water Management Advisor, San Diego, Imperial, and Riverside Counties 3:05 Salinity Management in Avocado Orchards – Khaled Bali, UCCE Irrigation Water Management Specialist, Kearney Agricultural Research & Extension Center
Break: 10 mins.
3:45	Using Soil Moisture Sensor to Optimize Irrigation – Andre Biscaro, UCCE Irrigation and Water Resources Advisor, Ventura County
4:15	Water Distribution Uniformity Management in Orchards – Jamie Whiteford, Ventura County Resource Conservation District
4:45	Mission Produce TM: Resources and Updates - Danny Klittich, Mission Produce
5:00	ADJOURN

 

For more information about the workshop, please contact                                                                                

Ali Montazar, amontazar@ucanr.edu, or Ben Faber, bafaber@ucanr.edu.

 

 CEU CREDITS:   CCA (2.5 hrs.)

                                                   VCAILG (2.5 hrs.)

                       

 

 

avocado irrigation spaing one per tree (2)

Avocado Sunblotch Workshop - Oxnard, Sept 20

Avocado Sunblotch Viroid (ASBVd)
Unlock the Secrets to Healthy Avocados: Learn
about Avocado Sunblotch Viroid

Presentations:

Andrew Geering: Prevention, surveillance and control of avocado sunblotch in
Australia
Fatemeh Khodadadi: Understanding ASBVd: from discovery to diagnostic
hurdles
Peggy Mauk: Protecting California's avocado genetic resources through
sunblotch viroid detection
Mehdi Kamali: Rapid and sensitive detection of Avocado Sunblotch Viroid
Disease (ASBVd) using our digital methodology

September 20, 2024
9am-12:30pm
United Water,1701 N. Lombard ST., Oxnard

Registration link:
https://forms.gle/12LxUUdkPb8DmNdm8

Fatemeh Khodadadi
fatemehk@ucr.edu
(845) 901-3046
Ben Faber
bafaber@ucanr.edu

 

sunblotch

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