UCCE Ventura County- Blogs
Soil Moisture Sensor Selection
Soil moisture sensor selection. An extensive range of soil moisture sensors/probes have already been commercialized and are available to use in avocado and other orchards. They determine the real-time soil water potential (tension) or volumetric water content and are dominated by a small number of technologies including granular matrix or gypsum block sensors, tensiometers, time domain reflectometry (TDR) sensors, and Frequency Domain Reflectometry (FDR) or capacitance sensors (Table 1 and Fig. 2). Some commonly used soil moisture sensors can be combined with various telemetry devices to access the data through cloud-based data storage applications. Data is automatically uploaded by radio or cell phone communications to cloud-based computer servers and is accessible through apps on smartphones and tablets. These communication advancements greatly improve the convenience of accessing data and can be configured to provide timely alerts when trees require irrigation.
Read more about their use in avocado and other orchard tree cropsl, as well as other tasty topics at:
https://ceventura.ucanr.edu/newsletters/Topics_in_Subtropics102527.pdf
soil moisture senors
What's Been Happening in the UC ANR-Ventura/Santa Barbara Offices?
We recently compiled the last year's activities in the Ventura and Santa Barbara offices of UC ANR, check it out:
https://ucanr.edu/sites/ucceventura/files/402039.pdf
https://cesantabarbara.ucanr.edu/Quarterly_Reports/
uc anr
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
Calibrating an Airblast Sprayer
Get an airblast sprayer in the right condition so it can do its job right.
Read a summary of calibrating an airblast sprayer
https://www.sacvalleyorchards.com/almonds/foliar-diseases/pre-season-airblast-sprayer-calibration/
Using a calibration guide
https://ccag-eh.ucanr.edu/files/241473.pdf
Read it as written by Lynn and Franz
https://ucanr.edu/sites/ucexpertstalk/files/328586.pdf
or watch it as played by Peter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c48h75tb-CY
or take the course on calibration for CEU credits
air blast sprayer
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
- ALB does better in the slightly cooler more humid orchards in Oceanside when compared to the hotter inland Bonsall orchards.
- 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)
- ALB life stage densities tend to be greater on leaves over June-Oct
- % 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.
- 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