September 2005
Central Coast Vineyard Team BIFS project wins EPA award
Pomar Junction Vineyard, Paso Robles
DAVIS--A team of farmers, researchers and agricultural consultants in Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties has been awarded a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) award for reducing pollution and pesticides and promoting biologically integrated farming practices in winegrape vineyards.
EPA officials recognized the Central Coast Vineyard Team as a 2005 Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Champion for helping farmers reduce pollution by using sustainable practices, and for the team's ability to track that success.
"Growers enrolled in our project nearly eliminated their use of organophosphates chlorpyrifos and diazinon during the project period," said Kris O'Connor, executive director of the vineyard team and principal investigator of the project. "We believe it is critical to communicate their success to other mainstream growers in the region."
The EPA's Food Quality Protection Act has targeted organophosphates and other high-risk materials for reduction. According to O'Connor, because the vineyard team has developed and refined its pesticide database, materials can be tracked by target, regulatory status and risk factor.
Not including sulfur, total applied active ingredients, including high-risk herbicides, declined by 47 percent during the project, she said. The winegrape group uses the Biologically Integrated Farming Systems (BIFS) extension model that includes a team approach to project management, monitoring of key biological and economic variables, and farmer-to-farmer information flow. Much of this work was made possible by a three-year $299,907 grant from the Davis-based statewide University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program's BIFS program.
In their award notification, EPA representatives said the Central Coast Vineyard Team "stands alone in the Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program for the capturing and reporting of pertinent, comprehensive indicators to measure...progress..." and singled out the project's "exceptional outcome-measurement reporting system."
"We are thrilled to know that EPA officials consider our monitoring project groundbreaking," O'Connor said. "They will be using our 2005 strategy as a model for adoption for the other stewardship program members."
The Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission, which received BIFS funding through the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program nine years ago, is also a 2005 EPA award winner.
O'Connor said the Central Coast Vineyard Team's overall goal is to reduce environmental and health risks associated with ag chemicals by increasing the use of the vineyard team's trademarked Positive Points System (PPS) practices in Central Coast vineyards.
"PPS is our 1,000-point self-assessment tool for evaluating the extent of sustainable vineyard practices used in the vineyards," O'Connor said.
The vineyard team has found that growers who evaluate their acreage for multiple years improve their PPS scores over time.
"This suggests that the process of self-assessment motivates growers to adopt reduced risk practices," she said. The PPS was conceived and developed collaboratively by a partnership of growers, wineries, UC Cooperative Extension personnel, educators, consultants, and environmental interests.
Team member Willy Cunha manages Sunview Shandon, 800 acres of wine and table grapes that are part of a large family farm in Shandon.
"My continuing involvement with the vineyard team has helped me implement, evaluate and expand innovative farming practices that help reduce pesticide applications and runoff and enhance the quality of my crop," he said. "The process of growers working together on the PPS expands our exposure to practical applications of good practices. We educate and encourage each other as we implement and expand these positive farming techniques."
Cunha noted that by documenting the outcomes of their experimentation, vineyard team members have created a database of practical information proving or disproving the worth of new practices, which guides them toward further innovations.
O'Connor reported that more than 12,000 acres have been evaluated using the PPS in the last several years. Growers who have participated manage approximately 70,000 acres on the Central Coast. They have increased their PPS scores and reduced use of high-risk materials targeted by the Food Quality Protection Act over time, she said.
The vineyard team's biologically integrated project demonstrated the use of PPS practices including treatment decisions based on monitoring, eliminating or reducing use of pre-emergent herbicides, and the development of beneficial insect habitats in and around vineyards. Results were shared with growers outside the project through tailgate meetings, newsletters, articles, and formal presentations. The vineyard team will continue work on the project with a three-year $680,000 pesticide mitigation grant from the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
Additionally, O'Connor noted that much of the agriculture on the Central Coast is in soils that are susceptible to erosion, above watersheds that drain into the Monterey and Morro Bay estuaries or into rivers listed for salmon and steelhead protection.
"We're helping farmers reduce off-site movement of water and soil through various cover-cropping strategies," she said.
For more information about Central Coast Vineyard Team strategies, see the EPA Web site at http://www.epa.gov/oppbppd1/PESP/strategies/2005/ccvt05.htm. For more information on the University of California sustainable agriculture program's Biologically Integrated Farming Systems project, see http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/bifs/.
Media contacts:
Lyra Halprin, (530) 752-8664, lhalprin@ucdavis.edu
