EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In 2002 the Biologically Integrated Farming Systems (BIFS) program, administered
by the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (UC SAREP),
entered its seventh year supporting on-the-ground agricultural chemical risk/use
reduction projects. AB 3383 provided the first state funds for the program,
followed in 1998 with AB 1998 which expanded the program and provided new state
funds. Since 1995, U.S. EPA (Region 9) has also provided matching federal funds
to the program and currently is the only source of funds as no new state funds
have been provided since 1998. As of January 2003, SAREP has obtained a total
of $3,079,272 in outside funding for the BIFS program. This report covers the
BIFS program from January 2001 through December 2002. During this time, the
program was funding seven on-going projects in seven different major commodities.
By December 2002, four of the seven projects have ended (rice, citrus, walnut,
and strawberry), and apples and dairy/forage crop BIFS projects will end by
March 2003. UC SAREP released a new Request for Proposals in July 2001 which
resulted in funding two projects: the Prune BIFS project was granted up to three
additional years of funding and a new winegrape project was funded for three
years (April 2002 - March 2005).
California growers continue to face major challenges on two fronts: declining
profit margins and increased environmental regulations that threaten to reduce
the number of chemical pest controls as well as restrict fertility and general
crop management practices. Recent pesticide regulations that affect California
agriculture include the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act and the Department
of Pesticide Regulation’s new ground water protection standards which,
beginning in January 2004, will create further restrictions on the use of pre-emergence
herbicides as well as add expense in hiring specially trained and certified
pest control advisers. The U.S. EPA is revising the Clean Water Act permit requirements
(finalized in December 2002) and effluent guidelines which will require most
dairy farms to prepare comprehensive nutrient management plans to document all
nutrient application on fields. This will require improvements and changes in
the way in which manure nutrients are managed as they are utilized by forage
crops, and necessitate reductions in commercial fertilizer use on these crops.
The Clean Air Act and the Montreal Protocol call for the elimination of methyl
bromide use by 2005. And finally, the 1994 CALFED agreement to provide ecosystem
protection for the Bay Delta estuary provides agricultural water users a guaranteed,
if reduced, water supply (CALFED 1997).
BIFS projects help farmers implement biologically integrated farming systems,
bringing long-term benefits to California growers by reducing the environmental
impact of agriculture on natural resources, reducing production costs, and maintaining
yields and quality (Swezey & Broome, 2000). BIFS growers, in partnership
with researchers, extensionists, and consultants, have demonstrated and fine-tuned
research-based alternative farming practices in the areas of soil building,
cover cropping, alternative pest management approaches, and optimized use of
inputs including fertilizer, manure, water, and pesticides. The BIFS approach
promotes farm management decisions based on monitoring. Local management teams
of farmers, researchers, extensionists and other agriculture professionals meet
regularly and collaborate to develop and disseminate these alternative methods
(Mitchell et al. 2001).
UC SAREP in collaboration with other UC colleagues and researchers has been
evaluating the BIFS program, through developing and conducting commodity-focused
grower surveys and analyzing the California Pesticide Use Report (PUR). Over
half of San Joaquin County’s walnut growers responded to SAREP’s
county-wide survey in 2002, representing almost 75 percent of the total bearing
walnut acres in the county. The results showed that almost half of the respondents
had been exposed to the BIFS walnut project. The results also indicated that
a majority of respondents were willing to use practices that reduce their chemical
and fertilizer use even when it takes a little more time or expense. SAREP also
conducted a statewide survey of rice growers in 2001, and has developed statewide
surveys of prune growers and dairy producers that will be conducted in 2003.
Analysis of California’s PUR database conducted by UC Davis researchers
has revealed trends from 1992 to 2001 in use patterns for several BIFS commodities.
Key agricultural chemicals being targeted for reduction by BIFS projects such
as in-season organophosphates like chloropyrifos or phosmet have been decreasing
over the past nine and five years, respectively, on walnuts in San Joaquin County.
Methyl parathion use has increased on this county’s walnut acres starting
in 1996; however, by 2001 BIFS walnut growers were only treating 5 percent of
their acres with this chemical and the rest of the county was treating 25 percent
of their acres. In addition, the miticide propargite was used on only 10 percent
of BIFS acres in 2001 in San Joaquin County, but on over 40 percent of the rest
of the county acres. The dormant season organophospate, diazinon, known for
contaminating California’s surface waters, was applied to 30 percent of
Sutter County prune acres but to only 2.5 percent of BIFS prune acres in 2001,
the latest year that data is available. Analysis of the temporal and spatial
patterns of pesticide use will continue.
Nine peer-reviewed publications, eleven abstracts, and several conference proceedings
have been published that present results of BIFS projects or related research.
Publications have ranged from Andrews et al. 2002, a landmark study in cotton
that describes the development of a soil quality index for use by researchers,
educators and growers to understand how on-farm practices effect soil quality
and yields to the (in press) paper by Grant et al. 2003 that describes the pest
management practices and achievements of the walnut BIFS project.
In addition to funding key demonstration projects through the BIFS program,
UC SAREP has created a BIFS Workgroup with funding from the University of California
Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources to support increased cross commodity
cooperation on pressing research and educational needs of California agriculture.
Workgroup support funds have enabled researchers, federal and state regulators,
consultants, and commodity and nonprofit organizations to share resources and
ideas about how to increase the adoption of environmentally sound farming in
California. In addition, the BIFS Workgroup is supporting a social science research
project to look at the role that partnerships and participation play in the
ability of the BIFS and BIFS-like projects to accomplish their environmental
and economic objectives.
With only federal funds to support the BIFS program, UC SAREP has attempted
to obtain additional funding to enable the continued support of new BIFS projects.
UC SAREP successfully obtained a specialty crops block grant from the California
Department of Food and Agriculture to extend the key successes of four recent
BIFS projects, in walnuts, prunes, dairy/forage crops, and citrus to a statewide
audience. With the idea of building on the strong foundation of this ag chemical
use/risk reduction program, UC SAREP is working on developing a consortium for
on farm conservation biology and restoration ecology. This collaborative effort
will attempt to obtain key research support to develop the information needed
to assist growers to incorporate on-farm conservation and restoration strategies
and wildlife-friendly farming practices.
PROJECT SUMMARIES
Walnut BIFS: January 1999—December 2001
In December 2001, the San Joaquin County Walnut BIFS team successfully completed
a three-year project demonstrating the use of a biologically integrated orchard
system in farming walnuts in the northern San Joaquin Valley to reduce on-farm
disruption and off-site pollution from the routine use of organophosphate insecticides
under review due to the Food Quality Protection Act. In addition, this project
demonstrated practices to reduce synthetic nitrogen fertilizer on California's
200,000 acres of walnut orchards. To accomplish this, the project has developed
a farming system that which relies on an insect pheromone for disrupting mating,
natural enemies of pests, cover crops, and monitoring. Twelve enrolled growers
established demonstration blocks for BIFS implementation, and designated conventionally
managed blocks for side-by-side comparisons. The project showed that it is possible
to greatly reduce the use of conventional pesticides and maintain comparable
yields (average yields of 1.6 to 2.5 dehydrated in shell tons per acre). The
use of pheromone mating disruption to control codling moth, the major walnut
pest, reduced applications of organophosphate insecticides to 17 percent of
the BIFS orchards as compared to 88 percent of the grower’s conventionally
managed orchards. Further, the project reduced synthetic nitrogen use on 324
acres of walnuts by 57 lbs. per acre between 1998 and 2000 with no decline in
yields. Growers maintained yields by planting cover crops and lowered nitrogen
inputs by monitoring leaf nitrogen and using this crop-based information to
make judicious use of fertilizers. A county-wide survey revealed that almost
40 percent of San Joaquin County walnut growers are using a nitrogen budgeting
approach to estimate their fertilizer requirements. Project growers were highly
motivated to successfully adapt cover cropping in their orchards, which has
been shown to improve water penetration, reduce the need for mowing and increase
beneficial insects in the orchards. Outreach to area farmers and collaboration
with the Community Alliance with Family Farmers and the walnut Pest Management
Alliance insure wide dissemination of project results.
Prune BIFS: January 1999—December 2004
The Prune BIFS project, called the Integrated Prune Farming Practices (IPFP)
program, completed its first three-year cycle in December 2001. Project managers
have emphasized that for this statewide project to succeed, support for five
to ten years of work is needed. Project managers applied to UC SAREP and were
successful in obtaining additional years of support based on the accomplishments
of their first three years and the recognized importance of the projects goals.
It is continuing under a new round of funding 2002-2004. The first phase of
the project developed and demonstrated alternative reduced-risk farming practices
on 33 prune farms in nine counties. During this time, winter applications of
diazinon, an organophosphate insecticide, were eliminated from 877 acres of
the 33 enrolled farms in the demonstration/research sites, while in 2000, in
Sutter County, 30 percent of prune acres received an application. Average yields
were the same between the two farming systems and ranged from 4387 to 5139 lbs./acre.
Growers and the management team collaborated with PCAs to develop fifteen monitoring
decision guides, or protocols, for optimizing the use of pesticides, water,
nitrogen and potassium applications. Ten of these are now ready for use by growers
and pest control advisors, and have the potential to greatly reduce the use
of organophosphate (OP) insecticides, synthetic fertilizers and excess applications
of irrigation water. The IPFP is truly a commodity-based statewide initiative,
funded by the BIFS program as well as the Department of Pesticide Regulation,
the California Prune Board, and the USDA.
Apple BIFS: January 2000—March 2003
The Apple BIFS project focuses on reducing the use of controversial, broad-spectrum
insecticides in pome fruits (apples and pears). Rapid urbanization around apple
orchards in Contra Costa County has increased concerns about pesticide use in
this region. A key component of the project is the use of mating disruption
to reduce the numbers of codling moth, the most critical pest in apple and pear
production. During this three-year project, a team of growers, pest control
advisors and UC researchers used supplemental codling moth sprays in addition
to mating disruption to reduce codling moth populations to very low levels.
The project has made substantial progress in identifying and demonstrating the
products and procedures to use in orchard monitoring that are necessary for
the successful implementation of pheromone mating disruption to control codling
moth in pome fruit. BIFS fields received 33 percent less organophosphate insecticides
than the conventional fields with similar control levels.
Citrus BIFS: October 1998—June 2002
The Citrus BIFS project focused on reducing the use of the herbicide simazine
(a known groundwater contaminant), reducing organophosphate insecticide and
fertilizer use, improving irrigation efficiency and increasing the use of cover
crops. The use of pre-emergence herbicides such as simazine (Princep), diuron
(Karmex) and oryzalin (Surflan) can be reduced by relying on more frequent post-emergence
herbicide applications, by narrowing the area in the “middles” that
the herbicide is applied to, and by growing a cover crop. It is a common belief
among citrus growers that cover crops will increase the risk of frost damage
in citrus orchards. However, two years of data from Citrus BIFS show that an
appropriately managed cover crop does not increase frost damage. Cover crops
are beneficial to citrus orchards in providing habitat for beneficial insects,
reducing soil erosion, and reducing off-site movement of agricultural chemicals.
The project also showed that monitoring with moisture sensors improves irrigation
efficiency, reduces costs and the likelihood of run-off.
Dairy BIFS: July 1999—March 2003
The Dairy BIFS project has been working with 11 dairy and forage crop farmers
in the San Joaquin Valley since 1999 in an effort to develop and demonstrate
improved liquid manure management practices. Project managers have developed
ways to measure nutrients in lagoon water, enabling them to reduce or eliminate
applications of synthetic fertilizers to their forage crops. Average use of
fertilizer by BIFS growers on their forage crop fields went from 149, 71, 45
lbs/acre of N, P2O5, and K2O, respectively, before the project to 20, 0 and
0 lbs/acre after three years of the project. The results have been cost savings
to the growers of on average $55 per acre and as high as $116 per acre, and
reductions in groundwater contamination from both chemical fertilizer and dairy
manure water. Growers have also maintained their forage crop yields with this
method. A crucial accomplishment of the project has been the development of
easy-to-use flow meters to measure the amounts of liquid dairy manure to be
used as fertilizer on the crop and nitrogen “quick tests,” which
determine the exact amounts of nutrients in the liquid manure. This will become
increasingly important, as future environmental regulations for concentrated
farm animal operations will require accurate record-keeping and finely controlled
management practices, as well as the development of a comprehensive nutrient
management plan.
Rice BIFS: January 1999—December 2001
Several environmental and regulatory issues face California rice growers: air
pollution from rice straw burning; movement of pesticides into the Sacramento
River; production problems arising from herbicide resistance; and high production
costs. The Rice BIFS project addressed these by demonstrating the viability
of a variety of practices such a soil incorporation of straw, winter flooding,
reduced synthetic nitrogen, deep water and dry down, drill seeding and winter
cover crop. Fifteen demonstration fields in Butte County were enrolled; collectively,
participating growers control over 12,000 acres of rice. Participating BIFS
growers used less herbicides as compared to the Butte County average use rates.
For weed control, the alternative non-chemical treatment of “deep water”
and “dry down” were demonstrated. This resulted in substantial cost
savings during two of the three years of the project. The Rice BIFS growers
also reduced nitrogen applications by 30 lbs./acre by using straw incorporation
and winter flooding. This practice holds promise for widespread adoption, since,
based on the project’s statewide survey, approximately one-third of rice
growers are already practicing it.
Strawberry BIFS: January 1999—March 2001
The Strawberry BIFS project focused on exploring a variety of biologically based
alternatives to the soon-to-be-banned fumigant, methyl bromide, as well as aboveground
pests like Lygus. Based on intensive one-on-one scientist-grower interactions,
this project enrolled 21 acres of strawberries on 14 farms. Project demonstrations
showed that three cultivars, Aromas, Seascape and Pacific, are better adapted
to non-fumigated conditions. In attempting to determine mulches, soil inoculants
and other cultural practices beneficial to commercial strawberry production,
the project showed that bacterial and mycorrhizal inoculants tested and corn
gluten meal do not appear to generate benefits. Also, soil solarization is not
economical in California because the soil does not get hot enough in the strawberry
growing regions. In seeking alternatives to insecticides, the project revealed
that periodic vacuuming of alfalfa/mustard plus “trap” crops on
the borders of the strawberry plots is a potentially viable, organic control
against lygus bug.
Winegrape BIFS – Central Coast Vineyard Team: April 2002 –
March 2005
This project has just completed its first growing season. The Positive Point
System (PPS), developed by the Central Coast Vineyard Team (CCVT), describes
an integrated farming system appropriate for California’s Central Coast.
This point system allows an evaluation of the extent of sustainable practices
incorporated by a farm manager. A higher score indicates more environmentally
friendly management. The project will be collecting agricultural chemical use
data to determine whether there is a correlation between a high score on the
PPS and reduced use of agricultural chemicals. This project has strong grower
support and represents a collaborative partnership of growers, wineries, farm
advisors, researchers and consultants. The project has potential not only for
chemical use/risk reduction, but also to support reduction in the off-site movement
of soils and water. The BIFS project is being conducted in addition to a Clean
Water Act Section 319(h) grant that the CCVT also recently obtained, that grant
will enable monitoring and assessment of off-site movement of soil and how the
adoption of the practices in the PPS might affect such movement.
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