Summer is finally over. Brassica transplants are in the ground, and direct-seeded broccoli and lettuce plantings are now beginning.  In the past week, I’ve observed or received reports from PCAs of key insect pests beginning to show up (or not) on melon and early produce crops in the desert.   
 
Seedling pests:  Flea beetles (FB) are beginning to show up in transplanted crops like they always do, but pressure has been light so far. We haven’t seen much in our experimental plots at YAC either.  Remember, FB adults lay eggs in the soil of their favored local host plants (i.e., alfalfa, cotton, purslane, pigweed and nightshade) where larvae feed on the roots to later emerge as adults. So, keep in mind, the source of that FB infestations hitting your new stands may not just be freshly cut hay, defoliated cotton, or disked weeds. In some areas (Yuma Valley), crickets seem to be very abundant. Crickets like moisture and are often found under sprinkler pipes but can also be found in cracks in soils around fields or in drainage areas. 
 
Bagrada bug:    We’ve already had reports of bagrada bug adults on two transplanted cauliflower fields in Dome Valley. Not sure whether they arrived with the transplants or are moving from surrounding crops. However, it’s still early and they might surprise you as the season progresses.   Look for those fresh feeding signs on cotyledons and young leaves.  Experience suggests that they are most abundant after the humidity breaks.
 
Lepidopterous Larvae (worms):   Worm pressure seems to be below normal. Trap catches so far show that Cabbage looper moths are almost non-existent, and no reports on melons to date. They should pick-up as we approach October. No reports of Beet armyworm larvae on the earliest transplants yet, and areawide pheromone traps suggest that moth activity is below normal. But they will show up sooner or later, so get ready.  You have numerous insecticide alternatives at your disposal to control them.  Have had a couple of reports of Diamondback moth larvae on newly transplanted brassica crops. However, we’ve yet to capture moths on pheromone traps which suggests that adult immigration on high altitude winds associated with storms has not occurred. Remember, DBM disappear each summer and reestablish on desert crops via transplants or migrate in on monsoon/tropical storms. I strongly stress that you check your Cole crops closely this fall, particularly following storms or on plants originating from coastal CA. 
 
Whiteflies:       Area wide sticky trap captures have been about normal for early September, but whiteflies can migrate long distances on high winds. Adult numbers increased on my melon plants last week and remain high. Reports in area melons range from light to moderate numbers so far, but there is still a lot of cotton out there yet to be picked. The good news is there are several insecticide alternatives to control them in produce. 

As part of the SW Ag Summit that is taking place in Yuma this week, we are conducting a breakout session on Thursday, 22 February 2024 titled “Colorado River Water Shortage: Agricultural Perspectives”.  This session will start at 9:30 a.m. in MAC 106 at the Arizona Western College campus.
This session will provide a brief review of the background, the current situation on the Colorado River and very importantly it will include an outlook on the current discussions among the basin states to negotiate a new compromise for the guidelines of use under conditions of water shortage.  These new guidelines will go into place at the end of 2026.  The immediate goal is to draft proposals by March 2024.
This breakout session at the Southwest Ag Summit will provide up to date information and firsthand insight into the process.  The participants are uniquely qualified to offer valuable perspectives on these issues.  This will be a very good session.
The program outline is as follows:


2024 Southwest Ag Summit
Educational Program
Thursday – February 22, 2024
 
COLORADO RIVER WATER UPDATE AND PROJECTIONS
Location: MAC106
 
9:30-10:00a.m. Colorado River Background and Introduction 
Elston Grubaugh, Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District
 
10:00–10:30a.m. Colorado River Situation and Future Projections
Bart Fisher, Palo Verder Irrigation District and State of California Colorado River Water Board member, Fisher Ranch, Blythe CA
 
10:30–11:00a.m. Colorado River Situation and Future Projections
Hank Auza, Yuma County Water User’s Association President and Yuma Ag Water 
Coalition representative, Barkley Co. of Arizona, Yuma AZ
 
11:00–11:30a.m. Question & Answer / Discussion
 
Moderator: Elston Grubaugh, Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District

Bindu Poudel-Ward, Martin Porchas Sr., Martin Porchas Jr., Neeraja Singh, Johan Murcia, and Rebecca Ramirez, and Jason Furr 
Yuma Agricultural Center, University of Arizona, Yuma, AZ
This study was conducted at the Yuma Valley Agricultural Center. The soil was a silty clay loam (7-56-37 sand-silt-clay, pH 7.2, O.M. 0.7%). Lettuce was seeded, then sprinkler-irrigated to germinate seed on Nov 15, 2022 on double rows 12 in. apart on beds with 42 in. between bed centers.  All other water was supplied by furrow irrigation or rainfall. Treatments were replicated five times in a randomized complete block design. Each replicate plot consisted of 25 ft of bed, which contained two 25 ft rows of lettuce. Plants were thinned Jan 5, 2023  at the 3-4 leaf stage to a 12-inch spacing. Treatment beds were separated by single nontreated beds. Treatments were applied with a tractor-mounted boom sprayer that delivered 50 gal/acre at 100 psi to flat-fan nozzles spaced 12 in apart.

Month	Max	Min	Avg	Rain
November (2022)	74°F	47°F	60°F	0.00
December (2022)	69°F	42°F	54°F	0.11
January	67°F	42°F	55°F	0.16
February	70°F	41°F	55°F	0.37
March	75°F	46°F	62°F	0.28

 
Powdery mildew (caused by Golovinomyces cichoracearum) efficacy trial treatments were made on January30 2023, February 9, 2023 and February 22, 2023.Disease was first seen on February 13,2022. Disease rating was done on March 15, 2022.   Disease severity was determined  by rating 10 plants within each of the four replicate plots per treatment using the following rating system: 0 = no powdery mildew present; 0.5 = one to a few very small powdery mildew colonies on bottom leaves; 1 = powdery mildew present on bottom leaves of plant; 2 = powdery mildew present on bottom leaves and lower wrapper leaves; 3 = powdery mildew present on bottom leaves and all wrapper leaves; 4 = powdery mildew present on bottom leaves, wrapper leaves, and cap leaf; 5 = powdery mildew present on entire plant. These ratings were transformed to percentage of leaves infected values before being statistically analyzed. Yield loss due to rejected lettuce heads would likely begin to occur on plants with a powdery mildew rating above 2.0 (percentage of leaves infected value of 40).         
The data in the table illustrate the degree of disease control obtained by application of the various treatments in this trial. All treatments significantly reduced the final severity of powdery mildew compared to nontreated plants. The most effective fungicides were Rhyme, Merivon and Quintec.

Keeping up to date with the latest developments in automated weeding machines is challenging. It’s a very fast-moving space with significant private and public investment. At the 2024 Southwest Ag Summit “Ag Tech: Innovations in Weed Control Technologies” breakout session, university experts and cutting-edge innovators will provide updates on laser weeding, high precision smart spot sprayers, robotic/automated weeders and band steam (agenda below).The session will be held TOMMOROW Thursday, February 22^nd from 1:30-3:30 pm at Arizona Western College in Yuma, AZ.
As I mentioned in the last newsletter, there will also be a Field Demo where several of these technologies and other state-of-the-art automated weeders will be demonstrated operating in the field. The Field Demo is scheduled for TODAY, Wednesday, February 21^st. Breakfast will be served at 7:00 am and demonstrations begin at 8:00 am. The event will also be held at AWC.
We will also have our 3^rd generation prototype steam soil disinfestation machine on display at the event (Fig. 3). It is a self-propelled machine designed for commercial field scale operations. The device injects steam into the soil prior to planting to raise soil temperatures to levels sufficient to kill soilborne pathogens and weed seed (typically 140 °F > 20 minutes). We have had very good results with our previous prototypes and would like to demonstrate soil steaming to interested growers next season with the new machine. In addition to obtaining grower feedback on the viability of soil steaming, a second objective is to validate our small plot research results at the field scale level. If you are interested in the technique and would like a demo on your farm, please let me know. I would be happy to collaborate with you.
For more information about the Southwest Ag Summit, visit https://yumafreshveg.com/southwest-ag-summit/.

Fig. 1. Agenda for the “Ag Tech: Innovations in Weed Control Technologies”
educational session at the 2024 Southwest Ag Summit. The session will be held
Thursday, February 22nd at Arizona Western College, Yuma, AZ.


Fig. 2. 2024 Southwest Ag Summit Field Demo agenda. The event will
be held at Arizona Western College in Yuma, AZ.


Fig. 3. Self-propelled machine designed for injecting steam into the
soil prior to planting to raise soil temperatures to sufficient levels to
control soilborne pathogens and weed seed. Unit will be on display at
the 2024 Southwest Ag Summit, Yuma, AZ. (Photo credit: Peter de
Groot).

The SW Ag Summit is taking place in Yuma this week. We will have the Weed Control breakout session on Thursday, 22 February 2024 at 1:30 pm in room AS 115 of  the AWC campus. Here’s what are we going to cover:
Do you know what the IR-4 Project is? 
Established in 1963 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and land-grant universities this project helps ensure that specialty crop farmers have legal access to safe and effective crop protection products and contributes to developing data necessary for the registration products for best pest management. Do we have this project in Yuma?
A Weed Scientist and Principal Biologist from IR-4 and NC State University will explain what this process of making more tools available to growers takes.
 
Additionally, we will have a representative from BASF chemical company who will present NEW WEED CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES as well as active ingredients developed by his company.
 
We all know with the loss of DCPA (Dacthal) herbicide our weed management tools were reduced. You asked the Veg IPM Team to look for ALTERNATIVES for Broccoli and Onion. We are doing some Trials at the UA Yuma Ag Center with products Such as Napropamide (Devrinol), which has the Devrinol DF XT dry formulation and the Devrinol 2-XT liquid. 
Which one is more aggressive? How does water incorporation affect it? How good is it on goosefoot, lambsquarter, knotweed?
Other treatments we are looking at on broccoli are Goal Tender, Prefar, Prowl, Treflan, Enversa, Rinskor.
For direct seeded onion we are testing Prefar, Etothron SC, Dual, a combination of PREFAR+PROWL PREEMERGERGENCE at low rates, Outlook+Prowl.
 
We would like to share our observations if you honor us coming to our session. Again, it is TOMORROW Thursday, 22 February 2024 at the Arizona Western College AS 115 room. This session will start at 1:30 pm.

Get your free copy of the Weed Seedling Identification Pocket Guide at the Yuma Agricultural Center.

 Areawide Insect Trapping Network   VegIPM Update, Vol. 15, No. 16, Aug 7, 2024
 
Results of pheromone and sticky trap catches can be viewed here.
 
Corn earworm:            
CEW moth counts decreased areawide; about average to previous years.
 
Beet armyworm:        
BAW moth counts decreased; comparable to previous summers.
 
Cabbage looper:         
Cabbage looper numbers are low consistent with previous years and higher temperatures.
 
Diamondback moth:     
DBM moths were not caught in any trap; average for this time of the year.
 
Whitefly:                     
Adult movement continues to decrease, average for this time of the year.
 
Thrips:                          
Thrips adult activity continues to decline, average for early August.
 
Aphids:                       
Aphid movement is absent and consistent with what we typically see during the summer.
 
Leafminers:                   
Adult activity declining and below average for early August.