mar-apr-2020

The same leaf (front & back) with rust symptoms. Photo Credit: Franz Niederholzer. flowering the following year. In blocks with a history of leaf rust, UC IPM Guidelines (www2.ipm.ucanr.edu/ agriculture/almond/Rust/) recommend a sulfur spray five weeks after petal fall followed six weeks later by a FRAC 11 or 3 fungicide. Propiconazole is a FRAC 3 material and there are issues with this material in the European Union. Consult with your processor before selecting fungicides for use this spring. A carefully calibrated sprayer is a critical tool for effective pest control. Check with water sensitive paper to make sure your sprayer delivers uniform spray coverage throughout the canopy. Vertebrate Control Gopher control in almonds protects trees and limits dust produced when mowers run over mounds. Trapping, phosphine gas and poison bait are all effective practices for gopher control in the spring. Use of phosphine gas tablets is regulated, so consult with your County Ag Commissioner before doing any gopher control. Once the ground dries and cracks, gas can leak out of tunnels, giving less gopher control. Using two of the listed practices gives more complete gopher control than using just one. Providing training to your employees in gopher tunnel location and trapping improves trap catch numbers. Watch UC ANR Extension Specialist Roger Baldwin demonstrate how to locate gopher tunnels and set traps at youtube. com/watch ? v=iDW0l6eeG0M. Separate training programs for gophers, ground squirrels and meadow voles are available at ucanr.edu/sites/vpce/. (You may have to permit Adobe Flash Player to open on certain web browsers. I had to do this for Chrome.) Two CE hours can be obtained, for payment, after watching each program. No payment is needed if watching the videos for educational content. IN YOUR ORCHARD 3 8 A L M O N D F A C T S