Almond growers demonstrate commitment to water quality
Butte, Stanislaus growers show innovation in
dealing with runoff issues
By Marni Katz
Special to the Almond Board of California
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Native shrubs, grasses and trees cut a riparian swath through Drew Scofield’s Dunnigan, California almond orchard, creating a vegetative oasis where once a barren ravine swept away mud and silt with every rain. Flanked on both sides by Nonpareil and Carmel almonds, the greenbelt provides habitat for wildlife such as hawks, quail and pheasants. But more importantly it acts as filter for the sediment that once ran off of Scofield’s property into Petroleum Creek on its way to the Sacramento River.
Scofield’s watershed project is an example of what could be
part of the long-term solution to watershed protection issues as growers begin
to grapple with ways to keep surface water runoff from reaching protected
waterways. But it’s also an example of what growers are doing voluntarily to
protect surface water quality from pesticides and sediments, even in the absence
of regulatory mandates.
Yolo County grower Scofield sits amid the greenbelt of drill seeded bunch grasses, digger pines, live oaks and native shrubs that have helped slow sediment runoff in this 240-acre Yolo County almond orchard. (Photo by Marni Katz)
Water quality and watershed protection have moved to the forefront of an already growing list of issues for almond growers in light of new regulations regarding water surface runoff that will affect all growers of irrigated orchards and farmland.
New state water runoff regulations raise awareness of need to reduce farm discharges
Changes to the “Conditional Waiver” of waste discharge requirements recently enacted by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board aim to reduce potential levels of farm waste in irrigation tail water or rain runoff. While the long-term implications and finer points of the new regulation are not yet clear, it involves monitoring for, and ultimately reducing, discharges of pesticides, nutrients and sediments into waterways throughout the Central Valley from Kern to Shasta County.
The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board has established a website providing information about how conditional waivers of waste discharge requirements will affect growers at http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb5/programs/irrigated_lands/index.html.
Growers can also enter general comments at that website.
Parry Klassen, executive director of CURES, explains that under the new regulations, every grower of irrigated cropland must join one of five Watershed Coalition groups now established throughout the Central Valley to monitor water runoff into tributaries that feed the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. The goal of the coalitions is to represent farmers within a watershed, spreading the cost over a larger area and number of growers and developing local solutions when problems are found, Klassen says.
Growers who elect not to join a coalition were to have filed a notice of intent by late 2003 with the Regional Water Board to participate in the conditional waiver as an individual and bear the cost of monitoring on his orchard or farm.
The five regional coalitions (and more may still be formed) will collect assessments so far ranging from $1 an acre to a $100 flat fee to monitor runoff into tributaries and help isolate problem areas and identify potential solutions on a region-by-region basis. Monitoring is set to begin this summer.
Klassen says almond growers are in a unique position when it comes to water quality and enacting farm runoff solutions because the industry has funded extensive research on cultural practices that not only reduce the use of organophosphates and other synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, but also help reduce their offsite movement into nearby waterways. The new coalitions provide growers a chance to show off those accomplishments in advance of tougher water quality regulations.
“At the end of day we are going to be able to prove that the vast majority of growers are doing things right,” Klassen says. “We’re going to isolate problem areas and work cooperatively with growers to solve those problems before regulators come in. They are giving us a window of opportunity to fix our water quality problems and if we fail to do that, the environmentalists are going to have their way with this.”
John Edstrom, almond farm advisor with the UC Cooperative Extension in Colusa County, has been a pioneer, along with UC farm advisors throughout the state, in developing alternatives to organophosphates (OPs); techniques such as cover cropping that reduce off site water movement; and other popular cultural techniques almond growers in California now regularly employ that, in the end, help address the water quality issue. Edstrom also recently implemented a watershed program similar to Scofield’s at the UCCE’s Nickels Estate in Arbuckle, Calif.
He says statistics show that the dormant season use of OPs, as a result, has dropped significantly in lieu of in-season alternatives such as Bacillus thuringiensis, insect growth regulators and beneficial insects to control major orchard pests. All these techniques were developed in part with funding by industry groups such as the Almond Board of California and under direction of the UC Cooperative Extension Service.
Individual growers are taking steps to either manage their water runoff or reduce the use of OPs, pyrethroids and other important tools as part of a voluntary effort that makes them better stewards of the land and water affected by their farming operations.
Scofield is one such farmer. He grows and manages about 900 acres of almonds in an area of Northern California’s Yolo County notorious for light red soils that are easily picked up in surface water runoff. About three years ago, Scofield teamed with the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service through its Sand and Salt Creek Watershed Project to develop a 64-foot greenbelt that extends two-thirds of a mile along a drainage ravine that cut through one 240-acre block of almonds.
Yolo County watershed project reduces sediment runoff, halts erosion
Scofield and the NRCS jointly planted three species of annual grasses, including onion grass and fescue, native brush such as coyote bush and buckeye, and live oak and digger pines along the waterway to halt erosion and keep sediment from running down the waterway into the nearby tributary that feeds the Sacramento River. He also brought in massive boulders to naturally slow the rate of water leaving his farm.
The result is a resounding success, Scofield says. Where
silt-laden water once left the farm via the ravine, the discharge is now of
“crystal-clear drinking quality.” And while the green belt has cut into some
production area, it has also halted erosion in the orchard that was leaving an
ever widening gully with each storm event.
“The grasses and so forth help slow down the velocity of the water so it drops its sediment rather than take it into the nearby creek,” Scofield says. “And the grasses and brush have massive root systems that hold the soil in place.”
Native grasses, shrubs and trees planted along in a greenbelt along this ravine in Drew Scofield’s Yolo County almond orchard help arrest erosion and keep sediment out of surface water runoff (photo by Marni Katz).
"The grasses help slow down
the velocity of the water
so it drops its sediment
before it reaches the creek" - - Yolo County grower Drew Scofield.
The newly seeded and planted greenery at first required additional care, such as drip irrigation maintenance and hand weeding, but Scofield says the irrigation will be pulled within a couple seasons and the greenbelt once established should be fairly maintenance-free.
Stanislaus County grower eliminates use of OPs, emphasizes monitoring and parasitic insect release
Further South, in Stanislaus County, almond grower Sherman Boone is also protecting water quality by altering his cultural practices to eliminate the use of dormant season OPs and in-season pyrethroids to control key pests such as peach twig borer. Boone’s 170-acre Boone Farms is part of the Biologically Integrated Orchard System, or BIOS, which has been funded in part by industry groups such as Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), EPA and the Almond Board of California, to provide environmentally friendly, economically sound IPM approaches to pest, disease and fertility management.
As part of the BIOS system, Boone now uses bloom-time
sprays of Bacillus Thuringiensis and insect growth regulators, based on
regular pheromone trap monitoring, along with beneficial or parasitic insect
releases in late spring, to control peach twig borer and navel orangeworm
in-season rather than through traditional OP and oil dormant sprays and
calendar-timed hullsplit sprays. Good sanitation to rid the winter orchard of
mummies is also an important part of Boone’s IPM approach by reducing
overwintering pest levels the following year.
Stanislaus County almond grower Sherman Boone has eliminated dormant season sprays due to an integrated pest management approach of controlling peach twig borer through regular monitoring, in-season Bt sprays, and releases of parasitic wasps. (Photo by Marni Katz)
In the long-run, Boone says his conversion more than 10 years ago away from OP dormant sprays has helped provide paralleled control at similar costs by reducing the number of trips through the orchard and eliminating a $30 per acre dormant spray. In addition, as part of a selling cooperative of BIOS growers, Boone receives a 25-percent premium for his nonpareil almonds compared to conventionally grown almonds when he maintains certified BIOS practices.
Compared to organic growers, who also enjoy a premium but endure much stricter cultural practices, Boone can use synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides and non-residual herbicides on an as-needed basis, giving him the flexibility to maintain his environmentally friendly cultural practices while still spot-treating insect or disease flare-ups when necessary.
“We’ve got an ongoing monitoring program that allows us only to spray as needed,” he says. “The extra cost is in personal time. You spend more time in the orchard doing more monitoring, setting up pheromone traps, so you are more aware of what’s going on in the orchard at any given time.”
"Our ongoing monitoring program
allows us only to spray as needed"
--grower Sherman Boone, Stanislaus
County
In addition to reducing dormant sprays, Boone says managing a cover crop in the middles of his orchard also helps reduce offsite movement of pesticides, nutrients or sediments into nearby waterways. The clover and vetch cover crop also helps incorporate nitrogen into the soil to reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers.
Boone says knowing he had the use of OPs and other broad-spectrum control products in his back pocket should he need them helped give him the flexibility and confidence to try these softer approaches and maintain an IPM approach. He says softer programs help growers be better stewards of products like OPs and pyrethroids so the industry doesn’t lose their use entirely.
Boone believes retaining judicious use of dormant season spray options, such as organophosphates and pyrethroids, is necessary to provide growers the flexibility to take risks on softer approaches that, in the end, help protect water quality. (Photo by Marni Katz)
“It’s like a headache,” Boone says. “It’s better to relieve the source of stress that’s causing the headache in the first place, but it’s nice to know the aspirin is there to provide relief if you need it.”
Watershed Coalitions in the Central Valley (as of March 2004)
Region: Fresno County south to Kern County
Contact: David Orth or Mike Mendes (559) 237-5567
Region: Merced, Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Mariposa counties, east of the San Joaquin River
Contact: Parry Klassen (559) 325-9855 or Wayne Zipser (209) 522-7278
Region: Merced, Stanislaus, and Madera counties west of the San Joaquin River
Contact: Joseph McGahan (559) 582-9237
Region: San Joaquin County and Central/South Delta
Contact: John Meek or John Brodie (209) 946-6241, ext. 125
Region: North Delta, Sacramento County north to Siskiyou County
Contact: David Guy or Aaron Ferguson (916) 442-8333 or Ryan Broddrick (916) 852-2000