California sets $400,000 to promote safer, sustainable pest management

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) announced Aug. 25 more than $400,000 in Alliance Grants awarded to two projects that accelerate the transition to safer and sustainable pest management across the state.

DPR’s Alliance Grant program funds projects that promote the adoption of integrated pest management (IPM) strategies and practices in urban, wildland and agricultural settings through implementation and outreach. IPM is a tiered approach to pest management that uses the least toxic, effective methods to solve pest problems. This year’s Alliance Grant recipients are Jesse Roseman of the Almond Board of California and Dr. Jutta Burger of the California Invasive Plant Council (Cal-IPC).

“Alliance Grants directly support DPR’s vision to accelerate the transition to safer and sustainable pest management practices statewide,” said DPR Acting Director Julie Henderson. “We are proud to fund Mr. Roseman and Dr. Burger this year and will continue to invest in projects that foster IPM tools and practices.”

Roseman will use online mapping and social media to help smaller almond growers coordinate their mating disruption efforts against navel orangeworm (NOW), a major pest of tree nuts and citrus that is particularly damaging to more than 1.5 million acres of almond and pistachio trees across the state. Mating disruption involves using pheromones to confuse the NOW moths about the location of prospective mates, thus hampering their reproductive efforts. However, this pesticide-free way of controlling NOW works best in orchards larger than 40 acres. Roseman’s project will help smaller orchards coordinate their efforts to produce similar net benefits. Roseman’s project will receive $120,000.

Burger will receive $289,000 to further develop an online tool to help land managers select strategies for controlling invasive weeds in wildlands. It builds upon an existing online decision-support tool developed with 2018 DPR Alliance Grant funding for non-chemical approaches to invasive weed control.

Henderson is meeting at University of California, Riverside (UCR) on Aug. 25 to discuss the ongoing research projects supported by Alliance Grants over the years and what support is needed to continue to develop new tools and practices that prioritize sustainable pest management and IPM strategies. Since 2007, DPR has awarded nearly $6 million in Alliance Grants to 34 different projects, including several projects with UCR research teams.

For more information on past recipients of DPR’s Grants Program funding, or to learn more about DPR’s Grants Program and the IPM research, innovation, implementation, and knowledge-sharing that they support, please visit https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/dprgrants.htm.