Sac Valley Orchards

Renaud Travadon, Florent Trouillas, Alejandro Hernandez1 Department of Plant Pathology, University of California, Davis CA 95616 Kearney Agriculture Research & Extension Center, Parlier, CA 93648 Background In June 2024, a new foliar disease of almond, Red Leaf Blotch (RLB), was detected in Merced County. By the end of summer 2024, RLB presence was confirmed in six counties in the Northern ...

Franz Niederholzer, UCCE Farm Advisor, Colusa and Sutter/Yuba Counties Bad bloom weather – extreme heat, cold, or extended wet weather – can drastically reduce or eliminate commercial prune crops in the Sacramento Valley. Such bloom weather is a major economic stress to growers and costs California packers market share internationally, further impacting prune economics in this state.  What’s ...

Sarah Castro, Prune Cultivar Development Manager, Plant Sciences Department, UC Davis & Dr. Ted DeJong, Professor (retired), Plant Sciences Department, UC Davis The UC Davis Prune breeding program is currently promoting new, promising French-type selections whose harvest window spans 2 weeks before ‘Improved French’ to 2 weeks after ‘Improved French’. These French-types have a variety of harvest dates, ...

North Sac Valley: Jaime Ott, Orchard Advisor, UCCE Tehama, Shasta, Glenn, Butte Counties This year, full bloom in the northern Sacramento Valley was around March 23-25. Though we had average chilling this winter (72 chill portions by March 1st at the Gerber South CIMIS station), the weather heated up during bloom, with daily maximum temperatures around 85oF ...

The 2025 walnut pre-emergent herbicide demonstration trial is completed, and the results show strengths and weaknesses of 19 different herbicide treatments, applied either in February or March.