Changes in pest management practice in almond orchards during the rainy season in California , USA
In California, regulatory agencies are concerned about organophosphate (OP) contamination of surface water. OPs originate in part from applications on dormant almond and stone fruit orchards that are washed off during winter rainstorms. Programs conducted by the University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Project, University of California Cooperative Extension, and the Biologically Integrated Orchard Systems (BIOS), a coalition of public and private groups, have promoted the replacement of OPs on almonds during the rainy season with alternative practices. Data from individual applicator records from the California Pesticide Use Reports demonstrated that during 1992–1997, almond growers in all nine major almond-producing counties significantly reduced use of OPs. The area of almond orchards treated with OPs during the dormant season was reduced by 40–55%, depending upon the region. Similarly, the percentage of growers who used OPs during the dormant season was reduced by 31–48%, and the mass of OPs applied to almond orchards during the dormant season was reduced by 22–57%. During the same period, there was a significant increase in the percentage of growers who used “reduced-risk” treatments: the microbial pesticide Bacillus thuringiensisat bloom-time, oil without an insecticide during the dormant season, and no treatment during the dormant or bloom season. In addition to the decrease in OPs during the dormant season, there was a significant decrease in the area treated with OPs during the growing season. However, there was also a significant increase in the use of pyrethroids during the dormant season, a practice that might result in some surface water and sediment contamination. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Fifty years since Silent Spring.
Rachel Carson's 1962 Silent Spring exposed both observed and potential environmental and health externalities of the increasing organochlorine and organophosphate insecticide use in the United States post-World War II. Silent Spring was a critical component in a popular movement that resulted in increased regulation and the development of safer pesticides. Most changes in pesticide use in the global north have involved pesticide substitutions, although riskier pesticides remain in use. Many ideas in Silent Spring are compatible with the theory of integrated pest management (IPM), and IPM has been broadly embraced in the United States and internationally as a strategy for achieving least-use and/or least-risk pesticide use in agriculture. IPM is a politically feasible policy that purports to reduce pesticide use and/or risk in agriculture but often does not, except in extreme cases of pesticide overuse that result in negative agricultural/economic consequences for growers.
Concentration of amino acids in wine after the end of fermentation by Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains
Both quantitative and qualitative differences in the utilization and release of assimilable nitrogen by two wine strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (cerevisiae and capensis) under different conditions of oxygen were observed. These differences were influenced by the presence of oxygen at the beginning of the fermentation, and by the strain of S cerevisiae. The release of some amino acids post-fermentation may be the result of reoxidation of NAD(P)H in order to maintain a normal redox balance. Copyright © 2003 Society of Chemical Industry