California seeks to help strawberry growers eliminate fumigants

California has come up with a plan to guide the research aimed at helping strawberry growers find ways to grow their plants without using fumigants.

The Department of Pesticide Regulation said it has released an action plan by the scientists and other specialists who form the Nonfumigant Strawberry Production Working Group. The plan prioritizes actions and research methods to control the pests that live in the soils of strawberry fields.

At stake is the state’s $2.3 billion strawberry industry, the DPR said. California supplies 88 percent of the strawberries grown in the United States.

One priority in the plan is for researchers and the community to discover, research and evaluate topics such as breeding genetic resistance to soil pests, soil microbes that can help plants stay healthy, improving nontoxic ways to eliminate pests and learning to use these methods in an integrated pest management plan.

Other actions include putting resources online, finding ways to lower the risks for the growers using alternative methods, helping them secure grants, finding new crop insurance and encouraging growers to use alternatives earlier.

One reason behind the urgent need for the plan. the DPR said, is that growers will no longer be able to use the fumigant methyl bromide to control pests after 2014. Meanwhile alternative fumigants use is also being increasingly limited.

The plan works with DPR’s $500,000 annual research grant program with the California Strawberry Commission to study alternatives to fumigants.