Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission’s Biologically Integrated Farming System for winegrapes

Dr. Clifford P. Ohmart

The Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission (LWWC) is a local marketing order consisting of all of the winegrape growers in California Crush District #11. The Commission was formed in 1991 by popular vote of the approximately 650 district growers who farm the 70,000+ acres of winegrapes in the district. It is the largest winegrape-growing district in North America. Over the past 7 years LWWC has developed a biologically integrated farming program for winegrapes. LWWC’s program has progressed through two major program stages: 1) grower outreach, which emphasizes grower education; and 2) field implementation, which entails working in the field with individual growers and specific vineyards. The program has been guided by a management team made up of district growers and pest control advisors, University of California Cooperative Extension researchers and extension agents, winery representatives, and staff from the Natural Resource Conservation Service.

Since its inception in 1992, LWWC has developed an elaborate grower outreach program that emphasizes farmer-to-farmer education and farm worker education. The program consists of dissemination of information on integrated farming practices to all LWWC members in printed material, such as newsletters, pamphlets produced by federal and state agencies, and LWWC reports. Furthermore, several different types of meetings are held throughout the year for Commission members and other interested growers. These meetings are: 1) breakfast meetings, which are informal, early-morning gatherings where growers and experts can exchange ideas; 2) half-day research seminars where researchers lecture to growers on the latest experiments on new integrated farming techniques; 3) neighborhood grower meetings which are held at growers’ houses to discuss, in very small groups, various integrated farming topics; 4) workshops for Spanish-speaking farm workers; and 5) field days that provide growers with ‘hands on’ training in integrated farming techniques. LWWC’s outreach program fosters continual grower interaction.

LWWC has carried out the second program stage of integrated farming implementation from 1995 to 1999. Much of the funding for this stage was provided by a Biologically Integrated Farming Systems (BIFS) grant from the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, funded in part by the US Environmental Protection Agency and California Department of Pesticide Regulation. 43 LWWC growers joined the BIFS implementation program, enrolling 60 vineyards as BIFS demonstration sites, totaling 2,300 acres. Many conventional farming practices were replaced with integrated farming practices in these vineyards. Furthermore, weekly monitoring for pests and natural enemies was carried out and vineyard inputs were recorded in a database so that summaries could be made at the end of each growing season to assess pesticide use patterns and level of BIFS adoption. For example, the total amount of insecticides used per acre in the BIFS vineyards decreased by 25%, the percentage of acreage treated with herbicides declined, the amount of sulfur used per acre declined, and there was over a 50% decrease in the use of copper-based fungicides. Furthermore, the amount of Simazine and Surflan used per acre declined, and the proportion of vineyards treated for arthropod pests declined.

A survey of the entire LWWC membership was carried out between January and April of 1998. The purpose of the survey was to evaluate the impact of the integrated farming program on growers’ attitudes towards integrated pest management (IPM) and on their farming practices since the program’s inception in 1992. The survey achieved a 47% (288 growers) response rate, making the data accurate within + 5%. Results from the grower survey show that LWWC grower outreach activities are well attended, provide useful information to the growers, and are important to the LWWC grower community. LWWC’s BIFS program has had a significant impact on pest monitoring and growers’ management practices. Overall, LWWC growers have a positive perception of IPM and there appear to be no major barriers to IPM implementation that cannot be overcome.

The results of the survey indicate that LWWC members are ready for the third stage of integrated farming implementation, which is area-wide adoption. A grower self-assessment workbook is being developed to implement this third stage. The workbook is designed to: 1) assist growers in measuring the level of adoption of integrated farming practices in their vineyards; 2) identify areas of environmental concern on their farms; 3) help growers determine which of these areas they would like to improve upon; 4) develop action plans to address these issues; and 5) help them implement these action plans. The workbook also contains reference material that will help in designing and carrying out their action plans. The workbook will be completed by January 2000 and will be introduced to the growers in a small workshop setting during 2000 and 2001.

Dr. Clifford P. Ohmart, Research/IPM Director
Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission
1420 South Mills Ave., Suite K
Lodi, CA 95242
Tel: (209) 367-4727
ipm@lodiwine.com

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