Sustainable Winegrowing – Details, episodes & analysis

Will hybrid grapes help vineyards survive climate change? Professor Karine Pedneault of the Université du Québec en Outaouais explores this question through trials that expose grapevines to drought and heat stress. Testing both vinifera and hybrid varieties, her research measured plant water flow and metabolic responses to determine resilience. While hybrids still carry a stigma around flavor, they showed promising resistance, raising the potential to reduce fungicide use by up to half and adapt more sustainably to extreme weather scenarios.  

Resources:  

• 223: New Decision Support System for Irrigation Efficiency
• 213: High Resolution Data from Space Helps Farmers Plan for Climate Change
• Karine Pedneault 
• Karine Pedneault – Google Scholar
• Karine Pedneault - Instagram
• Karine Pedneault - LinkedIn
• Karine Pedneault – Research Gate
• Metabolic response of vitis vinifera and interspecific vitis sp. varieties to heat stress, water deficit and combined stress, using a metabolomic approach
• The organic vineyard as a balanced ecosystem: Improved organic grape management and impacts on wine quality 

Vineyard Team Programs: 

• Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate 
• Online Courses – DPR & CCA Hours 
• SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   
• Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year 
• Vineyard Team – Become a Member  

With fungicide resistance on the rise, grape growers are looking for new ways to manage powdery mildew. Lexi McDaniel, Viticulture Extension Specialist at North Carolina State University, explores the science behind using UVC light to combat this grapevine disease by directly disrupting the DNA bonds needed for replication. She shares insights from her trials, including why the light must be applied at night, how often it needs to pass through the vineyard, and how this technique compares to traditional fungicide programs in both cost and effectiveness. 

Resources:  

• 117: Grapevine Mildew Control with UV Light
• 197: Managing the Sour Rot Disease Complex in Grapes
• 219: Intelligent Sprayers to Improve Fungicide Applications and Save Money
• 235: Battling Fungicide Resistance with Glove Sampling
• 266: Soft Pesticide Trial: Powdery Mildew, Downy Mildew, Botrytis, and Sour Rot
• Field-Scale Ultraviolet-C Light Applications to Manage Grapevine Powdery Mildew
• Grapevine Powery Mildew UV-C Information
• Introducing UVC applications for powdery mildew control in grapevines
• Lexie McDaniel
• North Carolina State Extension
• Ultraviolet-C (UVC) Light Can Be a Powerful Tool Against Grapevine Powdery Mildew 

Vineyard Team Programs: 

• Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate 
• Online Courses – DPR & CCA Hours 
• SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   
• Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year 
• Vineyard Team – Become a Member  

Most of the world's wine grapes, like Chardonnay, Merlot, and Sauvignon Blanc, come from Vitis vinifera, a species prized for fruit quality but highly vulnerable to cold, pests, and disease. Assistant Professor Soon Li Teh of the University of Minnesota is developing new cold-hardy cultivars by combining traditional breeding with DNA technology—essentially 23andMe for grapes. His work taps into the resilience of native American species to improve winter survival and disease resistance. But it's no quick fix: the process from initial cross to cultivar release takes 18 to 25 years. Resources:        

• 135: Cold Hardiness of Grapevines
• 155: Sustainable Vineyard Management Across Different Climates
• 217: Combating Climate Chaos with Adaptive Winegrape Varieties
• Grape Breeding and Enology project website
• Grape breeding at the University of Minnesota
• Soon Li The, LinkedIn
• Soon Li Teh, University of Minnesota

Vineyard Team Programs:

• Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate
• Online Courses – DPR & CCA Hours
• SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet  
• Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year – Discount Code PODCAST25
• Vineyard Team – Become a Member

Cliff Ohmart, Principal of Ohmart Consulting Services reflects on his 40-year career in agriculture. Cliff seeded his career with a Ph.D. in Forest Entomology from Berkley University. He worked in forestry in Australia, as a Pest Control Advisor in Chico, with the Lodi Winegrape Commission, and at SureHarvest.

Cliff shares his experiences with sustainable winegrowing innovations including cover cropping, drip irrigation, solar energy, biocontrol, healthy soils, autonomous devices, and farm data management. Plus, he shares his number one tip for growers continuing on their sustainable journey.

Resources:

• 25: Under-Vine Cover Crops
• 27: 50 Years of IPM
• 130: The Biological Control of Vine Mealybug Using Mealybug Destroyers and Anagyrus Wasps
• Healthy Soils Playlist
• Sustainable Winegrowing Self-Assessment (SIP Certified)
• University of California Cooperative Extension

Vineyard Team Programs:

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• SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet  
• Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year
• Sustainable Winegrowing Education On-Demand (Western SARE) – Sign Up!
• Vineyard Team – Become a Member

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Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.  

Transcript

Craig Macmillan  0:00 

Our guest today is Cliff Ohmart. He is principal with Ohmart consulting services. And today we're going to talk about a little bit of perspective on what's happened in the past. And what's looking forward to in the future in the realm of sustainable wine growing sustainable crops just kind of in general. Thanks for being on the podcast, Cliff.

 

Cliff Ohmart  0:16 

You're very welcome, Craig. It's nice to be with you.

 

Craig Macmillan  0:19 

Just as full disclosure, Cliff, and I've known each other a long time. It's been really fun to see the things that he's worked on over the years, and his insights into kind of what's worked and what hasn't. So again, thanks for being on the being on the program. You've been involved in a whole variety of different crops and led different capacities over the years with different projects I've been with you see, I believe, and then also in the private sector, but how did you first get involved in this kind of thing? How did you get involved in sustainable farming?

 

Cliff Ohmart  0:45 

Yeah, I love that question. Because it wasn't deliberate at all. I was very deliberate in my education, I wanted to be a professor of forest entmology. So I got a degree a bachelor's degree in Forestry and Forest entomology and a PhD in forest entomology. And so basically, since it wasn't delivered, but unbeknownst to me, I got a very comprehensive education especially as undergrad in biology ecology, to pretty intensive program at the College of Forestry, Syracuse, and then going to grad school, again, insect ecology, Plant Pathology, things like that. And then I wanted to be a research scientist at a university. So the only job going at the time I got out was actually in Australia. So I spent 13 years as a researcher in forest entomology and again, but don't to me, all of this was really giving me a very, very solid background to get into ag. My family and I, after living in Australia for 10 years, to make a difficult decision to want to come home. And so I had two fellows that I went to grad school with who started an IPM company in Chico, California. Going to Berkeley for a PhD get a very strong background in integrated pest management. So IPM people, and that's how I got into ag and I was a pest control advisor for seven years. It was a very unusual company in that three PhDs doing PCA work.

 

Craig Macmillan  2:15 

That is unusual.

 

Cliff Ohmart  2:16 

Yeah, working, especially in the 1980s, early 90s is when I worked with them. So we were really out there, independent PCA company. So we charge for our services, we didn't sell products, the thing was that they are very big IPM guys, we worked in orchard crops, and we are all entomology type. So both insects and disease management, especially in almonds, had a great IPM program for almonds. So then being there led to a contract with the Lodi Winegrape commission to help them write a grant. And then if they got the grant, we would administer the grant for them in helping them develop their integrated pest management program for winegrapes. So we got the money, and I ended up in charge of that project. Interestingly, being such having such a strong background in pest management, I quickly realized compared to the crops I've worked on wine grapes at the time really didn't have, which I would what I would consider challenging pest management issues. Of course there was powerdy mildew, which people in Lodi were managing very well made sulfur applications. So all of a sudden, it's like, hey, why don't we actually focus on the whole farm. So using that IPM background of, you know, economically viable, socially, just and environmentally sound. Let's look at the whole farm. That's really how it developed. So very quickly, we started calling our program, a sustainable winegrowing program. And one thing led to another we developed a reputation for our progressive nature, quote unquote, progressive. You know, we were very practical farmers. So that's how I got into it. And I after the first year of working on that grant, they offered me a staff position. And I realized what a great opportunity, so I took it. So that's a long road to get to it. But what's interesting is, you know, that's we're talking about 30 years ago now. So I've been added a long time. But that's how I got there. It was for somebody that was so laser focused on what they thought they wanted to do. I never would have expected to get there where I ended up but of course, it's been fantastic because you know.

 

Craig Macmillan  4:30 

It's all about the journey. Yeah, you know, most of the most of us end up in places we never expected.

 

Cliff Ohmart  4:36 

That's one of our mantras in Lodi is sustainable farming is not about crossing the finish line. It's about journey. And because you're never going to be there, you know, it's very almost Zen.

 

Craig Macmillan  4:48 

Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah. Well, I have my own perspectives on this, but this is why I wanted to have this conversation with you is you know, when you go back and you look at something like let's say 30 years ago, you know, there were certain farming practices in different crops and some have applied across crops that came along. And the science was starting to show that there was some potential. And then some of them were adopted by different types of growers and others were not some became kind of industry standards and others kind of did not. And again, you can think across crops, you know, what were some of the things that you saw that came along that seemed absolutely crazy at the time, that ended up being widely adopted.

 

Cliff Ohmart  5:20 

I can't think of anything that I thought was crazy. Now. Crazy, but you know, this is the advantage I had kind of from the research community in the background, I had learning how to talk to growers who have lots of important concerns. But interestingly, the thing that got me early in the early days was cover cropping in wine grapes, and how if there was one, no matter what project we did, and we did things like develop that self assessment workbook, all around sustainable wine grape growing, that was the one topic that I would get in the most arguments over me, it seemed like such a no brainer. But me back to my orchard days up in Chico, because of where they were and the rainfall they had. There was a natural cover crop in all the almond orchards and they mowed it. And then of course, scientific methods was the name of the company that clients down around Fresno, and down there, everything just got tilled, and floated. All of that. And I could never figure it out. And of course, some of its rainfall. But then when I started working on winegrapes, it was clear my interpretation was It was literally like a tradition you till as soon as you can in the spring and get this incredible. And of course Lodi had these amazingly deep soils, trying to convince growers that there's all these great reasons for growing cover crops was a long, slow battle. And what I always chuckled about was, oh, Napa, we grow cover crops, you know, and I'd go over there in the middle of summer and there was bare dirt everywhere. Thank you found that there's something cover crops. I understand if you plant them that cost a lot of money, whatever. But yeah, so that was the one thing. The thing that I've seen happen over time, of course, is so many people now and I'm thinking of orchard crops, especially but wine grapes were they were using drip irrigation pretty early. But now so many orchard crops have them, whether I don't think growers necessarily thought it was a crazy idea. But for various reasons, it took a while for that to really catch on. And yet, it's such an important way to manage your water as well as crop health. The other thing, being a data guy because of my research background, the sort of high level I would call it convincing growers that measure to manage is really the best way to farm sustainably no matter who you are talking to a natural organic farmer, because they felt like they were doing great stuff. They were just as bad as not managing and measuring stuff as the conventional because they felt like they didn't really need to. So we're talking about very the thing that got me in my early days, I developed computer software system, using barcodes for company in Chico. And it really was in the early days I laptop in my truck got barcode readers for data collection, because we collect data sheet we gave growers data sheets every week. And it was all about this measure to manage when the first software companies started to SuoeHarvest was one of the earliest to come up with farm data management systems. It didn't get widely adopted. And I asked myself, and I think it's because in those days, growers weren't doing a lot of measuring to manage. Now, I think, you know, growers, because they're on site all the time, they have incredible wealth of experience in their head. I learned very quickly that what's in your head, and what you think you're seeing may not be exactly what you have what's really going on based on what you're measuring. So that was one, you know connected to that is, over time, autonomous devices for capturing data. And weather station was one of the first soil was one of the next and over time, you know, and those are those costs money. And so over time, I've seen more and more that now. I think we've actually reached the point is companies are selling things to growers that a set of ahead of its time. I'm worried that growers are getting ripped off in a way some growers depending on what they're buying from companies so but this measure to manage I think over time has really changed things and then things like solar. I think in the early growers would have thought boy, that's crazy. One thing I enjoyed about wine grape growing wine growers seemed more willing to adopt new things. So like solar really started catching on for pumps especially. And now I think it's more and more Common, and then things like measuring moisture stress with pressure bombs. I can remember in my forestry days, so we're talking about back in the 60s and 70s. Growers well, bark beetle people were measuring moisture stress in pine trees. But they had pre dawn moisture, which was so bad about the vineyard in the middle of the day, they had to go out when it was dark, because they were looking what trees are stressed or not. But it's the same idea. So all of a sudden, people started coming up with using pressure bombs in orchards and vineyards, again, around irrigation, all good stuff. And so I saw that Come on. And then coupled with this as well is just this whole, clearly farm workers are still underpaid, but things gotten you know, more and more growers are paying health care, more and more growers are paying for time off. I've seen that change again, 30 years ago, I think growers would have thought that's crazy stuff.

 

Craig Macmillan  10:59 

And in that tradition, and that idea of like, I just physically can't I would love this, but I just there's no way well, let's let's see if we can find a way also in terms of tradition and mindset friend of mine, before those rules came into practice, he got ahead of the game and he sat his main people down, he said, Okay, listen, we're gonna go to a 40 hour week, I'm gonna give you a raise. So you have the same wage weekly, the workers were really upset. And they said, Hey, you're taking days away from me, you're taking work away from me. And he says, No, I'm not what I'm doing is I'm giving you a weekend. And I'm giving you, you know, a life, you know, plus, complying with the law, he showed people math and try to explain it. And he was really in he was really frustrated. Because, you know, these were his his managers, these are his supervisors. And these are really smart people, really sharp people. But that change to the culture was just, you know, scary. And I think that that's true for a lot of the things we've been talking about. I remember talking about cover crops friend of mine farmer and going back to like the 90s, early 90s. What was it called was cover cropping and vineyards, I think was the name of the book. It came it was I think it was a SARE book, came out.

 

Cliff Ohmart  12:07 

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chuck Ingles and others.

 

Craig Macmillan  12:11 

Yeah, exactly. He also I think he also did Steel on the Field, maybe. So okay, people getting interested. Here's how you do it. Okay, now we're going to help you. And here's the crops, and here's how they grow and all that. So it was it was available. And so people were starting to get into it. And so this friend of mine who hadn't been doing it was starting to do it. And I said, Well, how's it how's it going? And he goes, Man, I don't know. He says, I feel like I'm farming two crops. And I was like, well, you are. But is it that bad? Is it that hard? Over time, they figured it out. And he actually told me that he said, I spent my whole career cultivating weeds. And now you want me to grow plants? Like that just doesn't make any sense to me. And I got it. I understand that. Like if you spent your whole career trying to knock stuff down. Now you're asking me to build stuff up? You know, it's tricky. I think we're still now working with adoption around some of these things. Cover crops, I think are widely widely widely used in the wintertime and vineyards. You see that's kind of common practice now wasn't in the past, you kind of relied upon native vegetation, but we are still tilling things under. And all of the science is showing. And we're doing tailgates and podcasts and articles and all over the place, not just Vineyard Team all over the place, about hey, you're really eliminating your soil life when you do that. And I wanted to get your opinion on that. Because this idea of soil health, I had never heard that term up until five years ago or so. And then suddenly is like, oh healthy soil, it's all about soil. But are you doing the things that you need to do to do that? And to get those benefits? What kind of experience have you had around that?

 

Cliff Ohmart  13:44 

Negativity on that concept? It just I think so happened to the personalities involved came from actually a soils person was resistant. They thought this concept of the word health was just crazy when it came to soils. And this is a soils guy. And we just in the end agreed to disagree because we did put all of that in our original workbook back in 1999. Growers for state just, if anything, they get that that's been my experience. It's just that depending on what you want them to do like adding compost if they can or can't afford it. And I think it was more the academics but I think that's changed as they've gotten more used to the term this one person still will not use the word soil health, but it's become accepted now because I think it's been defined. And then on the scientific side, the to me, one of my regrets I don't have very many but my biggest regret is not getting into soils. I had a sales class in forestry school, but I was not interested in below ground. I was interested in the bugs. And in the end when it came to consulting and ag that been my biggest  deficiency, I don't really understand the geology of soils. And what I've getting for sure is the science behind what's going on in the microbial communities, the interaction between microbes and plants, and the quality of the soil and what's going on in the soil. It's so important. And I think more and more growers are just realizing it, even though again, I'm worried that the commercial side is getting ahead of it selling inoculants and this and that, I think, we're not quite there yet. But we're learning the soil scientists are doing a great job, I think helping us get up to speed on what's really going on.

 

Craig Macmillan  15:41 

Yeah, absolutely. I'm, I'm on a journey myself, right now, about the last two years I've been on this crash course into soils and to soil microbial communities that because I had no background that, you know, I wasn't really interested in what was happening above the ground. And I was interested in, I was primarily interested in insect pests. And then I got more interested in diseases. And that led to nutrition which led to irrigatoin. And this is the piece I'm kind of learning about. Now, it seems like if you're really interested in sustainable farming, no matter who you are, what your crop is, to me one of the limitations, and I want to see what you think about this, one of the limitations is you say, Okay, I'm an expert. Now, in almond farming, I'm an expert in wind grape farming. Now I've got to become an expert in soil microbial communities. You know, now I have to become an expert in soil, geology, impair material, you know, I mean, every topic that comes along, I now have to I have to go back to school again, that to me is an interesting one, because I find people seem to embrace it. And I find people who seem to be resistant to it, mostly because they don't have time or energy to do it. What has been your experience with folks? Are there certain kinds of different types of people that are more willing to invest the energy? How much? How much energy? Do people have to invest in these kinds of things? Is that a limitation?

 

Cliff Ohmart  16:51 

Yeah, I think where I think, if anything, we're I've seen the biggest challenges with small growers that are basically owner operators, and they don't have any help, really, and and they I think, are really time constrained. But I think the real answer to your question is, this is where Cooperative Extension comes in. If you've got the right people writing the right educational materials, you can distill it so that a grower can take information and apply it. I don't have any proof. But I think for definitely some people that say, I don't have time to get into this, they use that as an excuse. They just don't want to deal with it. I understand that part because farming is very complicated. One of those guys, I work with a longtime Kent Reeves as a wildlife biologist, he helped us in Lodi for years. And his great saying was, farming is not rocket science, it's harder. So getting your hands on the right educational information, if you're a grower owner operator, is the secret. Now, if you're a large grower, and I've seen this, they hire people, and it's getting more and more sophisticated, as large growers are doing so they have the opportunity to hire a soil scientist PhD level. And then most people can really dive into it. And then, you know, they have a management team where they can sit down and integrate what what they've got. It's an issue for sure. Time. You could literally spend all your 24 hours a day worrying about doing stuff around the farm. But it's back to the cover crop thing back in the old days. The thing you probably know Steve Mathiason. Yeah, well, in the early days, he and I worked together for four years in Lodi, and he had this he felt that he call it recreational disking. You know, or people just wanted to get out of the house. So they got discked, you know, and we don't really know if that's true. But growers do want to do things, their program. And I saw that in my early days as a PCA, particularly when it came to spraying for insects is convincing them you don't have to do something today, because they're programmed. And so again, back to your thing about I think it can be a crutch, oh, I don't have time to get into soils or whatever. But the other the flip side is that is convincing me. So much of my experience, especially in orchards and almonds was, look, I know it's hard, but don't do anything right now. And that's how you save money. And it really is, you know, I think for insects spraying you can really make good cases for that.

 

Craig Macmillan  19:31 

I agree. And I think that for the folks that I've seen who have implemented certain kinds of practices over the years, they find that it actually is a savings because they're their vineyards are more balanced. So there's less kind of adjusting maybe that they need to do especially if you can get your irrigation dialed in. If you get your nutrition in to where you want it, there's less manipulation is required. You can get your cost down because you're only putting on kind of what you need. I mean, I think we found out the hard way that we have a tendency to put on more inputs than you necessarily need to be putting on because I need to do something, right? I need to take care of these plants, I need to feed them, I need to water them all of which is true. The question, the question is, do you just put out a buffet of cookies for your kid? Or do you control what they eat based on what you know about nutrition? Right, that kind of that kind of a thing. I think the same is true for what you've mentioned, the time and the knowledge part of it. We have lots of great education stuff out there. And that doesn't take that long to read. And there's also lots of other professionals that can come and talk to you, or folks that you hire that can take on a lot of that I've met, I've been very, very impressed with the quality of knowledge and education of young pest control advisors that are coming out of the universities. Now. They have a very strong grounding in sustainable ag. So they see the world a little bit differently. I think one area that I wanted to ask you about, because it's near and dear to my heart, and I think it is teasers as well as biological control in vineyards.

 

Cliff Ohmart  20:57 

Yes,

 

Craig Macmillan  20:58 

Yes. I'll start the conversation. This part of the conversation this way I was talking to I actually interviewed was talking to a person who manages an insectary. And they said to me, what is wrong with you guys in the Central Coast? When I say What are you talking about? I sell a ton, a ton about control agents in the San Joaquin Valley. And I can't sell hardly anything on the coast. And I don't get it. And my first response was, Well, maybe the pest pressures are different this and that. And he says, no, no, no, I, I'm familiar. Yes, there's some differences. But like these, they just don't seem to like believe in it, which I thought was an interesting observation. Because as a sociologist, my backgrounds in sociology also is like, Hmm, I wonder if there is something cultural going on there? Or if there's a group adoption thing, I feel like we've kind of stalled out what is your take on the state of insect biological control right now in wine grapes?

 

Cliff Ohmart  21:54 

I actually don't have a feel for what the state is right now. What I thought you're going to ask me is, what is my view on it?

 

Craig Macmillan  22:03 

Let's do that.

 

Cliff Ohmart  22:04 

Yeah, and I do have something to say. This is where my academic training especially at Berkeley, you know, that was a hotbed of control scientists, when I was there as a grad student, Robert VandenBosch, probably being the most famous. I went through this very interesting, Berkeley, and it was a huge Entomology Department when I went there. And the concept in Berkeley overall was natural enemies, regulate insect populations. And you have to be very specific, using IPM. And disease management is a whole different ballgame. As with diseases, if there there you, you're behind the eight ball, insects, you can watch them and wait. And then when I went to Australia as a research scientist, there was a school and the weight Institute in South Australia. And they felt that the environment controlled insect populations, not natural enemies. It was the classic academic thing of we're right, no, we're right. And in reality, if you study a particular insect, some insects are controlled by the environment, and others are controlled by natural enemies. So my view about bio control is not all insect populations are controlled by natural enemies. It depends on the insect and it depends on the situation. And so it's a great opportunity for insect trees to flog stuff to people. Because you know, who doesn't want biocontrol for work? The danger of bonafide control is if you're going to use insects, you need to be out there measuring and seeing if it's really helping or not, because you put out natural enemies and you don't have a pest problem, and it may not be related to them at all. Unfortunately, it's very complicated. My guess is there's probably more being agents being sold and used than ever before. Partly because some growers realizing this is important. To me, it's really, you know, things like spider mites definitely are controlled by not only the plant but also their natural enemies. Vine mealybug, again, is very much controlled by natural enemies depending but you've got ant situation. So look at these to me in each specific case. And then of course, the other thing with with natural enemies, of course, is you don't want a natural enemy that's so good. That wipes out your pest population, because then...

 

Craig Macmillan  24:33 

...It goes away. But it's kind of the problem, isn't it? I mean, the original IPM paper from 1959 It's an economic injury level. It's an action threshold, there's some damages it's tolerated and and things like wine grapes will actually on all the all of the fruit vegetable horticultural crops. So you know, aesthetics is huge. I mean, statics is the whole deal. So you really can't tolerate stuff which makes these other techniques kind of tough. That was just exactly where I was kind of gonna go with This is that sometimes we can find a situation where biological control and release of biological control agents might work really well is an augmentative, then there's also conservation. And if we can think along those lines, if we can think along those lines, that helps balance everything out, as well. That's an area where I think that we can see some adoption, probably there's more room for growth, I don't want to sound like you've been critical of growers. I think I in my career have seen amazing commitment to innovation in the wine industry. I've seen people take on all kinds of things that again, the science didn't says it, say, oh, it's crazy. But people were like that, to me, sounds kind of crazy. It's too dangerous. You're gonna lose crop, I'm gonna lose yield. And then but there have been these companies that were like, hey, you know, we're going to trial this and see that if this works, if there's information that gets out, do you feel like we've made progress in sustainable ag, especially in vineyards? Are we have we improve?

 

Cliff Ohmart  25:55 

I very much think so. It's a slow process, again, for all sorts of reasons that we've touched on some we haven't. But yes, I do believe, especially in wine grapes. And I think in orchard crops as well, the which is were my experiences, I just don't have a feel for for row crops, really. But yes, I think we've come a long way.

 

Craig Macmillan  26:20 

In the area of sustainable ag in the future sustainable ag especially in vineyards, is there one piece of advice or philosophy or idea or concept that you think it'd be important for growers that are what would be the one thing you'd say to a grower this about, hey, sustainable ag is really cool. But...

 

Cliff Ohmart  26:36 

Well, one thing I would just bring up this measure to manage and just remind them, no matter what it is, it's as simple as you know, how many growers really have a way to measure how much water they use on an annual basis in a given venue? You know, do you have a flow meter on your pump. And I still think that's the case that some people don't. And then the thing that we were touching on it, I didn't mention, so many of the things that we you and I've talked about, just bring back memories of why this is so difficult. One of them is, you know, it's can sound like we're really being critical of growers, which of course, if you're trying to work with a grower to help them, you don't want to sound like you're saying, Why are you doing this? And I used to come up with various ways. How can you get this across? And so when we developed the self assessment workbook, for example, what that does is it helps you, in the privacy of your own home, identify very specifically things you're doing or not doing. But I tried to remind people look, I said, How would you feel if someone knocked on your door and said, I don't like what you're doing in your backyard. And I'm here to help. You know, it's all partly it's about the approach. And then back to resistance. I'm a big believer in perception of risk versus real risk. And I think all of us as people, and you touched on it, about irrigation, and about fertilization, and about spraying. It's like, if I don't do this horrible things are going to happen. Again, I would just introduce it's a very high level concept. But have people say, Is this a perceived risk? Or do you think it's a real risk? And how do you know if it's real or not. And of course, this comes back to measure to manage. And again, I would try to come up with various very simple parables of why this is so difficult. And it had to do with spraying because you know, so many people, it's like, growers just spray. And of course, growers don't jump out of bed in the morning say, What can I kill today?

 

Craig Macmillan  28:46 

No, they just don't. That's a thing. When around pesticides, people are like, Oh, growth, you're just looking for a pesticide to use. Yeah, but no, I don't want to do that, right. No, I do it because I think I have because I have to I'm not doing it for fun.

 

Cliff Ohmart  28:58 

And as a PCA, especially in my early days spraying and reduce spraying was what we were trying to accomplish when it comes to insect spraying or disease spraying. When you don't spray, you'll learn one of two things. Gee, I wish that I did. If you don't spray and something bad happens that tends to hang with growers for years. Or the other thing you're learning is, boy, I'm glad I didn't. And that's when you realize, Wow, this is why things take a long time to evolve. And it wouldn't be the same for irrigation or nutrient. You know, if I don't put on my nitrogen, my crop yields can be down and it comes back to risk it growers that are interested in sustainable farming, but growers are risk takers. But I think there's a lot of perceived risk, as opposed to try and really get grips on what is real risk or not. So I would talk to a grower about that. And that's the kind of talk you'd have over a cup of coffee or a cup of tea in the office. But I think it's really something really for growers to think about and that doesn't make them sound Like, they're terrible. We're human. We all go through that.

 

Craig Macmillan  30:04 

Absolutely. And there's a lot of responsibility. I mean, that's the other thing, you know, no matter what says the operation is the you know, it doesn't matter. It's the, it's the farm. It's all on your shoulders, don't screw it up.

 

Cliff Ohmart  30:16 

And it's all financed, usually. And then I'm thinking we were talking about this labor and growers paying more in this and that and of course, one of the big budget items now on in farms is labor. And so people trying to mechanize. But if you actually back up and look at other industries, it's the same. Unfortunately, we, we meaning you and I work expense. And so again, it's not that growers are being terrible people, it's they're dealing with it as as is everyone else is just the farm. And one of the things that really was eye popping, I got I was fortunate to be on the workgroup that came up to this sustainable pest management roadmap recently.

 

Craig Macmillan  30:57 

Oh, right. Right.

 

Cliff Ohmart  30:59 

That was an urban as well as AG. And one of the things that I think growers need to know is there are more pesticides used in the urban environment than in the ag environment. By pound more pounds of pesticides. And yeah, who's the enemy? The farmer? Why? Because regulations make it a requirement that we know what they use.

 

Craig Macmillan  31:27 

Yeah, no, that's true. That's it. And I think that also is a challenge for us ag, when we look around at other industries, for instance, or we look at other uses, or we look at other things, and you're like, Hey, man, I gotta do all this stuff. Like, there's all these things that I have to do that you don't have to do, you know, and and measure to manage is another good example of that is, you know, we have tools to do it, we can do it. I mean, yeah, Flow Meter cost a little bit of money. And you got to monitor it. I mean, that's the other thing, you got to look at it. I mean, that's, that's my job big. Well, I do a lot of things. But part of my job is like I during the summer, I watch our water. And if things don't make sense, I jump in and say, Hey, what's going on? You know, homeowners are not necessarily doing that, you know, other businesses are not necessarily doing that. And I think is a societal level, I think the trend is going to have to go that direction, because the resources are just going to get scarcer. Hope that you will agree, and this is kind of where I want to bring things around is would you agree that that we've seen a lot of progress? would you also agree that maybe we've seen some changes in philosophy over time, and I don't just mean from younger people coming into the business, but just folks who've been farming for a long, long time changing kind of how they think about things?

 

Cliff Ohmart  32:35 

Yeah, I think for sure, I definitely know individuals where that's really happened, which is great. You know, I would hope I would have changed over time, because of what I know. So yes,

 

Craig Macmillan  32:47 

Yeah, I've changed over time. I'm just much more bitter.

 

Cliff Ohmart  32:51  

Yeah. One thing that, you know, given that I've been doing this a long time, there's some things that don't change about and one of the things and it came up during this sustainability roadmap, we had a, after it came out, I was sitting on a panel, one of the growers in the audience and older grower, somebody my age, basically said, you know, regulations are putting me out of business. It's no fun farming anymore. But I heard that 40 years ago, and I said that I was a little worried because I didn't want to sound I don't know, I just didn't want to sound too confrontational. But I said, Look, I have to say something here. I understand what you're saying. I really understand what you're saying, But, I heard this 40 years ago from someone that 40 years ago was older. And at that point, I said, Look, grow. Growers are innovative people. And we have to innovate.

 

Craig Macmillan  33:56 

But no growers are adaptive. Yeah.

 

Cliff Ohmart  34:00 

And it's up to us. And this was going back to the pest management roadmap. It is up to all of us to do better. And yes, it's hard. It is hard.

 

Craig Macmillan  34:07 

But but we can change. We can make progress. We can reduce our inputs, we can protect the environment, we can make life better for people. It's all good. We're going in the right direction. So and I'm really I'm really happy to have you bring that perspective and some of those stories to this topic. We're out of time for today. We could go on for hours and I look forward to it at some point. Having dinner with you. Swapping stories, I would love to have a series on on this just on and on and on and on. But unfortunately we can't I guess today's been Cliff Ohmart. He's Principal of Omart Consulting Services. Thanks for being on the podcast Cliff.

 

Cliff Ohmart  34:42 

You're very welcome.

 

Nearly Perfect Transcription by https://otter.ai

With heightened awareness of climate change, pollution, and environmental depletion, it's no surprise that nearly 6 in 10 consumers are willing to change their purchasing habits to help reduce negative environmental impacts (IMB Institute for Business Value, 2020).

Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday with SIP Certified. We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer-form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry, these twice-monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable winegrowing so you can show your customers that you share their values.

Energy efficiency is about using less fuel and energy to perform the same tasks and get the same results. When a business makes energy-efficient changes, they combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.

There are several ways a sustainable wine business can make energy-efficient improvements. Read on to learn how at Center of Effort, many small changes around the winery compounded to have a massive impact on their overall energy use.

Energy Efficiency at Center of Effort

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Center of Effort sees this clearly when they look at the tremendous energy expense savings they have realized since making Energy Efficient improvements around their winery:

·         Energy time-of-use adjustments on their cooling system, wastewater aerators, and other heavy energy usage equipment.

·         Implementing night-air cooling of barrel rooms and case goods storage areas to minimize HVAC use.

·         Investing in a small chiller enabling them to bring tank temperatures down on select tanks rather than the entire plant down.

·         Installing a quickdraw door to address insulation loss.

These are just a few of the areas in which they took action to reduce their energy demand.

"A lot of the changes were pretty simple and had varying impact, but all together it compounded into very meaningful differences," says Kevin Bargetto, Associate Winemaker at Center of Effort. He continues, "With these changes, our entire winery facility, tasting room and offices are entirely solar-powered. In fact, we are running net negative, meaning we are even sending generated power back to the grid!"

Their solar project went live back in 2016, and Nathan Carlson, Winemaker and General Manager, says that it "showed 100% ROI over 4 years, no problem."

Your brand contributes to a higher standard of wine business through its sustainable practices.
You can take pride in the way your brand protects the people and the planet. When you tell your customers what it takes to make a sustainable wine, they will share in that satisfaction.

We are here to help you tell your customers how your brand protects natural and human resources with the Sustainable Story worksheet.

This simple yet powerful free tool helps you tell your own personal sustainable message. And it just got better with a new online course.  Go to the show notes, click the link titled Tell Your Sustainable Story to sign up, download the worksheet, watch the videos, and you are ready to tell your Sustainable Story!

Until next time, this is Sustainable Winegrowing with the Vineyard Team.

References:

• *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course ***
• Marketing Tips eNewsletter
• Niner Wines Estates protects the people and the planet
• Safe Pest Management: Wolff Vineyards
• SIP Smart Training online course
• Sustainable Story Worksheet | Print
• Sustainable Story Worksheet | Electronic
• What's your Sustainable Story?
• SIP Certified
• Vineyard Team

Looking for a tool to help you make irrigation and Nitrogen application decisions? How about one that will not cost you anything? Michael Cahn, Farm Advisor, Irrigation and Water Resources at the University of California Cooperative Extension in Monterey County explains a valuable software for farmers – CropManage. This free software from the University of California combines a wide variety of data inputs to help growers make accurate and timely irrigation and fertilization decisions based on crop-specific models. The tool aggregates data from the University of California at Davis Soil Web, weather stations, evapotranspiration, and satellite imagery. Plus, it can be integrated with a farmer's existing software.

CropManage has been ground-truthed in more than 30 field trials. While the product started in lettuce, it has expanded into vineyards. Your vineyard can be a beta tester to help improve this software for the wine industry.

Resources:

• 115: Examining Plant Nutrient Mobility with SAP Analysis
• 116: Using Nudge Theory to Improve Irrigation Practices
• 139: Vineyard Irrigation Scheduling
• Adapting wine grape production to climate change through canopy architecture manipulation and irrigation in warm climates
• CropManage
• "CropManage CropManage Application for Vineyard Irrigation Decision Support." 73rd American Society of Enology and Viticulture National Conference, San Diego CA
• Michael Cahn's email
• Monterey County UC Cooperative Extension

Vineyard Team Programs:

• Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship – Make a Gift
• SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet  
• Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year
• Sustainable Winegrowing Education On-Demand (Western SARE) – Sign Up!
• Vineyard Team – Become a Member

Get More

Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.  

Transcript

Craig Macmillan  0:00 

Our guest today is Michael Cahn. He is Farm Adviser in irrigation and water resources with UC Cooperative Extension Monterey County. But he also works in other counties as well, as I'm sure we'll talk about. And today we're going to talk about a system a decision assistance system for a whole variety of crops called CropManage, which is free and available online. And I've been following for quite a few years. In fact, he was a speaker at one of our Sustainable Ag Expos a few years back, and at the time, I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. And I can't wait to see how it develops. Welcome.

 

Michael Cahn  0:29 

Well, thank you for inviting me.

 

Craig Macmillan  0:31 

So first of all, what exactly is CropManage? Well, it

 

Michael Cahn  0:35 

is an online decision support tool that's sort of in a nutshell is how we describe it. It's essentially software that takes information from different sources, puts it through some crop models, and provide some recommendations on how long to irrigate your crops. It also for a number of crops, provides decision support on nitrogen management.

 

Craig Macmillan  1:03 

How did this all come about? This was a really interesting project, there's a lot that goes into it, what was the genesis, the idea behind this?

 

Michael Cahn  1:09 

The start of CropManage was in lettuce a number of years ago, we're trying to help growers be more efficient in nitrogen management. Nitrogen, as most of you know, in its mineral form, which would be mostly nitrate, is very mobile in the soil. So it seems like if we're going to manage nitrogen accurately, then we also have to manage water. So they go to hand in hand in hand. Of course, I work in irrigation water management. So I also had the interest in just using water efficiently on the Central Coast, because of our limited water supplies. You know, we could use nutrients more efficiently and water more efficiently if we had some sort of decision support tool. When I started working with the vegetable growers. I often asked them, you know, how are you making decisions on irrigation? How long to irrigate when to irrigate? And you get a variety of answers. But essentially, it came down to the experience of branch managers in irrigation farming, sort of passing that information down from one irrigator to another irrigator. One farm manager do another farm manager. And by the way, this happens at vineyards too, you know, so the question was, well, okay, are they you're getting efficiently. And so, as I started out as a farm advisor, my first question was, how do we measure how much water we apply, you have to remember back when I started, wasn't so easy. The flow meters we had available for these propeller meters, they're often inaccurate. And then to record derogations, there was no output, you couldn't hook them up to a little computer or data logger. So that came later. But once they did start monitoring water use growers, who found that if you base it on crop ET, they're putting on 200, 300% of crop at the estimate. And so, so the question was, who's right, you know, is the crop ET right or are they right? So then we start doing trials, saying, well, let's just follow this crop ET and see if that would work. It worked, you know, we never reduced yields in lettuce. So we kept the soil still with adequate moisture. At that time, it was like a spreadsheet model that we used. At the same time, we were working on nitrogen management using the soil nitrate quick test to evaluate mineral island in the soil.

 

How are you measuring Crop ET back then? We're estimating it, I should say.

 

Yeah, it's still the same way as we do it and CropManage, we developed crop coefficients. And that was a big question of growers, what is my crop coefficient, and there seemed to be a misunderstanding of that, because they thought it was one number like point seven, one, and then you use that with the referencing ET value that comes from usually a CIMIS station that California irrigation management information system. Well, it's not one number. It's based on really the fractional cover over the ground. So how much of the ground is shade by the use in in lettuce? This changes tremendously, you know, over a season, it goes from essentially no cover to full cover to about 90%. And so then the question was, okay, no cover here, but I need to irrigate Right. So we do have water loss from the soil by evaporation. So we have to model that too. So that all goes into the crop coefficient calculation. And we have that in our spreadsheet model. We based it on published work that was done in the Silicon Valley by my predecessor, and other people, that model worked fine. So it wasn't a model, I necessarily came up with the innovation was just trying it out. And validating it. That's what we did, then, you know, we got grower interest. They said, Yeah, we'd like to use this type of model for water management. We also were interested in nitrogen management using the soil nitrate quick test. And so another aspect to what we did was look at, well, how much nitrogen does a lettuce crop need as you go through the season, and we did this by brute force by harvesting lettuce at different stages, and analyzing how much nitrogen was in the above ground biomass. And that gave us the demand side of the equation. So so now we want to put it all together, and the grower interest was there. So we realized, you know, if a grower was going to use this spreadsheet, it would be a little cumbersome, because think about how many separate plantings there are on our ranch, lots of them. That's a lot of spreadsheets to keep track of. So we wanted it to be in a sense a database database that we available to a grower online. So that was the idea that we have a web based decision support tool, so it holds all the data. So once you enter it, you don't have to re enter it. There is some upfront cost and time when setting up your farm or ranch on CropManage. But once it's set up, only if you make modifications do you have to enter anything.

 

Craig Macmillan  7:01 

Now there's a lot of inputs that go into this, I was looking at the landing page for the CropManage Site, can you tell us a little bit about all of the different parts and pieces of data and information that go into into the system?

 

Michael Cahn  7:08 

Essentially, you're giving crop manage some information about your ranch. So all the different fields that you have, we need to be able to refer to them. So you set that out, and you associate a soil type with that, because we do have models of water holding capacity in the soil. It's based on the soil texture. Now because it is web based, we can use other tools to help you set this up. So fact crop manage links to UC Davis soil web. So you click on a Google map, find your field, you click on it and the soil type comes up, you can always modify the values there. But we bring those in, you don't have to know to use CropManage, you have to associate CropManage with some weather data. So there's the option to use the near CIMIS weather station, you can use multiple CIMIS weather stations, there's a spatial CIMIS option, which is a hybrid of satellite and weather stations. So it brings in the referencing ET data will also bring in rainfall data from the CIMIS station. Because we are working with fertilizers, you can make a customized list of the typical fertilizers that would be used at that branch. And so there is a list there. You can choose from, you can enter your own specific fertilizers that you use. Also, you'll see a place where you set up your commodity lists. No sense in having information pop up about lettuce if you don't grow lettuce.

 

Craig Macmillan  8:52 

Exactly. And vineyards are part of the system now. Is that right?

 

Michael Cahn  8:57 

That's right. They're in the experimental phase. And if you want to activate it, you'll see in your profile place where you check experimental commodities. And that's because we're still developing the nitrogen model for vineyards. So it's good to use for irrigation management, not put to use, for nitrogen management. We're working with other UC Davis specialists on the nitrogen.

 

Craig Macmillan  9:22 

You're gonna have a hard time with that. Trying to get a handle on the demand side of nitrogen for vineyard stuff. I've worked on that as a as a writer. And yeah, that's that that's gonna take some work, but I'm glad that it's part of the idea. I think it's super important. I think it's something that people have overlooked. I think we've been flying blind as far as nitrogen and vineyards goes, we've gotten better in the irrigation side.

 

Michael Cahn  9:45 

Right, right. And that's what I'm learning is the vineyard people have no agreement on a lot of these things. One of the things one of the purposes of crop damages. Well, first pivotal is public, right? It's developed by the University, it takes our science and tries to make it more available to practitioners by having the decision support models are based on our research. And as we do research, we can update these models, but also, as practitioners use crop damage, they can tell us we oh, this doesn't work, right, you know, you need to investigate X or Y. And so for developing new hypotheses or directions in our research, it's useful that way, too. So it's a two way street, I should say.

 

Craig Macmillan  10:44 

How is this going with adoption? Why is it how's it going with communication from growers back to you? Are people picking this up? Are they giving you back the kind of feedback that you need on the growers side, how can we help you?

 

Michael Cahn  10:55 

So for the vegetables, it's getting adopted by growers that are ready to really implement better water and nutrient management, not saying all growers adopting CropManage, but we do have growers who, and some growers, they're saying, Yeah, this is the direction we want to go. And they're in the phase of figuring out how to get it adopted on their growing operation. Because it's one thing where someone at the top or management wants to adopt it to another thing to get your irrigators to adopt it. So that's the hardest part. And then the same with the strawberries. In some ways we've been even more successful were, they were the strawberries. And then in vineyards, while we're, you know, in the beginning stages here. And so right now, what we've been doing is we have beta testers, essentially, vineyard growers that are saying, Yeah, I'm interested, what we do is we put a flow meter on a block in their vineyard. And one of the nice things about crop manages, it can take sensor data into it, just like a lot of those tools out there that are sold to, to vineyard people for soil moisture monitoring, we can also bring soil moisture, data flow meter data in you can observe it and crop manage. So we've outfitted a few vineyards in the Salinas Valley with that, and some in the Central Valley to see what CropManage estimates and terms of water use and what growers are putting on. 

 

Craig Macmillan  12:39 

Yeah, and if they tell me a little bit more about the one thing that I love about CropMnage, it's science based. And it's also ground truth. So as you've gone along, you've you've done the background work you've come up with, Okay, this looks like something that would work in terms of figuring out Kc and things like that. But then you actually have spent the time and the energy and whatnot to actually ground truth of the decision assistance model against reality, right?

 

Michael Cahn  13:05 

Yeah, we haven't done vineyards in the way I would love to do it, which is not just compared to what a grower standard practices, but go beyond that, where we have some pre arranged treatments in compared to those treatments. So for example, vegetables, we've done replicated field trials, seeing broccoli, where we apply 50 7500 and 125 and 150% of the recommendation, then evaluate the yield. Like to do this in vineyards, that is trickier. It's a perennial crop, so you'd have to run it for several years, really, to see, you know, really what the outcome is.

 

Craig Macmillan  13:50 

You have other variables along the way things like crop management or dropping crop they're changing cropping styles through pruning and whatnot, year to year during canopy management. I found that to be particularly tricky. If you're thinking about idea of percent cover. If you've got a California sprawl and everything's flopping all over the place then works. You push everything upright. And now you don't have as much shade, but you still have the same amount of leaves. So doing those kinds of estimates is tough. Yeah, definitely. It's on the fly. But I believe he can do it. I believe in you.

 

Michael Cahn  14:23 

Well, we'll see. Maybe beyond my career, but someone needs to do it.

 

Craig Macmillan  14:30 

Do you still need beta testers?

 

Michael Cahn  14:32 

Sure. Yes. Because the more feedback we get, the better and there's different levels of they could do for the most intensive is where we put you know, a flow meter on and some soil moisture sensors. They want that in the field, and then they can follow, you know, how much water they're putting on. And what this means in terms of soil moisture, what CropManaged recommends We also take canopy photos, to adjust the canopy curve for how they're managing the vineyard. We also import automatically satellite estimates of canopy that comes from a NASA product called SIMIS satellite irrigation management system.

 

Craig Macmillan  15:20 

Which is really cool, by the way.

 

Michael Cahn  15:22 

Yeah. And this year seems pretty accurate, you know, very close to our estimates with ground truth, measurements of canopy. And that's going to be compared with opening ET, which is a satellite based estimate of ET, actual ET again, the nice thing about these web based tools is you, the user don't have to go to all those different websites, we can bring that data in automatically in the parts we need for your decision support, we just pull that out, you don't have to search through different places in websites to get what you want.

 

Craig Macmillan  16:00 

Yeah, I like the way the system is, or the way the interface is structured. It's a great dashboard. It's easy to navigate around, it gives you great information easily, which is wonderful. I think I already know the answer to this question. But what would you say is the number one advantage, or the number one benefit to a grower, no matter who they are, of using CropManage?

 

Michael Cahn  16:23 

I guess the number one benefit is they have a better understanding of really the water and the nitrogen management over a whole season, just at their fingertips. For perennial crops, you can see what you did year to year. So the record keeping, I would say, is a big benefit. Even if you don't follow any of the recommendations, just keeping records is extremely useful.

 

Craig Macmillan  16:49 

Measure to manage.

 

Michael Cahn  16:50 

Yeah, it's been very useful for me, in my research, it's like I built this mostly out of self interest in the sense. You can imagine if you were trying to help people doing irrigation, you need to know how much water they're applaying. And so here we have a tool where I can give them feedback right away, how much water they're applying, I used to have to calculate all those ET measurements, or estimates by hand. Well, this software does it. So it's a great extension tool. It's a great way for me to figure out who there's a gap in knowledge, and that I need to do research on. So it's helped in many ways. We have a number of farm advisors that also develop the interests of crop manage in different parts of the state. And so it's sort of the idea is spreading, I guess, you see.

 

Craig Macmillan  17:44 

Yeah, exactly. I hope that it doesn't happen spreads amongst growers. What is the one thing that you would tell growers on this topic, broad topic?

 

Michael Cahn  17:54 

Well, this broad topic of water management of vineyards, there's a lot of different opinions. What I see, at least in the Salinas Valley, is growers, you know, they they stress those vines a lot, a lot more than they realize a lot of their decisions come from watching the vines and how the tendrils are, you know, how they're growing. And they don't want too much canopy, so a pullback on the water. But it could be that at some point, sir overstressing the crop. And so having good sense of how much water stress that crop is experienced would be something I would like to investigate more.

 

Craig Macmillan  18:36 

Especially if you're going into a hot spell. You know, I mean, it's one thing you Oh, hey, these vines, we want to keep the very small, we want to have stress in this. And then suddenly, next thing, you know, it's 10 days of 105. And it would have been nice for that plant to be in a little better shape going into that. But how do you know, right? That's philosophy versus prediction versus technology. But this is a great tool to help you with that.

 

Michael Cahn  18:57 

Right. And so one feature I better talk about in the development for vineyards is you can decide what percentage of potentially ET you want to apply to your crop for each irrigation. And if you enter the amount of water you applied, or the hours you applied, we have another part of crop manage called the saltwater balance. And it will actually calculate how the soil profile will look you know, in terms of depletion of moisture, and we've calibrated that pretty well by using soil moisture sensors. For example, one vineyard we did last year, outfitted with soil moisture sensors and in ran this and it was pretty obvious from the soil moisture sensors, you know, they really depleted the lower part of the profile, you know, by July and it just never went up even with each irrigation they waited up the top foot but you know there was as much moisture down deeper. And so, you know, the soil water balance showed something very similar. We showed this data the grower, and they said, That is not what we wanted to do. We want to keep some of that deep soil moisture. You could use this as a tool to help you understand just how much you are stressing the crop.

 

Craig Macmillan  20:21 

Where can people find out more about you and CropManage in general?

 

Michael Cahn  20:24 

Well, we have on our website, help link, which has tutorials as introduction to CropManage, we do crop manage workshops. Usually during the winter time, where it's hands on, you bring a computer, or cell phone or whatever you want to interface with CropManage. And by the way, you don't need a computer a desktop computer, or laptop computer to use CropManage, it works just fine in tablet. And it's definitely meant to be used with a smartphone out there in the field. Because the interface reconfigures for the different screen sites. It is used in a web browser environment to be recommended using Google Chrome or Safari attending our workshop. And we also say, you know, call it the crop manage hotline, which is my office, and I'll leave us with some contact information.

 

Craig Macmillan  21:24  

Perfect, but we're about out of time. I want to thank you Michael. Like I said, this has been a long, long road to get to this point. And I'm very happy to see the progress that's been made. And I'm happy to see that it's still going. This kind of work needs to be funded. And I know that you relied partly upon donations, and I hope that our listeners will put a couple of bucks in the hat somewhere to keep this going. We appreciate it. But it's a fantastic idea and a fantastic amount of privacy all made. Our guest today is Michael Cahn. He was former adviser for irrigation water resources UC Cooperative Extension Monterey County and other counties. Thanks for being on the podcast.

 

Michael Cahn  22:01 

Thank you for having me.

 

Nearly Perfect Transcription by https://otter.ai

It's here! The simple yet powerful tool to help you and your staff tell your Sustainable Story – the brand new, 30-minute online training course.

Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday with SIP Certified. We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer-form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry, these twice-monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable winegrowing so you can show your customers that you share their values.

When asked about the importance of sustainability in a variety of industries, over 80% of respondents said it's important in food and beverage, according to Morning Consult's 2022 Sustainability Report.

Sustainability is being talked about more and more these days. We hear from our members that they don't always know how to communicate sustainability effectively.

That is why we have created the Sustainable Story online course so that you can learn what it means to be sustainable, how sustainability adds value to your wine, and how you can use storytelling to sell more wine.

At the end of this 30-minute course, you will have written 7 examples of sustainable practices unique to your band. These themes are based on SIP Certified's 7 values: Social Responsibility, Water Management, Safe Pest Management, Energy Efficiency, Habitat, Business and Always Evolving.

To inspire you, we share a variety of examples of each value plus a story from a SIP Certified Member.

Use your Sustainable Story during your tastings, sales calls and meetings, newsletters and Wine Club handouts, social media, and even during casual conversation when you're talking about where you work.

We encourage you to complete this course as a team so bring together your viticulturalists, wine maker, general manager, sales, marketing, and tasting room staff. Knowing what makes your brand, specifically, sustainable, will help elevate your customer experience, and can even help increase your sales. Sign up for the course to learn how!

Getting started is easy, click the link titled Tell Your Sustainable Story in the show notes to sign up, download the worksheet, watch the videos, and you are ready to tell your Sustainable Story!

Until next time, this is Sustainable Winegrowing with the Vineyard Team.

References:

• *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course ***
• Marketing Tips eNewsletter
• Niner Wines Estates protects the people and the planet
• Safe Pest Management: Wolff Vineyards
• SIP Smart Training online course
• Sustainable Story Worksheet | Print
• Sustainable Story Worksheet | Electronic
• What's your Sustainable Story?
• SIP Certified
• Vineyard Team

RNA Interference, known as RNAi, is a biological process that leads to the silencing of gene expression.  A lot of plant viruses are RNA viruses including grapevine leafroll-associated virus and grapevine red blotch virus.  Yen-Wen Kuo, Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis is researching ways to induce RNAi in grapevines to target virus. Growers may have heard of double-stranded RNA sprays which are intended to initiate RNAi. The challenge has been that double-stranded RNA breaks down quickly in the elements. The Kou lab is working to improve this process and look for alternatives that will have little impact on the ecology.

Resources:

• 71: New Techniques to Detect Grapevine Leafroll Disease
• 131: Virus Detection in Grapevines
• Abstract: Development of Agrobacterium tumefaciens Infiltration of Infectious Clones of Grapevine Geminivirus A Directly into Greenhouse-Grown Grapevine and Nicotiana benthamiana Plants
• Kuo Laboratory – Plant Virology
• Maher Al Rwahnih, Foundation plant services
• RNA-Based Vaccination of Plants for Control of Viruses
• Yen-wen Kuo's Google Scholar page

Vineyard Team Programs:

• Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate
• SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet  
• Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year
• Sustainable Winegrowing Education On-Demand (Western SARE) – Sign Up!
• Vineyard Team – Become a Member

Get More

Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.  

Transcript

Craig Macmillan  0:00 

Our guest today is Yen-Wen Kuo. And she is Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at UC Davis. I'm Craig Macmillan, your host, and I'm very excited to have Dr. Koh here with us today. Welcome.

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  0:11 

Thank you for having me.

 

Craig Macmillan  0:13 

So you've been doing some interesting work the lab on interference RNA, and also how it affects plant viruses and possibly insects in the future. Can you explain for those of us that did not take genetics like we were supposed to in college, what interference RNA is and how it works?

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  0:29 

Sure. So RNA interference is a biological process in which certain types of RNA RNAs can trigger RNA interference. And then once it's triggered, it will produce specifics more RNAs, that can regulate gene expression, by degrading or binding to the target RNAs containing a homologous sequence containing a similar sequence of those small RNAs. So this is a general concept of RNA interference, we also call it RNAi is very complicated the whole process. And there are different pathways and mechanisms included in the RNA interference. RNAi is a primary and effective antiviral defense in plants, but also found in some fungi and insects and lower eukaryotes. And because of all these different mechanisms, scientists and researchers, they they work on different aspects of this mechanism for either plants or animals. And they're also looking for different potential and better ways to use RNAi for different applications.

 

Craig Macmillan  1:45 

So if I understand correctly, you have cell and there is DNA in that cell, and there's genes that code for certain things. And so the RNA is was transmitting or was carrying information from that's encoded with the gene out into the world to do something, is that a fair explanation?

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  2:05 

So the genome there in plants or animals and human is their DNA genomes is DNA, and then the DNA will transcribed into RNA. And those RNA, some of the messenger RNAs can translate into proteins. So it's a how the central dogma from DNA makes RNA and then RNA makes protein. In the old days, we thought that oh, the protein is the important things because the protein can have different functional, different functions in different ways to to regulate everything in the body or in different organisms. But then afterwards, we found that actually RNAs they have many different forms and they can function at the RNA level. So it can interfere with gene expressions and many different things.

 

Craig Macmillan  3:03 

And how does this apply to plant viruses because you've done some really exciting work with Gemini viruses, I believe with grapevine virus a Tell me a little bit about that work and how that works.

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  3:15 

A lot of plant viruses, they are RNA viruses, a lot of those devastating viruses in grapevines, for example, grapevine leaf roll associated virus or grapevine red blotch virus they. So grapevine leaf roll associated viruses and RNA virus and grapevine red blotch is DNA virus. So there are different types of viruses. And so my work is trying to use different viruses making them into viral vectors to induce RNAi in Grapevine plants, to target those important viruses causing diseases in the field for the grapevines. And because so for example, when the viruses they are infecting plants, they will trigger RNAi in the plant, so that plants can protect themselves from virus infection. And because of that, we're trying to develop viral vectors can trigger RNA interference to target those viruses that's causing diseases. The work I have on the grapevine Gemini virus A that GGVA is to either develop the virus into viral vectors to target RNA virus first. So that's the initial plan for us to use. GGVA the grapevine Gemini virus A target grapevine leaf roll associated viruses. So before we eventually target that virus, we have to do a lot of different tests. We need to know if the clones the constructs or DNA constructs we have of this, GGVA can actually affect Gravelines plants, so we have to do that. And then we want to see if we can develop it into viral vector to carry the sequence we want them to express in grapevines to do the work we want them to do. So then we use it to target genes in the plants to see if they can silence the genes in the plants. So then we did that, we found that yes, we can use that viral vector to silence genes in plants. And then now we try to see that if we can use this viral vector to target other RNA viruses, or other grapevine RNA viruses, because we are actually at the same time developing different viral vectors, and one of them is GBA, is grapevine virus, a another's name, it can be very confusing. GGVA is a DNA virus. GVA is an RNA virus totally different to viruses. So since we have both viruses in the lab, so first, we try to prove the concept. We use the GGVA, the DNA virus, to target the GBA wild type virus, to see if we can see any effects. The GBA infection viral titers in the infected grapevines. So this is what we're working on right now. And so eventually, we want to use this viral vector, and potentially other viral vectors to to target grapevine leaf roll associated virus. And maybe we can use it to target mealybugs too.

 

Craig Macmillan  6:35 

How are these vectors introduced to the plant?

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  6:38 

We modify from the previous reports how people try to deliver those constructs the plasmids into grapevines. Most of the experiments or the assays, from before, they needed to have grapevine plants grown from in vitro, on media or from embryos. But that's really a lot of work. And it will be harder to have applications in the field. So then we develop vacuuming filtration method that we can directly vacuum infiltrate those plasmids that those DNA construct plasmids directly into the greenhouse grown grapevine plants. So those plants are propagated from the cuttings and then those plants, they are usually maybe 12 to 19 inches high above the soil when we infiltrated those plasmids into those grow vine plants. So this is an we got pretty good results, we successfully introduced those DNA constructs into the grapevine plans and those constructs can be infectious and initiate the whole the virus replicate in the grapevine.

 

Craig Macmillan  7:50 

So is this something that can be done in a nursery then with new plants? And basically, they then would come with the vector or is it something you could do in the field?

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  7:57 

Yes, I think the plan is that we can introduce those plasmas in the nursery in greenhouse plants before we plant them into the field. So then the plants that's planted into the field, they can have this viral vector to protect the plants from specific viruses.

 

Craig Macmillan  8:18 

Got it. That's really neat. That's a great idea. And it's pretty cool. So that's fantastic. And in the work that you're doing so far, it sounds really exciting. And it sounds like the direction that you're kind of going in the future is with leaf roll virus that you mentioned. And then also, interaction with mealybugs you mentioned. Can you tell me more about that? What's that work all about?

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  8:39 

Because this virus does GGVA and other viral vectors we're working on to a lot of viruses infecting grape vines, their phloem limited virus, so this GGVA is also phloem limited, meaning that the virus is can only infect the tissues around or in the phloem  is restricted. It doesn't go to like mesophyll cells or epidermal cells in infected plants, because mealybugs they feed on phloems. So we think if they can pick up those RNA interference signals, may be those RNA interference signals those small RNAs can target mealybugs too. So we can choose different target sequences in mealybugs. Hopefully you can see some effects for many bucks to to prevent that from transmitting viruses or have lethal effects for mealybugs. That's the plan. Hopefully we can do that. But we have to do tests to see how the efficacy and everything though it can have mealybugs, because there are previously they are different studies they use RNAi on insects, and many people prove that they can see some effects. We hope that the viral vector approach can also use for really apply this into the field for grapevine plants.

 

Craig Macmillan  10:00 

What kind of index on insects are we talking about?

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  10:03 

Depends on what target genes or sequences we choose. For my first choice, I would like to have a target that can prevent the transmission of the virus by mealybug, that will be my choice. I'm not sure if it's good to kill the insects, if it's going to affect the ecology too much. So if we can make the mealybug not transmitting the virus or other diseases, I think there will be a very good first step if we can see a lower transmission rate. And and then we can see if we need to adjust from there.

 

Craig Macmillan  10:40 

That is amazing. And we haven't, yeah, the little bit of research that I did we have we do have proof of concept basically on this in other cropping systems. Is that right?

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  10:55 

Yes,

 

Craig Macmillan  10:55 

Can you tell me a little bit more about that, because that might give us some some vision of where we might go in the vineyard industry.

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  11:01 

So, the RNAi applications, people are already trying to do some of those works. So, one example is that before people can spray double stranded RNA into the field. So, let me talk a little bit about the introduction of why using double stranded RNA. So, there are different types of RNAs that can induce RNA interference, certain types, one of them is double stranded RNA, either double stranded RNA or the single stranded RNA, they can form into a secondary structure in folding into a structure like a hairpin RNA, those are found to be able to induce RNA interference. And there's also other things like artificial micro RNAs, there are different types of RNAs that can induce RNAi and most convenient ways to make double stranded RNA. And people have been synthesizing the double stranded RNA or using bacteria to produce those double stranded RNA and then spraying to the field to get some protection for the plants. It worked at some level, but it's just not stable enough. Although double stranded RNA is more stable compared to single stranded RNA, steroids and RNA can be degraded in the field with the sun and everything the whole environment it can be degraded, people started to look for ways like bio clay to protect the RNA, and then so, they can spray in the field. So, the RNA can last longer and cause the effects. So, those double stranded RNAs can be absorbed by the insects, they can pick up from the surface of the plant or the plant can absorb those double stranded RNA into the plants. So, those are different ways and people started to see some effects on that, but still, we have to improve those different methods delivering double stranded RNA or other types of RNA to induce RNA interference in the plant. So, they are different different approaches. So, one of that is now we are trying using virus to introduce the RNAi to induce the RNAi in the plants. So, people are trying different ways to deliver those specific RNAs to induce RNAi to target specific diseases, sometimes not just viral diseases, that they will try to target fungal disease or something else and insects. This is what many different groups they are trying to do also previously, another way is to try to make transgenic plants. So if we can make plants to express those RNAs that can induce RNAi targeting to specific diseases, then you don't need to really use any tool to the deliver because the transgenic plants itself can produce those RNAs doing to induce RNAi plants. So that's also another way that people are trying to do we call that host induced gene silencing HIGS, and the virus induced gene silencing is the way my group is working on and we call it VIGs vigs. So there are different ways that which we would use to introduce those RNAs to induce RNAi in the plants.

 

Craig Macmillan  14:31 

And right now you are at the greenhouse stage, if I understand correctly.

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  14:35 

Yes.

 

Craig Macmillan  14:36 

Have you introduced mealybug into your experiments into your work yet?

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  14:40 

Not yet. We are just working on targeting grapevine virus first to see the effects. So where we have to continue monitoring those tested plants to see if the effects can last long, and the efficacy and how good they can be. So now we're at four for five months, so it's still we can see the targeted virus is being suppressed in a very, very low titer. So GVA can cause some symptoms in the grapevine plants when they see the plans are infected. But we have to peel off the bark to see the symptoms, we want to see that after targeting to the GBA virus, we saw that the viral titer is very low, if we can see that, also, the symptoms is not there anymore, is now like wild type, when when the virus was infecting in the plants alone, if we can see the difference, we don't even see the symptoms there will be really great. And this part, hopefully I can collaborate with the collaborators, Maher, he's run the foundation plan services, he can help my group on this, to see that how good the effects can be using this GGVA viral vector. So after that, if we can successfully target two different viruses, then we will start to work to change the target sequence in this viral vector to target mealybugs. So that's after the virus work.

 

Craig Macmillan  16:12 

Yeah, well, that's very exciting. This is a really fascinating idea, and obviously is still relatively new. And I think it's really great that you and everybody else is working on this sounds like there's tremendous potential, and I hope that you folks continue on are able to continue on, is there one thing really related to this topic, you would tell growers one thing that you would advise them or you would educate them with?

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  16:34 

I understand that there could be some concerns and maybe doubts, questioning RNAi applications in the field, because before, they already probably heard about the spray of double stranded RNA or other methods, and they saw some effects but not stable enough. So they may have some concerns or doubts, I think many scientists are trying different delivery methods that can be applied efficiently in the field. And we will do different types of tests and trials to make sure we work on any potential issues of this technology before applying them in the field and try not to affect the whole ecology or anything in the field too. And obviously, the current approaches we have are not enough to keep certain grapevine diseases, at low enough incidence. So we have to explore more potential control approaches before those diseases get worse, and adjust the ways to manage those different grapevine diseases with this changing environment. And I think hopefully, we can all work together to achieve this same goal. And I understand this is something new, I hope everyone can keep an open mind and willing to work with us to do different trials and see if we can improve different approaches to control different diseases.

 

Craig Macmillan  17:58 

Well, I hope so too. grape growers are very creative. And they're always looking for solutions to their problems that very much fit what you're describing. And it sounds to me, this could be another tool in the IPM toolbox that may not be the single solution may not be a silver bullet. But it sounds very exciting that it may play a very important role to improve the efficacy of other techniques we have, which is great. Where can people find out more about you?

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  18:22 

So because I will, setting up my lab, so hopefully I can have a lab website soon. I don't have accounts at Twitter or Instagram.

 

Craig Macmillan  18:34 

Neither do I.

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  18:36 

I don't use social media a lot. So my email that people can reach me through the email. And hopefully, when this is up or in your podcast, I will have my lab website set up so people can find us our work, my lab website.

 

Craig Macmillan  18:53 

And we will have links and everything else that we can find posted on the episode page at the Vineyard Team podcast website. I want to thank you for being on the program. This was really, really interesting and is a kind of a view into the future of what's possible. Yeah. Our guest today was Dr. Yen-Wen Kuo. She is with the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California Davis. And I want to thank you for being on the podcast.

 

Yen-Wen Kuo  19:20 

Thank you for having me on the show. I really appreciate this opportunity to talk about research to explain some details about our work to the course and hopefully, I answer some questions that growers might have. I look forward to in the future maybe collaborating with different people to make this thing to work.

 

Nearly Perfect Transcription by https://otter.ai

The proportion of regular wine drinkers willing to pay more for sustainable wine has significantly increased in the past two years (IWSR, 2022). Your customers will only know that your wine was made sustainably if you tell them!

Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday with SIP Certified. We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer-form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry, these twice-monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable winegrowing so you can show your customers that you share their values.

Using storytelling to share with your customers the specific things your brand does that are sustainable and why they are important (i.e. telling your Sustainable Story) helps make it clear that yours is a business that truly walks the walk when it comes to caring for the people and the planet. It builds an emotional connection and fills gaps in consumer knowledge of sustainability.

Plant and animal pests are a common issue for all winegrowers. Read on to learn how in an effort to conserve water and promote plant health, Jean-Pierre Wolff of Wolff Vineyards discovered a unique pest mitigation strategy!

Safe Pest Management at Wolff Vineyards

In 2017, Jean-Pierre Wolff decided that rather than replanting his vines on the same rootstocks, he would convert to drought-resistant rootstocks and plant them three feet into the ground.

Deriving inspiration from an African palm farming technique, Jean-Pierre uses PVC pipes to deliver water and nutrients directly to the root zone. There is no wait time for the nutrients to be pushed to the roots, and no water is wasted through parts of the soil that contain no roots.

Along with the tremendous water savings resulting from his deeply planted vines and subsurface irrigation technology, Wolff has discovered an "indirectly obvious" benefit - fewer weeds!

Since water and fertilizer are applied through PVC pipes that lead directly to the root systems 3-feet underground, native and noxious weeds with shallow roots can't access these resources, and therefore can't thrive.

Vertebrate pests have also had little success in establishing themselves in these areas since they don't typically dig to the depths at which the roots lie.

Does Your Team Know Your Sustainable Story?

Need an easy way to help your team talk about your sustainable practices?

Download the brand-new Sustainable Story worksheet. This simple yet powerful free tool helps you tell your own personal sustainable message. Simply download the worksheet linked in the show notes, complete it with your whole team, and keep following along with this podcast series to learn how to incorporate your story into every aspect of your marketing and sales.

Plus, we are inspiring you by sharing what like-minded brands are doing to care for the people and the planet. 

Worksheet for Print | Worksheet for Electronic Filling

P.S. We have a brand-new online course coming soon! In just a few weeks, you and your staff will have access to a free 30-minute Sustainable Story training that will teach you how to explain sustainability, coach you through writing your own Sustainable Story, and show you how talking about your good work can help sell more wine. Stay tuned.

Check out the show notes to download and complete your own Sustainable Story worksheet, read an example from Niner Wine Estates, to see the consumer segment infographic, and to sign up for our biweekly Marketing Tips newsletter.

Until next time, this is Sustainable Winegrowing with the Vineyard Team.

References:

• **SIP Smart Training online course
• Marketing Tips eNewsletter
• Niner Wines Estates protects the people and the planet
• Safe Pest Management: Wolff Vineyards
• Sustainable Story Worksheet | Print
• Sustainable Story Worksheet | Electronic
• What's your Sustainable Story?
• SIP Certified
• Vineyard Team

When it comes to labor and employment, the best thing that you can do is be proactive, says Anthony P. Raimondo, Attorney, and Founder of Raimondo Miller A Law Corporation. Anthony covers the importance of accurate, individualized timekeeping, not just a work schedule. Today, there is software that supports both employers and employees. Right from your tablet or smartphone, you can track clock ins and outs, verify that the employee received their breaks, and even provide telehealth. Anthony provides an update on current union laws, what you need to know whether you use a management company or farm labor contractor, and how growers of any size can stay up to date with recent laws. 

Resources:

• REGISTER: 7/14/2023 Pre-Harvest Safety: Train-the-Trainer
• Amendments to California Agricultural Bargaining Process Per Governor's Agreement with Unions
• California Alters Union Process for Agricultural Workers
• Raimondo Miller A Law Corporation

References: Vineyard Team Programs:

• Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate
• SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet  
• Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year
• Vineyard Team – Become a Member

Get More

Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.  

Transcript

Craig Macmillan  0:00 

And with us today is Anthony Raimondo, he is an attorney and founder of the law firm of Raimondo and Miller in Fresno, California. And we're going to talk about some legal and regulatory things that are affecting growers all over the nation in the west coast and local states. Thanks for being here, Anthony.

 

Anthony Raimondo  0:15 

Thank you for having me.

 

Craig Macmillan  0:17 

You've been interviewed and have written and have appeared widely and have had a number of interesting insights. And there are a couple of things that I picked up on from looking at when your interview is that I really for me, it spoke to me personally, because I was in the vineyard side of things for a long time. And that's the issue of timekeeping. I'd love to talk a little bit about the kind of exposure legal exposure that a grower might have around timekeeping, which on the surface sounds like a very simple thing and in the field turns out not to be a very simple thing. And also what kind of practices a grower might get into trouble for what some ways growers can protect themselves? What kind of what kind of experience do you have in this topic?

 

Anthony Raimondo  0:49 

It's something that we deal with quite a bit, we deal with both the compliance aspect of things kind of that front end planning of how do we do things to stay out of trouble. But we also deal with the defense side, a lot of the litigation that's going on right now is class action or collective action litigation, where you have one or a couple of workers who stand in for the entire workforce, over a period of years alleging a range of different wage and hour type violations. And a lot of those things really come down to timekeeping.

 

Craig Macmillan  1:22 

Gotcha. Now, what we used to do back in the day was people would show up, and the management would show up, and we had a clipboard with an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper. And we sign people in and check them off. And then we basically looked at our watches and said, Okay, we're starting at 9:05. And then everyone at work, then we check what time we came back for lunch, etc. It seems like that would work perfectly well. But we did have some issues with folks along the lines that that kind of disputed how accurate that was, or those are the kinds of things that get people kind of in trouble kind of backward, or what's the source of some of these complaints?

 

Anthony Raimondo  1:56 

Well, those things have for a long time been in place and have for a long time have been an issue and a lot of it comes down to accuracy. So when you have what we call a daily cruciate, which is very traditional way of keeping a field where like you say, on a clipboard or something similar, we have a list of people's names. And you know, maybe the upper right corner, we have a start time and a stop time and everybody's name gets filled in on that list, with the total number of hours. And if there's piecework what units they produced at, et cetera. Well, way back in time, one of the very first lawsuits I dealt with in my career in agriculture was in a table grape operation, where they had a similar method of timekeeping. But what they actually did is they would cut the bottom off of one of the grape boxes, and the former for the crew would flip that over and draw a grid on the back of it, write, everybody's name on it, and would write the in and out types, as well as grid information and the total hours for each worker. So everybody had the same in and out time, because it was all being kept collectively. And in a deposition of one of those foreman, the plaintiff's attorney asked the foreman, how he prepared these cardboard time records. And he said, Well, you know, we come when the crew arrives, I get there a little bit before the crew and I draw the grid on the back, you know, I write the start time, and I write the stop time. And it was a very big aha moment for the plaintiff's attorney, because, of course, what she honed in on is that he's writing that start and stop time before any of those happen. Right? Because he's writing the start and stop time at the beginning of the day, what he's writing is the schedule of the crew, not the actual events that happen, we really need to have individualized time records, right, because somebody always shows up late, somebody always leaves early, having a crew of 10, 15, 20, 30 people where everybody has the same in and out time, really isn't terribly reliable, because it might generally be so that this is what happened here. There are they work together, they work the same. But as I mentioned, people show up late people leave early, somebody gets sick, somebody gets hurt, these things all happen, where those individual variations are what led to the accuracy of it, and also those records being kept contemporaneously. And what we've seen over the years, this accelerate in recent years, which I'm happy about, is the increasing use of technology as a solution. And I really think one of the most important thing for growers to do is to embrace technology as a solution. And it's not just about the legal compliance aspect of things. Some of the timekeeping solutions they have out there are fantastically advanced now. So, you know, we can have foremen now keeping time on a tablet. We have in some of the types of ag operations I deal with. We have harvesters who have individualized, it's almost like a nametag that they wear where they're in and out time can be kept visually, there's like it's like an electronic pen. They swipe that with the clock people in and clock people out there in and out times for their meal breaks recorded. We have devices where employees can clock in and out individually by cell phones if their smartphones. And by the way, a lot of those can be used for other types of risk management, a lot of the software that's out there now will ask the employee when they clock out at the end of the day, did you have any injuries today? Did you get your meal period today? It's your rest period today. They can be programmed to answer a series of questions that deal with a lot of our risk management issues not only related to things like Wage and Hour liability, but related to workplace safety related to workers compensation, this technology can have a multitude of different benefits, I have one client that I represent, and more started to do this sort of thing, who has even gone to using remote technology, what they really found, like medical triage out in the field. So they have a telemedicine link set up with a monitor out in the field where if a worker is injured, or report some type of illness or injury, they can actually connect remotely to medical providers who can evaluate that injury very quickly. And a lot of times, what they've done is they've reduced their workers comp claims, because they can deal with the small things. First Aid incidents out in the field which aren't reportable to workers comp, rather than the treatment gets delayed, response gets delayed. And then something that could have been dealt with as a first aid accident in the moment now becomes a medical visit down the road, which just creates cost for everybody. So there's a lot of technology out there as an industry need to embrace.

 

Craig Macmillan  6:21 

That's really interesting, because I think that actually is a benefit for both workers and for management.

 

Anthony Raimondo  6:25 

Absolutely.

 

Craig Macmillan  6:26 

If I have confidence that my hours are getting counted accurately, I'm more confident, more secure. If I'm being asked, you know, did these things happen? It does cause me to reflect and say yes or no or whatever. That's it, I think it's really cool. And these are things can be done on a tablet can be done on a phone remotely. Obviously,

 

Anthony Raimondo  6:41 

There's there's a variety of different ways to do this. There are even methods for where there is no internet connection, or there's no cell phone signal. You know, a lot of our folks are in areas where signals are. We've seen for years and years, especially in like the strawberry industry. And some of the other areas of the industry I deal with, they have these, you know, we call them pens, but they're these big data devices. And they will actually save the data on that device. And that can be brought to an office after the is over dropped off the data downloaded. And you can preserve your data, even when you don't have a connection where the tablet or cell phone works. So there's a wide variety of technological solutions available. And I think you're absolutely correct. The best thing about a lot of these solutions is they really are win wins for both the workforce and the employees. You know, it's an it's an interdependence in the industry, the employees need the job and the income, the employer needs the employees to be able to get the work done to produce the product, we can have solutions that work for everybody and benefit everybody.

 

Craig Macmillan  7:39 

That's fantastic. This is new to me. So I'm really glad to hear that this kind of thing is happening. I want to switch gears a little bit here. There's been some changes, I believe in the agricultural Labor Relations Act or the way that it works. Regarding unionization, can you tell us a little bit about that and what the implications might be?

 

Anthony Raimondo  7:55 

Yeah, I'm gonna qualify this because some of it is very much in flux, because there are some regulatory activity going on the agricultural labor relations board in terms of the implementation of the new law. So let me back up and give you what what used to be the case. So you can have context for what the what the changes that has been made, historically, our going back to 1975, when the when the Act was first implemented, what are the things that was going on prior to the ACA was this kind of wild west world of unionization, and there was a big struggle between the United Farm Workers and the teamsters as to who was going to represent workers out in the field, it was very, very contentious. It was one of the things that led to the passage of the agricultural Labor Relations Act, because sometimes that contentiousness even broke out into violence between the competing unions, but what happened was, there was a perception amongst some growers that the teamsters made would be easier for them to deal with or more favorable for them to deal with than the United Farm Workers Union. So a lot of growers that before the law passed would sign contracts with the with the Teamsters, in order to keep the UFW United Farmworkers out. So one of the things that Cesar Chavez actually insisted on when the act was developed was that the only way for a union to gain the right to represent workers in agriculture be through a secret ballot election. In our Federal Labor Law employer believes there has evidence that a majority of their workers want a union, they can simply recognize the union and say, okay, the people want you. Let's sit down and negotiate. Chavez didn't want that because he was afraid that growers would actually voluntarily recognize the union, the teamsters union to cut the UFW out of the equation. So there was this insistence have to have secret ballot elections, because secret ballot elections will actually show truly who the workers want to represent them. So the way the process has worked ever since and is a union has to get a majority of workers to sign what are called authorization cards, which are just little cards that say they want to be represented by the union. They would turn those into the agricultural labor relations With a petition document that answered certain qualifying questions, and if all of the requirements were met for an election, including a majority of workers are expressing a desire to have the union, the agricultural Labor Relations Board would send personnel out to the field, they'd set up a ballot box in a voting booth, you know, much like we would do in an in person election in the political world, and the workers would vote in their secret ballot election, yes or no whether they want a union. Ballots would be counted. And assuming there were no irregularities in the election, that result would be certified. And if the union won that election, they would become the representative of the employees of that employer. What has happened over the years is that the UFW has become extremely ineffective when it comes to organizing farm workers. They simply cannot win elections. And in recent years, they really organizing has been dead, because every time even when they try to organize workers, they either fail, or they end up losing the election. Even if they can get a majority of those cards to get an election, they lose the election. And in the last 10 year, there have been far more elections to actually vote the UFW out from workers who no longer want their representation than there have been elections to vote the UFW . The combination of this pattern. And a few years ago at a large farm in the San Joaquin Valley called Groveland farms. I was involved in this because what happened there was the union and won an election back in the 90s, and had never had a contract there. They kind of went away for a long time, and no one had heard from them. The I want to say 16 ,17 years of no contact between the company, the union, all of a sudden the union pops up and says we still represent these workers, we want to have a contract, the workers found out about it, they didn't want the union. And a group of these workers came to me and I ended up representing these workers for five years on a pro bono basis, we forced an election to be held, the state did not want to count the ballot for those elections, we had to litigate that ultimately, we won that litigation. And 85 plus percent of the workers had voted against the union. And that no, that company remains a non non union. As a reaction to that you now have a law where that was just passed, it took effect January one of this year, that really were for practical purposes removes the secret ballot election from this scenario. Now, there are two alternatives under the law, what they call a labor peace election and a non labor peace election. These aren't really elections, a labor peace election is something that we're probably never going to see because it requires a grower to sign and file a document with the state that says that they will never oppose union representation amongst their workers, growers just simply do that, if that happens, there's a mail ballot process that will happen where the union can gain representation rights to these mail ballots. But I really don't think it's ever going to happen. What really the law is, is now if a union gets a majority of workers to sign something like authorization cards, some document that says, we want the union, instead of that triggering an election to happen, that's now going to lead to a union certification, and the union will gain the right to represent the workers without election. Let me backup. So what we will see happen now is the union representation process. And this is really the meat of this law is where previously a union having worker sign authorization cards or some other similar document, expressing a desire to be represented by the union. Historically, that would mean let's have an election and find out what these workers really want. And by the way, as I mentioned earlier, in a vast majority of circumstances, the union would have an overwhelming majority of those cards. But when presented with a secret ballot, the workers would vote against the Union. But now, those authorization cards alone will be enough for the Union to become certified as the representative of the workers, which will create a duty to bargain by the grower to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the union. And it's important for growers to understand, especially in the wine industry, because there's such a prevalent use of vineyard managers and farm labor contractors. When you have a foreign labor contractor, under this law, the farm labor contractor doesn't exist, those employees are attributed to the grower. So it's not like if the union comes in, the grower can get rid of one farm labor contract or hire another one be free of the Union, the union will still be there that attaches to the grower not to a labor contractor. And for these purposes, in a majority of situations, even a vineyard manager would be considered a farm labor contractor. Under the law. There are some circumstances where a vineyard manager can actually stand in the shoes of the grower. But those are really where you have like an absentee landowner and a vineyard manager that has a long term history of managing the particular property such that the vineyard manager really is acting as the grower. But in most circumstances where there are vineyard managers and farm labor contractors, the union obligation will attach to the grower not to that manager not to that contract.

 

Craig Macmillan  14:59 

Interesting. And so the implications for this are that people may organize or be organized. And the, the quality of the decision is a little bit questionable that kind of what the takeaway is?

 

Anthony Raimondo  15:16 

Yeah, I think it's very prone to fraud. It's very prone to deception. I've been doing this for a long time in a lot of different industries. And I've been involved in a lot of different union elections, and employees sign these cards for a lot of different reasons. Sometimes it's because they truly want a union. Other times they don't understand what it is that they're signing. Other times they're pressured into signing, sometimes there is outright fraud. There's a lot of different issues with this. But one of the big issues I think, to keep in mind, which is disturbing about this law, is that if you look at the history of federal labor law, going back to the 1930s, and the National Labor Relations Act, which governs unionization in all industries except agriculture, there's a principle there that underlies union elections. And the idea is that the workers should hear a vigorous debate on both sides of the question of unionization of why they should or why they shouldn't vote for the Union. And then do do when a democracy when we need to make decisions about our collective future, go to a ballot box and vote by secret ballot, where nobody knows what your vote was. And you have that freedom to say yes or no, based on your own choice. Not somebody coming up to you, under some circumstances, that you're not worrying, we can't identify and saying, hey, sign this thing. Like I said, I've seen deception, I've seen coercion, I've seen outright fraud, some number of them may be genuine, but there's just no way of knowing has no way of controlling it. And the workers are not going to hear both sides of the debate before they make that decision. They're going to hear only from the union, they're going to sign these documents. And in many cases, the decision will be made and the issue will be over before the grower or the employer even has a chance to present why they think the workers don't need a union. It's already illegal to threaten workers against unionization, it's illegal to coerce them in any way. But there is fundamentally in the core of labor relations law a right of free speech, where we have until recently viewed it as healthy for workers to hear a vigorous debate and a vigorous campaign on both sides from both the union and from the employer, and then make their decision at the ballot box. That is what's been taken away from workers, which is very, very disturbing to me. And when I represented the workers, at Gerawan Farms, the lady who was kind of the spokesperson for the worker effort made a really great statement actually, in a TV interview that always stuck with me and sticks with me to this day, the UFW charges dues that are 3% of the workers wages. And she looked at the camera TV interview and said, I think I can use that 3% For my children better than the UFW can.

 

Craig Macmillan  18:02 

Yeah, I can see that that's gonna be an interesting situation coming up here in the future. This is kind of a related question. Many employer employee conflicts, I think where the some of this connected to can be resolved around some kind of effective, transparent internal grievance process where you can handle things internally to address people's concerns or whatever the grievances or whatever, in your experience, what does an effective internal grievance process look like?

 

Anthony Raimondo  18:29 

Well, it's something that I think is very important, as you mentioned, for labor relations purposes. And now I'm just talking about the general relationship between an employer and its workforce, there are always going to be issues that arise. And for a healthy business, what you really want is workers to be able to come forward with those concerns, and communicate them where you can respond in a way where you can come to an agreement about what should be done. And it may it doesn't mean you just say yes to everything. But it means that the workers understand that their voice is heard. And if the answer is no, they understand why the answer is no. So what that really means is number one, you need personnel involved who are bilingual, we operate in what is a primarily Spanish speaking industry. So we need folks who who are bilingual who can educate with the workers. This typically is done through an HR department if you have an effective HR department, but they have to be visible to the people out in the field and known to the people so they need to get out of the office, go out and visit with the crews introduce themselves to the crews, to the workers themselves, not just to the foreman and make sure that people know who they are and know them by name, that they have contact information that is out there to the workers so the workers know how to reach them, and that the workers understand the process that operates outside of the normal chain of command and it doesn't have to go through their foreman or through their supervisor because if it goes to the foreman of the supervisor, what happens if the problem for the employee is the foreman or the supervisors?

 

Craig Macmillan  19:54 

Right, right.

 

Anthony Raimondo  19:57 

We have a process that is outside of that immediate chain command that if necessary, can go straight to the top of authority at the company to address problems and get problems solved. I've seen it be successful. I mean, I'll give you a great example is a longtime client of mine, who is a labor contractor has a very active HR department and they are extremely engaged. And one of the attorneys who works for me actually went with one of the HR representatives out to a location where the company was providing the staffing and providing the employees. And when they got out of the out of the car at the location, the employees were all waving to this HR person and greeting her by name, hi, hi, great to see you. Like they all knew her and they were comfortable. And there was this relationship and dialogue back and forth. So that workers would feel comfortable if there was an issue or there was a concern, you know, anything from Hey, our wages are too low, our equipments not safe, we don't have what we need, the forman it is abusing us, our time records are not correct. Anything that it might be, as an employer, you want those things to come to you. Because then you can solve  them. If they don't come to you, they're gonna go somewhere else where there may not be a solution, whether it's a union, a government agency and attorney, but situations where the problem will actually become exacerbated and may not even get solved. Whereas if you have an effective process to understand what's going on on the ground, you can confront those issues and solve those problems before they become bigger problems. When employees have that avenue to communicate and resolve workplace issues internally with the company. It goes a long way. You know, employees go to union because they feel like they don't have a voice in their workplace. And they feel like there are problems that simply cannot get resolved without bringing in that third party. When they feel like they can solve problems internally, they're going to solve that they're going to use that process and they're not going to reach out to that union. They're they're much more resistant to it, because they have to pay for the Union. Why? Why pay a third party, something that you can do for yourself if you feel like you can.

 

Craig Macmillan  22:05 

And possibly have something resolved quickly, effectively and amicably. And I think that's, I think that's absolutely right. I think that human components, huge really, really important. Sometimes we get into our own little boxes, and when the little boxes are not talking to each other when people can actually talk to each other.

 

Anthony Raimondo  22:21 

I think we underestimate the importance of the the relationship aspect of every part of business, including the employer employee relationship.

 

Craig Macmillan  22:30 

Yeah, exactly, exactly. We're getting close to run out of time. But there's one more thing I wanted to ask you, again, you have so much experience in this area. The farming operations vary tremendously in terms of their size, especially when maybe not especially but certainly in the vineyard industry. It seems like it's nearly impossible for a small grower to stay on top and stay compliant with constantly changing and expanding regulatory landscape. They have a lot to do, and they don't have a lot of staff to do it. Given the regulatory burden on a cultural operations. Do you have any advice for small growers and how they can successfully navigate the environment stay on top of these things?

 

Anthony Raimondo  23:03 

I think there's a number of things that people can do. For example, on our website, raimondomiller.com, you can sign up for email, where we put out a lot of information about new laws or new regulations as they come out. And that's completely free. We work I've worked for a long time with the dairy industry where there's a lot of small farms as well as in the wine industry, where we have a lot of smaller employers. And one of the things that we strive to do as a firm is to establish relationships with industry associations, I do a lot of speaking of for different industry associations. And if there's any folks from those kinds of associations listening right now I do those things for free. I've never charged anybody for those things. Were on any topics that anybody wants, we can give updates, we can give other information out one on one and I travel, travel just about anywhere to do that. In a couple of weeks, I will be heading down to Temecula to speak to some wine groups, wine growers down there, which I do, then big event down there called great days, which I do every year. It's a wonderful, wonderful event and a great way to get information out. There are times where we have made relationships with industry associations where they're smaller farmers, where the association will pay our law firm to essentially provide advice consulting input, discounted services to farming operations. You know, we've we've made arrangements with associations where we do things like employee handbooks and other risk management devices on a significantly discounted rate and provide free consultation to their members and those kinds of things can be worked out. I think one of the things that's different about our firm is that we really do strive to be able to work with folks within the industry to make resources and information and advice available to the smallest farmers.

 

Craig Macmillan  24:48 

That is wonderful. Yeah,

 

Anthony Raimondo  24:50 

There's the big guys but the big guys have resources to get what they need, you know, in terms of human resource consulting, in House lawyers, outside law firms. It's really I think the little guys we've got to watch out for in this industry. And most of my career, I've represented family farms and family businesses. And that's kind of the niche that we fit into. If folks are out there, and they're looking for these types of resources, reach out to me. And let's, let's get an introduction with your local association. And let's see if we can work something out where we can provide some time and some resources to making sure that even the smallest members of those associations have access to the information and the resources that they need.

 

Craig Macmillan  25:29 

So there is some support out there, small growers, not in isolation. It sounds like we've got places to go and people to talk to you. And I think it's really great going to the associations, because people will go to those meetings, they're very interested in those topics might draw them to those meetings. So I really appreciate the work that you folks are doing on that kind of wrapping up here. What is what is one thing that you would tell grape growers, just in general, regarding any of these types of issues, HR issues, other labor related things?

 

Anthony Raimondo  25:57 

I think that being proactive is extremely important and understanding what risk management tools are out there for you and what you can do to protect yourself and what is a very difficult and complicated legal and regulatory environment. You know, we started off talking about technology and things like timekeeping, I think stuff like that is really valuable. employee handbooks are really, really important contracts between growers and vineyard managers and labor contractors in writing. You know, a lot of agriculture historically has been done on a handshake basis. And I kind of wish we still lived in that world, but we don't live in that world anymore, need to have written agreements, arbitration agreements for employees are a very powerful risk management tool that we'd love to see folks expand the use of, and it's a very, very inexpensive way to reduce risk. Insurance strategies are really important. There's a lot of great information out there through insurance brokers, for example, most of the insurance brokers that I know in agriculture provide a ton of free help with Cal OSHA compliance. In fact, when when farmers, mostly small farmers call me and they want help with Cal OSHA compliance. Usually, the first place I send them is their insurance broker, because a lot of those guys will do that stuff for free. So understanding what you what you get for free and what it makes sense to pay for it, how much it makes sense to pay for it is a valuable tool. But employee handbooks are important written policies are important training is important. And figuring out how to get those things in a way that is the most cost effective, especially for a small farmer is is really important. And it means not being afraid to reach out and ask questions. And I always take calls from farmers, my cell phone rings, anytime a day. And I'll try to help folks find those kinds of resources. And, you know, I don't want folks to be afraid to call me I'm not going to charge you for a phone call. If you're calling me asking me, How can I get access to some of these resources, I'll try to point you in the right direction, figure out where you can find resources at a cost and with a strategy that works for you. But what I don't want you to do is stick your head in the sand and just be reactive instead of proactive we can in this environment. If we work together. And we reach out, ask for help ask questions. Be proactive.

 

Craig Macmillan  28:12 

That is great advice. And I think we would all be wise to think about that. It's hard to be proactive sometimes. But the benefits are many, many, many, many, many times greater than the downsides that you might think you're going to run into where can people find out more about you? You've already mentioned, your willingness to talk to people.

 

Anthony Raimondo  28:32 

We have a website at WWW. Raimondomiller.com. I'm happy to give out my cell phone number. It's not secret. I'll put it out right here on the air. It's Area code 559-801-2226. Anybody's welcome to give me a call anytime and say, Hey, I heard you on the podcast. I got a couple of questions for you. I'm happy to take those calls. If for some reason you can't reach me, leave me a voicemail. It's rare that I go more than a couple hours without responding to somebody's phone call. I've represented dairy and livestock guys for years. So you know my phone doesn't turn off until they turn the cows off, which is never so never. I'm always happy to talk to farmers and I'm always happy to see what I can do to help. So feel free to give me a call. Feel free to the website.

 

Craig Macmillan  29:14 

We appreciate it very much. So I guess today has been Anthony Raimondo is an attorney and founder of Raimondo Miller law firm in Fresno, California. Anthony Hey, thanks for being here. This is a really great conversation. I'm glad you take the time.

 

Anthony Raimondo  29:28 

Wonderful. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity.

 

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