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- Author or Editor: Gene M. Miyao x
- HortScience x
Bacterial speck caused by Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato is a major springtime disease of tomato during rainy weather conditions in California. Application timing as a calendar spray was compared to pre-anticipated rainfall treatments of either cupric hydroxide alone or in a combined tank-mix with mancozeb. Plots were established in grower fields with natural infestations. In some instances, moderately severe infestations of speck caused as much as a 25% reduction in yield and slight delays in fruit maturity. Timing of treatments prior to rainfall was superior to calendar sprays. Slight improvement in disease suppression was achieved with a tank mix of mancozeb with copper compared to copper alone.
Canning tomato transplants were compared to direct seed in field trials to evaluate fruit yield and quality. Trials were conducted either at the University of California at Davis Long Term Research on Sustainable Agriculture field facility or in a commercial direct-seeded tomato field near Woodland. To closely match harvest dates of both propagation methods, transplants were mechanically planted after direct-seeded plants approached the 2 to 3 true-leaf stage. Trial design was replicated, factorial with propagation method and with plant population comparisons. Populations were 8712, 6534, 5227, and 4356 planting units per acre. Direct-seeded plots were thinned to clumps of three plants centered on 12, 16, 20, or 24 inches between clumps within the seed line. Transplants were 6-week-old, commercial, greenhouse-grown plants that were mechanically planted to match the direct-seed spacing. Plant rows were single lines per bed centered on 5 feet. The entire 100-foot plot length was mechanically harvested into specially designed portable weigh trailers to measure yield. Fruit yield between direct-seed and transplants were similar in two of the 3 years. In one of the 3 years, production problems were encountered resulting in low overall yield, but significantly lower with the transplants. `Halley', a cultivar common in the region, was used in all of the test years. Transplant yields were slightly reduced linearly as spacing between plants increased while yield from direct seed was less affected. Fruit quality tended to be similar among the treatments.
Two field comparisons of conservation tillage tomato production alternatives following wheat were conducted in California's Central Valley. Both studies compared: 1) standard tillage; 2) bed disk or permanent bed minimum tillage; and 3) strip-tillage following winter wheat crops that were harvested the previous June. Processing tomatoes were produced at the site in Davis, Calif., and fresh market tomatoes were grown in Parlier, Calif. At both sites, establishing tomatoes using a commercial transplanter or a modified conservation tillage transplanter achieved adequate stands even in the minimally-tilled strip-till system. Timing of the strip till operation, however, is critical so that large chuncks of dry soil are not brought up and so that these do not create very rough bed surfaces that may cause harvest problems, particularly for processing tomatoes. Machine harvesting the crop at the Davis site did not seem to create any mechanical difficulties or generate additional trash going into the harvest trailer. This may have been due to the fact that by harvest time, the majority of the surface residue from the previous wheat crop had already been broken down or at least sufficiently worked into the soil to pose minimal mechanical harvester impedance or contamination. Tomato yields for the reduced till systems equalled yields of the standard till systems at both sites.