Project Number: 5310-12130-008-04
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Dec 01, 2008
End Date: Nov 30, 2013

Objective:
Conduct research to develop new and improved methods to manage pesticides and other organic agricultural chemicals to maintain healthy agricultural systems. Study the fate and transport of agricultural chemicals and investigate the effect of various soil and environmental processes that affect chemical movement in soil. Conduct research that provides "real-world" solutions to improve efficacy, reduce cost and foster a healthy environment. Develop new low-cost management approaches that minimize volatile emissions to the atmosphere, and transport to surface water and ground water.

Approach:
An experimental site will be developed in Field 2B (UC-Riverside AgOps) to test the feasibility of using solar energy to sterilize soils in preparation for planting various specialty crops. A preliminary study will be conducted that consists of a bare-soil control and two solarization treatments. Soil temperatures throughout the raised-bed will be measured for several weeks. Various meteorological measurements will be made to allow determination of an energy balance for the experiment. Several plant pests will be selected and temperature-time mortality indices will be developed which will allow a determination of the potential effectiveness of each experimental treatment. The information obtained from the preliminary experiment will be used to determine if further experiments are warranted. Documents SCA with UC-Riverside.