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Pistachio Information and Technology Groups.

PISTACHIO VIDEO CONFERENCE/PRESENTATION, June 2017

The 4th (June 2017) round of PIT groups meetings were held in better conditions than the last two meetings. The meeting was a video conference featuring Bob Beede from California. 32 growers from all regions attended the meeting.

Farm Advisor Emeritus: Bob Beede has lived and worked in the San Joaquin Valley of California his whole career. He earned BS and MS degrees focusing on Plant Science, Agrarian Studies, and Postharvest Physiology at the University of California (UC) at Davis. For 35 years Bob worked as a UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor working out of Kings County. Although he is now retired, Bob continues to advise on a broad range of topics including pest management, entomology, plant pathology, cultural practices, plant physiology, herbicides, irrigation practices, soils, and water. His goals are to extend knowledge to farmers and agriculturalists through educational programs, publications such as APG eNews, farm calls, and to perform research related to his areas of expertise.

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Bob Beede: Farm Advisor Emeritus.

Bob gave an update on the US Pistachio Industry, via a video linked presentation and then answered questions from growers for approximately an hour. It very nearly didn’t happen despite 2 weeks of time negotiations as we managed to get the time wrong by 24 hours and Bob to his eternal credit managed to fire up a link through the Agriculture Department on a Sunday night US time.

There were also Industry Updates provided by speakers as follows:

·  2017 Season Report – Chris Joyce

·  Insect and Fungal programs – Chris Joyce

·  Winter Oil Trials – Dr Jianlu Zhang

·  Winter Chill – early predictions – Dr Jianlu Zhang.

I sincerely thank the speakers for the great input they contributed to the meeting

James Simpfendorfer has kindly videotaped the proceedings and these will be available to the growers vis the PGAI website in the near future.

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Growers at the meeting listening to Bob Beede via speaker and computer.

The sausage sizzle provided proved popular again and will be continued for the August 2017 round of PIT Group meetings.

The next round of PITgroup meetings will be held during the first week of August 2017. The meeting will be a Spray Demonstration with guest speaker Geoff Furness. The meeting will be held at CMV Farms near Robinvale.

Please spread the word regarding the next meeting and give my contact details to anyone who is not receiving these emails.

For more information please ring Craig Feutrill on 0437 307 590 or Trevor Ranford on 0417 809 172.