Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
wanted to learn about mating disruption too. Walnut partnership lead-
ers see the removal of organophosphates and the successful deployment
of pheromones as critical to taking advantage of integrated farming sys-
tems strategies, and the search for pheromone-based pest-management
strategies spurred the creation of four of the five walnut partnerships.
This is second only to the number of winegrape partnerships.
Partnerships deploying pheromone mating-disruption technologies have
generally made greater efforts to enroll PCAs, recognizing the impor-
tance of their technical skills to partnership success.
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Social relations in the winegrape industry foster a high degree of
grower dedication to partnership activities. California's winegrape indus-
try has been consistently rewarded economically for cooperative actions,
most clearly visible in American Viticultural Areas, or appellations.
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Because winegrape growers are accustomed to sharing more information
about their crop with wineries, they also appear to be more comfortable
doing so with production data than growers in other commodities. Three
later winegrape partnerships did not need to formally enroll growers and
their vineyard blocks because previous partnerships had already estab-
lished the viability of agroecological practices.
In sum, the enrollment of growers has had various operational mean-
ings, ranging from a grower allowing research to be undertaken on
his or her field to a grower creating opportunities for himself or herself
and others to learn about alternative practices. Most partnerships have
tried to enroll some growers' blocks and PCAs with them. The initial
description of activities and expressed expectations about growers'
participation frame the scope of agroecological experimentation and
learning.
Partnerships Facilitate Agroecological Pest and Fertility Monitoring
Every partnership expected growers to learn more about monitoring
their farming system. Leading architects of the agroecological partner-
ship model believe that the lack of perception and understanding of
agroecological organisms and relationships by growers (and their PCAs)
is a major impediment to using agroecological strategies. All partner-
ships tried to help growers and their PCAs more fully perceive the
dynamic behavior of agroecological organisms to help them better
