Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
USDA (funding)
Scientists
UCCE Farm Advisors
Growers'
organization
California Pear
Advisory Board
Pear Pest
Management
Research Fund
Growers
PCAs
Processors
Figure 6.6
The Randall Island Project network.
relationships with research scientist Welter. Weddle and Hemly per-
suaded contiguous pear growers to cooperate, but Weddle and Welter led
up small groups of PCAs and scientists to design and conduct the field
research necessary to implement pheromone mating disruption. Thus,
Hemly and his neighbors played the most critical leadership role in
agreeing to try a new technologies and undertake commensurate risks,
and this made possible the essential multi-season relationship between
scientists and PCAs. This project depended on being able to persuade the
codling moth populations to behave as the scientists thought they could.
Support from the California Pear Advisory Board and from the Pear Pest
Management Research Fund made pheromone mating disruption eco-
nomically feasible. No Farm Advisors participated in this partnership; in
fact, Sacramento County was without a pear Farm Advisor during this
period. Farm Advisors have played roles in other pheromone-based part-
nerships, but generally much less than in other California partnerships.
Weddle notes that UC Cooperative Extension's professional incentives
now emphasize research for publication at the expense of commercial
implementation. As use of pheromones to disrupt mating has become
routinized, Farm Advisors have a progressively diminishing role in this
type of partnership.
The prune partnership took the opposite tack. Its strategy is to re-
orient the entire prune industry and its knowledge system through
