Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
fi eld, growers were investing a lot of money in this method. The specialist
felt that growers were hungry for an explanation; they wanted help to
make deep plowing work or at least a justifi cation for why it would not
work. In cooperation with the plant pathology advisor in Monterey County,
the specialist was able to fi nd a fi eld where a grower was about to use
the deep plowing technique. They took soil samples before and after the
plowing to check for
Sclerotinia
and found that deep plowing had made
the disease problem worse. Before plowing,
Sclerotinia
pathogens were
generally limited to just one area of the fi eld, but when growers replowed
the fi eld, they spread the disease that had been limited to one part into all
parts of the fi eld. After this research trial, the specialist recommended that
growers not use the deep plowing method.
With this background in place, I turn to an interview with a grower in
which we talked about the deep plowing technique. I include a long
excerpt from the interview because it speaks to the interconnections of
several different forms of representation and their situational use. In the
excerpt, the retired advisor who fi rst brought deep plowing to Salinas is
referred to as Ag Engineer, and the extension specialist stationed at the
USDA facility is called Specialist:
CRH:
Can you think of any times when you or someone from your
company took information from [an advisor's meeting] and applied it in
your company?
Grower:
Sure. We used to have [Ag Engineer] who was [in Cooperative
Extension] and he was pretty well-known and his forte was equipment. He
was doing some plowing work on lettuce drop or
Sclerotinia
and we bought
some plows and started doing some deep plowing to kind of help this
problem. Some of the newer work says that you shouldn't be plowing [for
this problem], but I still feel that . . . it works. Like I say, there's a new sci-
entist working out there and he feels that plowing just spreads the problem
out on a broader base of the fi eld. So—
CRH:
Is that [Specialist]?
Grower:
Yes, [Specialist].
CRH:
But based on your experience it seems that plowing works.
Grower:
Right. We still continue to plow and we haven't had a problem.
I disagree with [Specialist]. And I disagree with him because I see what it
