Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
oilseed crops. We even tried soybeans. Anything off-the-wall we'd go down
there and try. And to be honest with you, none of them succeeded.
CRH:
It's kind of funny: it sounds like, even though the weed science was
kind of a new area when you started on it, that in a lot of cases the weed
problems were not quite as complicated as some of the ones with the
agronomic [fi eld] crops, do you think?
WeedSci:
That's true. I think it was a greater challenge in the agronomic
arena. Part of it too was you were working on narrow margins of profi t
in the operation. So you didn't have the fl exibility of introducing a $50
an acre herbicide. . . . In this grain crop, you didn't have that latitude to
work with.
This seems to contradict the statement by the retired advisor in which he
noted the progressive character of Monterey County growers and said, “In
a business sense, we didn't try to advise 'em too much.” Ostensibly, the
advisors needed to specialize to match the progressivism of the growers
and the especially intense research needs of their industry. In many ways,
however, the needs of the small growers described here by the weed science
advisor were much more complex and potentially intense than those of
the larger growers.
Each of these factors contribute toward contemporary farm advisors
having less and less time for actual “advising,” and orienting their exten-
sion programs more and more toward problem solving and research.
Perhaps the biggest factor that infl uences the direction of their work stems
from their fi nancial relationships with the local farm industry. The disci-
plinary mode of advising suits commercial growers quite well, and the
Monterey County farm advisors have prospered under these growers'
appreciation and largesse. For example, in the early 1990s, the advisors
moved into a new offi ce and research facility built at county and farm
industry expense, and commercial growers were very infl uential in deci-
sions to include laboratory and greenhouse facilities in the new building.
With these facilities in place, the advisors now have access to diagnostic
and research tools that advisors in most other California counties do not
have. In most cases, UC farm advisors need to send plant or soil samples
to UC Davis or another of the UC's agriculturally oriented campuses for
analysis. With these new facilities in Monterey County, advisors there can
now do much of this work in-house.
