PESTICIDE AND FERTILIZER USE

This section provides a summary and assessment of pesticide and fertilizer use data for the Winegrape and West Side BIFS projects. As stated in Table 8 above, the projects were instructed to collect end-of-season pesticide and fertilizer use data and compare to pre-BIFS data and to county averages. After only one year of each project, these data are incomplete, but plans are underway to collect and analyze the required data in the coming year.

WINEGRAPE BIFS PROJECT

A consultant, Bill Settle, Senior Scientist with Collaborative Research and Designs for Agriculture, is collaborating with the Winegrape BIFS project coordinator and UC SAREP staff in obtaining and analyzing 1991-1994 pesticide use data from the Department of Pesticide Regulations for winegrapes in Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus counties. This project on BIFS pesticide use monitoring and evaluation is being funded separately by the US EPA Region IX. These data will be used to determine county pesticide use averages for winegrapes and then compare the averages to vineyards enrolled in the Winegrape BIFS project. These comparison data will be available during the first quarter of 1997. The consultant also contacted the San Joaquin County Agricultural Commissioner’s office to obtain pesticide use data for 1996 in order to make comparison to 1996 pesticide use in BIFS vineyards. The consultant was informed that these data would not be available until January 1997 at the earliest. The Winegrape BIFS project coordinator did obtain 1996 pesticide use data for the 47 BIFS vineyards.

WEST SIDE BIFS PROJECT

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation and the San Joaquin County agricultural commissioner's office has informed the project that data for comparison purposes will not be available from the counties until at least March 1997; useable summary data will be supplied to UC SAREP by the West Side BIFS project no later than June 30, 1997.