SAREP director and CE specialist Sean L. Swezey announced that Janet C. “Jenny” Broome was appointed associate director at SAREP on July 1.

“We’re very excited to have someone of Jenny’s administrative, research and educational experience to provide additional leadership for SAREP, especially as we develop a more visible statewide presence,” Swezey said.

Broome, a plant pathologist, has worked at SAREP since July 1997 dividing her time between coordinating the Biologically Integrated Farming Systems (BIFS) program, and developing and extending sustainable pest management practices and systems. As BIFS coordinator, she has worked to create a competitive grants program for on-farm demonstrations of biologically integrated farming systems and document reduced reliance on agricultural chemicals in these systems. Currently, there are six active BIFS projects throughout the state in rice, prunes, walnuts, citrus, strawberries, and dairy/forage.

Broome was instrumental in developing the SAREP methyl bromide alternatives grants program. Through this program SAREP has provided nearly $900,000 to six projects that develop alternatives to the agricultural chemical, which is about to be phased out under the Montreal Protocol and the US Clean Air Act.

“As a UC Davis plant pathologist, Broome is highly qualified to lead SAREP in this important effort,” Swezey said.

As a research scientist, Broome has developed plant disease risk models currently being used in grapes and strawberries in California, Europe, and South America. She continues to lead the development of a disease model database in collaboration with the Statewide Integrated Pest Management Project. This database improves grower, pest control adviser, and researcher access to weather-driven models that can be used to time disease control tactics and have been shown to reduce the use of pesticides (for more information see the Pestcast website at http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/DISEASE/).

Current projects this year include the development of a resource guide for growers that will describe the environmental regulations at the federal, state, and county level that exist to guide vineyard development (see Coming: Environmental Regulations and Vineyard Development). Broome and other members of the California Grape Advisory Team are developing three crop-pest profiles of the current pest management system for California wine, raisin, and table grapes and evaluating how the implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) of 1996 may affect these commodities. The profiles will also outline a FQPA transition strategy for all three commodities, highlighting areas lacking alternatives and needing research, as well as areas where alternatives exist and more on-farm demonstrations would increase adoption.

She is author of several peer-reviewed articles and many trade and extension publications in plant pathology and in sustainable viticulture. Most recently she was the principal editor of the 1999 SAREP publication Exploring Eco Labeling for Winegrapes: A Working Conference (see New Winegrape ‘Eco Labeling’ Publication Available). In addition, as a UC member of the Central Coast Vineyard Team, a sustainable viticulture initiative on the Central Coast, she helped develop the team’s Positive Points System (PPS). This document outlines an ideal integrated farming system that includes sustainable soil, pest, water, vine, wine and educational practices for Central Coast grape growers. Through a series of questions, the PPS gives a grower the highest ratings for those practices that enhance environmental and human health while enabling viable grape growing and quality wine making. For more information on the PPS and the Central Coast Vineyard Team see http://www.vineyardteam.org/index.htm and California Vineyard Team Wins National Recognition.

Broome came to SAREP from the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Department of Pesticide Regulation, where she was an environmental research scientist in the Environmental Monitoring and Pest Management Branch. She has a Ph.D. and a M.S. in plant pathology from UC Davis, and an undergraduate degree in biology from Swarthmore College.