Lesson 8 – Plant Health Fosters Pest Suppression
Start Time is 11:00 AM Pacific Time
Once you RSVP, a Zoom link will arrive in the confirmation email.
Presenters:
Miguel Altieri, Co-Director of the Centro Latino Americano de Investigaciones Agroecologicas and Professor Emeritus at University of California, Berkeley in Agroecology
Miguel has conducted most of his research in California and Latin America working closely with farmers on implementing principles of agroecology to design productive, biodiverse and resilient farming systems. He has written more than 250 scientific articles and more than 40 books. He is also a farmer in the hillsides of south west Antioquia, Columbia, where together with his wife Dr. Clara Nicholls established an agroecological lighthouse promoting food sovereignty projects in impoverished neighboring rural communities.
Amelie Gauden, Associate Professor and Endowed Chair in Agroecology at the Department of Plant Science at the University of California Davis
Amelie’s research explores how diversification and healthy soil ecosystems can help agriculture meet its sustainability and resilience goals. She integrates concepts and methodologies from various discipines to measure outcomes of ecological intensification and agroecological designs on soil health, C sequestration and drought resilience. She also studies plant-microbe interactions in the rhizosphere and the ecological functions central to crop production in regenerative systems.
Upon successfully completing this lesson, participants will be able to:
- Describe how plant diversity and soil biology/fertility interact to sponsor plant health.
- Assess the importance of plant diversity to enhance biological pest control.
- Learn how plants and microbes co-exist and their role in pest suppression.
- Describe a case study where leafhopper numbers depended on a plant hormone mediated by rhizosphere microbial communities.
Continued Education Credits: We have been approved for 1 CE credit from California Department of Pesticide Regulation and 1 CCA credit from American Society of Agronomy.
Photo above: Ceanothus, buckwheat, laurel and sumac