Chemicals are used for controlling Navel Orange Worm (NOW) a pest that sometimes plagues growers, but another effective and sustainable method is sanitation. We marginalize a conducive breeding habitat by removing postharvest Mummie Nuts – a food source. Mummie shaking, either by machine or by hand using polling sticks does the trick.

I took postharvest snapshots at our orchard last month:

Removal is normally accomplished during winter, after rain and days of fog have weakened the nut’s attachment to the tree, allowing growers to

re-shake their trees, sweep and then grind the nuts using flail mowers. As noted in the following Blue Diamond Growers  report: some are not waiting and are sending hand crews into their orchards to knock the mummies to the ground using poles.  Everyone in the valley is hoping for another wet winter with ample rainfall. Unfortunately, last year’s deluge prevented quite a few from sending shakers into the orchards and after enduring the damage present in the 2017 crop, some are making extra efforts to ensure that their orchards will be free of all mummy nuts going into the 2018 growing season. The combination of over-wintering larvae coming into the 2017 crop, coupled with the high temperatures experienced in July, which prolonged the hull split resulted in extremely high NOW populations that created significant problems for growers throughout the 2017 harvest. 

Luckily, our orchard has escaped excessive NOW population.

Also, the report mentions that many growers [at this time] are applying soil amendments, such as gypsum or lime to correct soil salinity and pH problems. We have ordered gypsum and compost to be spread to combat our own salinity issue at the rate of 2 tons to the acre each.