As part of a new USDA planning grant, Cal Poly, along with several other universities and the Western Growers Association, is requesting grower participation in a short, anonymous questionnaire on field equipment sanitation practices. 

The planning grant—“Taming Agriculture’s Elephant: Broadening the Conversation About Field Equipment Sanitation Practices for Specialty Crops”—is intended to lead to a much larger USDA Specialty Crop Initiative (SCI) grant in the future. 

Matthew Grieshop, Director, Cal Poly Grimm Family Center for Organic Production and Research

“Our project team is collecting information on grower needs, summarizing existing knowledge and literature, and will hold a planning grant meeting this summer,” said Matthew Grieshop, director of the Cal Poly Grimm Family Center for Organic Production and Research and the lead investigator on the planning grant. “The aim of the future, larger project will be to provide specialty crop growers with sanitation frameworks that can be applied to a wide range of field equipment.”  

Grieshop said the planning grant “was developed based on conversations with the produce industry about the growing need for field equipment sanitation practices—not only for food safety concerns but also to prevent the spread of weeds, pathogens, and other pests.”  

“The food safety community has been very active in developing cleaning and sanitation programs for harvesters and post-harvest equipment (particularly for leafy greens), but surprisingly little work has been done on the development of cleaning and sanitation practices for other types of field equipment targeting weed propagules, plant pathogens, and other soil-borne pests,” Grieshop said. “While each piece of equipment and sanitation target will require specific actions, we are hoping to identify common factors among them so that growers can develop cleaning and sanitation programs they can have confidence in.”   

“[This planning grant] was developed based on conversations with the produce industry about the growing need for field equipment sanitation practices—not only for food safety concerns but also to prevent the spread of weeds, pathogens, and other pests.” - Matthew Grieshop

Grieshop said the field equipment targeted by this project is wide-ranging and includes tractors, cultivators, tillage equipment, harvesters, wagons, spreaders, and sprayers.  

“The importance of this project rests on the fact that as grower operations have increased in scale and more specialized equipment is developed, individual pieces of equipment are being moved across county and state lines, potentially leading to the spread of pest and disease problems,” Grieshop said. “This is compounded by increased incidence of invasive pests, resistant lines of weeds, pathogens, and arthropod pests. Slowing or eliminating the spread of novel weeds, pathogens, and insect pests is far better than trying to eradicate them once they are established.” 

While this project applies to both conventional and organic growers, Grieshop noted that it has special relevance for organic farmers since they tend to rely on preventive measures (rather than the application of synthetic chemicals) to address food safety and pest issues. 

“Initially, we are hoping that growers will answer a very short questionnaire that will provide us with information on their equipment sanitation practices,” Grieshop said. “The questionnaire is 100 percent anonymous and the results will be used to help the project team plan the larger proposal (they will not be published or shared outside the planning team).”   

As the project progresses towards the larger proposal, Grieshop said he and his co-investigators will also be looking for growers to serve as project advisory board members and/or participants. “This is a broad-based project, so we are hoping for input from growers representing many different specialty crops, ranging from annual vegetables to perennial fruits and nuts,” he said. 

For this project, Cal Poly’s Grieshop is joined by collaborators from the California State University system, University of California, Hancock Community College, Virginia Tech, University of Delaware, Cornell, Rutgers, University of Florida, University of Georgia, Michigan State University, and the Western Growers Association.   

“We are hoping that growers will answer a very short questionnaire that will provide us with information on their equipment sanitation practices." - Matthew Grieshop

“This project is particularly exciting because it has the potential to help harmonize across multiple goals during a time of rapid industry transformation,” Grieshop said. “We are seeing massive changes in the insect pest, disease, and weed management landscape due to changes in scale of operations (including across state lines), pest resistance, an influx of invasive species, changing regulations, and buyer demands for sustainable practices. Preventative management like cleaning and sanitation could play an important role in meeting these challenges.”  

Growers interested in participating in the short, anonymous field equipment sanitation survey can do so until March 15 at the following link: https://forms.gle/V9pNJeB43FpvogAQ8