Required Under the Current Compliance Agreement
The current compliance agreement does not require specific planting dates or other cultural practices beyond those already described in the field management program. These practices should be viewed as optional management tools that may strengthen a broader broomrape management program, not as stand-alone requirements.
UC Recommended Practices
Planting timing is one of the cultural tools currently showing practical value in UC work. For known infested or high-risk fields, current UC work suggests that later planting can significantly reduce broomrape parasitism in infested fields, with better outcomes observed in fields planted after early to mid-May. Even so, later planting is not a stand-alone solution. It needs to fit processor delivery schedules, field logistics, and the rest of the management program.
There are no commercially available resistant processing tomato cultivars identified by UC at this time. Other cultural questions, including irrigation practices, nutrient management, and future host resistance work, are still being evaluated. As more information becomes available on these options it will be updated here.
Where practical, field operations should also be sequenced from lower-risk fields to higher-risk fields within the Designated Zone. This is best viewed as a supporting cultural and operational practice, not a substitute for sanitation, chemigation, scouting, or rogueing.
Related links or companion pages
- Field Management Program for High-Risk Processing Tomato Fields
- Chemigation
- Scouting, Mapping, and Reporting
- General Sanitation