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Social learning, learning from others, has value in extending knowledge about farm management through networks of growers. Exactly how much value depends on the structure of the networks. We employed social network analysis to study knowledge networks and social learning in three American Viticulture Areas in California: Central Coast, Lodi and Napa Valley. In a survey, growers confirmed that experiential and social learning are more useful for accessing information about farm management than formal learning. UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Cooperative Extension (UCCE) was found to be well positioned to access and spread knowledge through the grower networks but a bottleneck exists — many knowledge-sharing relationships and relatively few staff. We also found that grower participation in traditional outreach activities, e.g., meetings and demonstrations, is a strong predictor of their number of knowledge-sharing relationships, so UCCE and other agricultural support organizations have an important role to play in strengthening networks. Several network-smart extension strategies might help alleviate the bottleneck and rewire networks to more efficiently connect those with questions to those with solutions.

In traditionally managed Howard walnut orchards, trees are pruned annually during the orchard development phase, an expensive operation in terms of labor and prunings disposal costs. Our observations and some prior research by others had suggested that pruning may not be necessary in walnut. In a trial of pruned and unpruned hedgerow trees over 8 years, beginning a year after planting, we documented canopy growth, tree height, yield and nut quality characteristics and also the effects of fruit removal. Pruning altered canopy shape but did not lead to increases in canopy development, yield or nut quality. Although fruit removal stimulated more vegetative growth in both the pruned and unpruned treatments, fruit removal did not result in an increase in midday canopy photosynthetically active radiation interception or cumulative yield when fruit removal was stopped after year 4. After 8 years, there were no significant differences in tree height, nut quality or cumulative yield among any of the treatments, which suggests that not pruning young Howard orchards could provide a net benefit to growers.