Backyard Orchard News
California can benefit from conservation agriculture.
After attending the 6th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in June, Jeff Mitchell, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, and Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, stated, "Focusing on soil care will improve soil water intake and storage...Reducing soil water evaporation can be achieved by preserving surface residues. Together these steps reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions – very important goals.”
Mitchell is the chair of the UC Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation Center. CASI is exploring options to help support the implementation of conservation agriculture in California. Read more.
Conservation agriculture can result it greater efficiencies and better economics for California agriculture.
Please Don't Eat the Pollinators!
If I were in charge of a praying mantis' daily diet, I would enforce one stringent rule: "Please...
A praying mantis eyes the photographer. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The praying mantis quickly snatches a Western tiger swallowtail. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The predator gripping his prey. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Predator polishing off his prey. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Winged Affair
Say the word “wings” to folks who attend fairs and festivals and they may think of...
McCormack Hall superintendent Gloria Gonzalez hangs "Butterfly Lovers" by Tina Waycie of Vallejo. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
McCormack Hall assistant Angelina Gonzalez with "Butterflies," a needlepoint by Mario Wilson of Vallejo. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
McCormack Hall assistant Sharon Payne with "Butterfly T-Shirt" by Leslie Dunham of PACE Solano. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Hanging "Flying Wing" are (from left) Gloria Gonzalez, Angelina Gonzalez (back) and Sharon Payne. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
McCormack Hall assistant Iris Mayhew holds a photo of a moth, the work of 9-year-old Maximillian Burgess-Shannon of Benicia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center helps develop a sorghum feedstock program in California.
Pacific Ethanol, Inc., Chromatin, Inc., CSU Fresno's Center for Irrigation Technology and the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources received a $3 million matching grant for the California Energy Commission to collaboratively develop a sorghum feedstock program in California. This includes the California In-State Sorghum Program that facilitates California's production of low-carbon ethanol from Californian feedstock so that we can meet the state's renewable fuel and greenhouse gas reduction goals mandated by the federal Renewable Fuel Standard and the Californian Low-Carbon Fuel Standard.
Jeff Dahlberg, Ph.D., the director of Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, is part of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources sorghum research group. Collaborative efforts of the group will be managed from KARE.
Sorghum biomass research.
UC tests new mosquito death trap in Clovis
This week, Anthony Cornel, a UC Davis entomologist based at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier, started a new mosquito surveillance and control program in Clovis. The goal is to abate populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitos, which appeared in the Clovis, Madera and San Mateo communities last year. The Ae. aegypti, which has the ability to spread the yellow fever, dengue fever and Chikungunya viruses, survived the winter and is now being actively tracked and eradicated by mosquito abatement officials in an effort to prevent Ae. aegypti from getting a strong foothold in California.
Cornel is working with Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District to deploy new inexpensive and safe "black bucket traps" that do not require power. Read more.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito can vector yellow fever, dengue fever and Chikungunya viruses.