Backyard Orchard News
UC helps students and teachers explore healthy food choices, learn how food is grown, interact with farm animals, and learn about careers in Agriculture.
Over 3400 third-graders and 600 teachers and chaperones from nine Fresno County school districts attended Fresno Farm and Nutrition Day at the Big Fresno Fairgrounds on March 21, 2014. Over 50 stations with educational handouts, experiential workshops, presentations and displays helped increase participant awareness of nutrition and agriculture. Fresno County Farm Bureau organized the event with the help of several sponsors, volunteers and presenter groups. Three UC Agriculture and Natural Recourses units provided presentations, demonstrations and workshops.
Fresno County UC Cooperative Extension provided presentations and demonstrations on healthy habits. Most of the students are from urban areas of Fresno, and have limited opportunities to interact with the agricultural community. Fresno's community 4-H clubs brought farm animals to interact with the students. Fresno County UC Cooperative Extension also displayed Southeast Asian vegetables and discussed Southeast Asian culture with the students.
KARE provided short presentations on what it takes to be a healthy plant and what it takes to be a healthy person, followed immediately by workshops where the students planted leaf lettuce transplants to take home and enjoy. The workshops were made possible with donations and volunteers. Valley Soil & Forest Products donated soil, The Plant People donated pots, and Greenheart Farms donated lettuce transplants. Fourteen volunteers helped ensure that all of the participants were able to pot up and take home leaf lettuce plants.
The UC Davis Veterinary Medicine Teaching and Research Center's Cardboard Cow visited event as well. She came with Jennifer Crook, Adrianna "Auggie" Villarreal, and Grant Jones-Wiebe. The children learned how a veterinarian uses tests and tools to diagnose a cow's welfare. They poked "inside" Cardboard Cow to touch and see her spine (styrofoam backbone), muscle structure (pink packing "peanuts"), four-compartment stomach (small rubber-, volley-, soccer-, and basket- -balls), and even a fetus (a plush toy calf). Each child was able to palpate for the calf, and to hear their own heartbeat with a stethoscope. There were veterinary tools, models of animals and real cow bones to explore.
More information on the 9th annual Fresno Farm and Nutrition Day can be found at the following: Fresno Bee article, Fresno Bee video, Ag News Network video, UC CalFresh Fresno County blog, PBS video, AgNet West video and article, http://www.vmtrc.ucdavis.edu/blog/?cat=7, and the UCDVMTRC Facebook page.
Students at the 2014 Fresno County Farm and Nutrition Day learning about good eating habits.
Students at the 2014 Fresno Farm and Nutrition Day planting leaf lettuce to take home and grow.
Chidren at the 2014 Fresno Farm and Nutrition Day examing cow bones.
Be on the lookout for spotted wing drosophila.
It's cherry growing season and a good time to begin looking for spotted wing drosophila (SWD), Drosophila suzukii. SWD is a small fruit fly that attacks soft-flesh fruit such as cherry, blueberry, raspberry, and blackberry. It first appeared in 2010, and its damage to fruit and increased management costs led to significant economic losses to cherry growers throughout California and the Pacific Northwest.
Unlike other fruit flies that infest rotted fruit, SWD attacks undamaged fruit. As cherry fruit begins to develop and starts to change color from light green to straw, SWD lays its eggs just under the skin of fruit, creating a small scar or a “sting.” One to three larvae may develop inside each cherry, feeding on the fruit and causing it to become brown and soft. Many times SWD flies are not noticed until fruit is mature, and by that time management is not very effective.
Prevention is the key, and one way to prevent damage is to monitor for the pest when it first becomes active. SWD can be monitored with several types of traps partly filled with apple cider vinegar to lure the pest. Monitor traps weekly through the end of harvest, and be sure to confirm the presence of SWD, as other Drosophila spp. may be present in trap catches. SWD males have a single dark spot on the tip of its wing and females have a large ovipositor. See the UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines for identification help and a dichotomous key.
Spotted wing drosophila is still a relatively new pest, and management information continues to change. UCCE Entomology Advisor David Haviland and other researchers have been working to provide what help they can. Haviland has designed a bucket trap called the “Haviland trap” and is working with others to field-test experimental lures for SWD. He's also studying a possible biological control agent. Research has led to new grower guidelines so that early season cherries can be produced and sold internationally. Check out the 2014 Recommendations for Sweet Cherry (PDF).
For management in backyard cherries or other urban areas, see the SWD Pest Note.
For more information about UC IPM's recent work, see the 2013 Annual Report.
An image of a spotted wing drosophila.
A cherry with spotted wing drosophila damage.
A trap used to monitor for the presence of spotted wing drosophila.
Rapini! Rapini! Rapini!
Honey bee population declining? You wouldn't know it if you were to visit the two rapini patches...
A honey bee foraging on rapini at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Facility. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Honey bee takes a liking to the rapini. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Multi-tasking honey bee cleaning its tongue and packing its pollen load. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A large pollen load. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
New Citrus Production Manual is Available!
The Citrus Production Manual is published! For the month of April the price is reduced from $75 to...
An Un-bee-lievably Generous Gift
What an un-bee-lievably generous gift! Debra Jamison, state regent of the California State...
Debra Jamison (left), state regent, and Gayle Mooney, state treasurer, share a bench that the California State Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution purchased for the UC Davis bee garden.
DAR members celebrating the bees beneath the olive trees on Bee Biology Road.