Backyard Orchard News
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.
A Bee Beard Like No Other
Bee scientists, beekeepers and bee photographers so love their bees that they can't get enough of...
This photo of former UC Davis visiting bee scientist Jakub Gabka of Poland won the gold award for best feature photo, presented recently by international Association for Communication Excellence. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
About Those Sleepovers...
We're receiving lots of inquiries about sleepovers ever since we began posting images of male...
Male longhorned bees jockeying for position on a guara stem. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Not every stem is taken and not all the males cluster six or seven to a stem. These two appear to want space. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This male Melissodes agilis, is sleeping solo on a guara blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bumble Bees and Spiders Don't Mix?
Bumble bees and spiders don't mix, you say? Well, they will at the Bohart Museum of Entomology's...
A camouflaged jumping spider eyes a honey bee on Japanese anemone. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Robbin Thorp points at a yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenski. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)