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LinkedInPosts Tagged: Dahlberg
Future water leaders soak up irrigation information
University of California students are taking a long journey through California to trace the state's complicated and critical water supply. The recent graduates and upper-division co-eds from UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley and UC Davis are part of the UC Water Academy, a course that combines online training with a two-week field trip for first-hand knowledge about California water.
The tour began June 18 at Lake Shasta, the state's largest reservoir, and followed the water's course to the Sacramento Valley, through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and south along the Delta-Mendota Canal. Since a key water destination is agriculture, the UC Water Academy toured the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension June 23, where research is underway to determine how the state's water supply can be most efficiently transformed into a food supply for Americans.
“You're visiting a place ideal for growing high-quality fruits and vegetables, because of the Mediterranean climate and low insect and disease pressure,” said Jeff Dahlberg, director of the UC KREC.
UC Cooperative Extension water management specialist Khaled Bali joined the students next to his alfalfa research plot, where different irrigation regimens are compared to determine the maximum yield that can be harvested with the minimum amount of water.
“It used to be that the No. 1 objective was to maximize yield,” Bali said. “But with the limited supplies and the cost of water, now the No. 1 objective is to get the maximum economic return. Growers might be better off selling some of their water to other jurisdictions.”
A water tour wouldn't be complete without an introduction to drought research. A recently planted sorghum trial provided the backdrop.
“California is a great place to study drought tolerance,” Dahlberg said, “because you can induce a drought by withholding irrigation.”
The sizable field contains 1,800 plots with 600 sorghum cultivars under three irrigation schemes: one irrigated as usual, one in which water is cut off before the plants flower, and the final one where water is cut off after the plants flower.
“Every week, a drone flies over to collect data on the leaf area, plant height and biomass,” Dalberg said. “Hopefully we will get associations with gene expression and this phenotype data."
Dahlberg and his collaborating researchers believe identifying the genes responsible for drought tolerance in sorghum will help scientists find drought-tolerant genes in other cereal crops – such as wheat, corn, rice and millet. “This will go a long way to feeding the people of the world,” he said.
There is still much to learn about sorghum drought tolerance – is it conferred by the plant's waxy leaves, the way stomata are controlled, accumulation of sugar in the leaves, or a mechanism in the roots?
“These are all questions you will have to answer to feed the world,” Dahlberg said. “That's why I would encourage you to continue studying water. There's a lot for you to get into.”
A third-year earth science student at UC Santa Cruz and a member of the academy, Denise Payan, said the sense of responsibility for the future is not daunting, but encouraging.
“It makes me feel like I can make a difference,” she said. The tour through California is shaping her plans for the future, which may include a career at the intersection of geology and biology.
“This has opened my eyes to a lot of issues,” she said.
The next stop for the UC Water Academy is the vast Tulare Lake basin to learn about groundwater recharge before heading east to the Owens Valley and the shores of Mono Lake. From there the academy turns to the Sierra Nevada to visit San Francisco's water supply, which is collected by Hetch Hetchy Dam. The field trip ends with a two-day rafting trip on the American River.
The UC Water Academy is offered through UC Water and led by UC Merced professor Joshua Viers and UC Cooperative Extension water management specialist Ted Grantham. In addition to the two-week tour, students participated in weekly online meetings and complete a project on communicating California water issues to public stakeholders. Students receive 1 unit of academic credit.
UC at the World Ag Expo
The UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center has a presence at what is billed the world's largest agricultural exposition, the World Ag Expo in Tulare, Calif., Feb. 14-16, 2012.
Computer resource specialist Robert Johnson, assistant program and facility coordinator Julie Sievert and KARE director Jeff Dahlberg answer questions at the KARE booth in Pavilion A.
Director of the REC system Bill Frost visits Beth Grafton-Cardwell, director of Lindcove Research and Extension Center, in a booth shared with the Citrus Research Board.
Ron Harben with UC Cooperative Extension cropping systems specialist Jeff Mitchell.
Jeff Dahlberg recognized for contributions to sorghum industry
Dahlberg served as research director for the National Sorghum Producers and the United Sorghum Checkoff Program. He also previously served as the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) curator for sorghum. He returned to his home state of California in December 2010 to work as director of the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier, Calif.
Dahlberg has worked tirelessly to strengthen sorghum research to promote the crop and increase industry opportunities. His accomplishments in the sorghum industry include increasing federal sorghum funds to USDA-ARS by more than $6 million, introducing 200 new exotic parents into the Sorghum Conversion Program, and re-evaluating and improving genetic sorghum descriptors, which have been used to collect data on nearly 8,500 accessions of sorghum growing in various regenerations.
He is the past president of the Whole Grains Council, served as chair of the Sorghum and Millet Germplasm Committee, and was formerly the secretary of the International Sorghum Genomics Committee that worked to get sorghum sequenced. He also led research efforts in conjunction with National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on a U.S. Department of Energy Sorghum to Ethanol grant.
“This is the highest award for a member of the sorghum community,” said Bruce Maunder, research advisor for the United Sorghum Checkoff Program, who also received the award in 1985. “Jeff is very deserving of such recognition for his contributions to this industry.”
NSP congratulates Dahlberg on this honor and is grateful for his contributions to the U.S. sorghum industry.
Jennifer Blackburn is communications coordinator for National Sorghum Producers.
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