Inyo-Mono

Over the last two weeks Mary Lu Arpaia (Extension Specialist, UC Riverside) and David Obenland (Plant Physiologist, USDA-ARS) had the opportunity to visit Israel and spend several days looking at avocados including a visit with Zvi Mendel and Stanley Freeman, the lead researchers in Israel on the Po...

Hanford dairy farmer Dino Giacomazzi, a founding member of UC Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation (CASI), received the prestigious 2012 Leopold Conservation Award for California in acknowledgement of his exemplary land stewardship and management.

When youngsters meet Alyssa Fine, the first thing they ask is Do you ever get stung? They also ask if the bee population is still declining and if shes a beekeeper. Yes, yes, and yes. Alyssa Fine, 23, of Monongahela, Penn., is accustomed to answering questions.

Abstract: Farmers view weed management and the risk of lower yields as barriers to transition from conventional to organic agriculture. The 3 years of transition before organic certification can be used to implement strategies to suppress weeds and improve soil fertility.

Since 1910, the Citrus Variety Collection has been a resource for research, citrus breeding and educational extension activities initially for the UC Citrus Experiment Station and now for the expanded College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at UC Riverside.

Strawberry plants suffering from salt toxicity. Symptoms include brown and brittle leaf margins (above, photo by Albert Ulrich, UC) and stunted plant growth (below, photo by Stuart Styles, CalPoly). Strawberry is among the crops that are very sensitive to salinity.

It's good to see University of California scientists pursuing rare bumble bees.

Yellow nutsedge found a good home in warmer areas of California and purple nutsedge is sometimes present as well.

It's worth the wait. The two towers of jewels (Echium wildpretti) are blooming in the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, the half-acre bee friendly garden next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis. The plant is a biennual and it blooms the second year and that's it.

A student at UC Irvine, Saumya Bhardwaj, who is working on a research project on "how to prevent soil damage from monoculture," sent a query to the Conservation Tillage workgroup about policies or interest groups standing in the way of CT implementation.