News Stories

UC helps strengthen California agriculture and tackle new challenges

• Merced County UCCE advisor Bill Weir's cotton research trials proved that 30-inch rows can yield 15% more per acre than cotton grown in the traditional 40-inch rows.
• Kings County UCCE dairy advisor Carol Collar diagnosed widespread dieback of wheat, oats, and other cereal crops in February as cold injury. She advised farmers to make the most of the damaged crops by harvesting early and measuring nitrate levels, which are often dangerously high in early-harvested forage.
• Fresno County UCCE cotton farm advisor Dan Munk studied a new group of hybrid cotton varieties crosses from Israel between upland and Pima types that have high yield potential and impressive quality under San Joaquin Valley growing conditions. Expanded acreage and marketing is expected over the next few years.
• A tractor-mounted piece of equipment that picks up loaded grape bins from vineyard rows and thus relieves farmworkers of lifting and carrying bins that weigh as much as 65 pounds was field-tested during the last wine grape harvest by UC Davis agricultural engineer John Miles and colleagues.

• Stanislaus County UCCE farm advisor Marsha Campbell Mathews has developed a rapid field test for dairies to assess the fertilizer value of liquid manure. This easy-to-use tool allows farmers to replace costly commercial fertilizer with dairy manure a $20,000 annual savings on a 200-acre farm.
• A team of researchers led by farm management specialist Karen Klonsky has developed more than 100 cost-and-return studies. They are used by growers to project the competitiveness of different commodities and to identify cost-effective production practices; by lending institutions to assess loan proposals; and by public agencies to estimate the impact of policy changes.
• Etaferahu Takele, area agricultural economics advisor at UC Riverside, found that it costs at least $800 per acre more to grow avocados in San Diego County than in Ventura County mainly because of high water costs.
  Water quality and waste management
  • More than 1 million acres of California rangeland now have plans to protect water quality. Ranchers created the plans through a short course developed by UC scientists and supported by federal EPA, regional water quality officials, state and local farm bureaus, the livestock industry and resource conservation districts.
  • Eight farms in a UC-coordinated Biologically Integrated Farming Systems (BIFS) project learned how to use dairy lagoon water to fertilize corn silage fields, saving $57 per acre and significantly reducing the potential for groundwater contamination from both chemical fertilizer and manure.
  • The “APS Digester” (anaerobic phased solids digester), developed by UC biological and agricultural engineer Ruihong Zhang, converts agricultural wastes into a biogas that can be used for heat and electricity, as well as for fueling internal combustion engines, gas turbines or fuel cells for electricity production at mills, processing plants and refrigeration facilities.
  • Gene Miyao, UCCE vegetable crops farm advisor for Yolo, Solano and Sacramento counties, has demonstrated that an off-season, winter-grown mix of vetch and peas could reduce winter rainfall run-off by up to 70 percent and increase subsequent processing tomato yield by more than 10 percent.
  Food safety
  • UC scientists in the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory system have developed a new process that screens for seven hard-to-detect antibiotics. This protects the quality of the milk supply and the health of people allergic to those antibiotics.
  • Veterinary Medicine Extension advisors in the San Joaquin Valley found that even brand new rubber boots worn on certain test dairies quickly became contaminated with Salmonella. They provided dairies with several ways to stop Salmonella spread, including restricting workers to specific areas and scrubbing and disinfecting boots. Animal health
    • Researchers in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine developed new guidelines for shoeing, training, and monitoring early signs of lameness in horses after research showed that equine athletes wearing "toe grab" horse shoes are twice as likely to develop joint problems as horses without toe grabs.
    • UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine investigators found that playing audiotaped calf sounds to cows appeared to improve milk production up to 2 percent, offering dairies a cheap, environmentally friendly way for dairies to boost milk production and profits. Biotechnology
      • A genetically engineered tomato plant that thrives in salty irrigation water has been developed by UC Davis plant biologist Eduardo Blumwald, offering hope that other crops can be genetically modified for planting in areas of the world with salty irrigation water and salt-damaged soils.
      • UC Davis plant genetics expert Abhaya Dandekar developed a procedure known as "gene silencing" to instill resistance to bacterial disease in crop plants, a technique that holds promise for creating walnut and apple trees and grapevines that can stave off crown gall.
      • Scott Rozelle, a UC Davis agricultural economist, finds that research and development on plant biotechnology is flourishing in China. It accounts for half of the developing world's expenditures on plant biotechnology. Rozelle projects that China’s plant biotechnology will have a significant impact on world production, consumption, nutrition and trade.
      Pest and disease management
      • Kern County UCCE farm advisor Jennifer Hashim discovered that Pierce's disease is more widespread than previously thought in Kern County, raising awareness among growers about the importance of vigilance to control the disease and the pest that spreads it, the glassy-winged sharpshooter.
      • Integrated Pest Management advisor Pete Goodell used geographic information systems and satellite imagery in three research projects to begin tracking Lygus bug, a serious cotton pest. Tracking movement on a regional basis helps farmers look at pest management systems beyond the boundaries of their own farms.
      • Janet C. Broome, associate director of UC’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, is studying pest management that uses weather-driven plant disease decision models and makes use of the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Project’s PestCast program, a statewide weather monitoring network.
      • UC Davis plant pathologist David Rizzo and UC Berkeley forest pathologist Matteo Garbelotto identified the fungus-like pathogen that causes Sudden Oak Death. The disease has killed tens of thousands of California oak trees.
      Nutrition and healthier lifestyles
      • To promote healthy lifestyles, UC Berkeley nutritionist Joanne Ikeda is helping doctors, nurses, nutritionists, social workers, educators and others prevent childhood obesity with informational kits such as Children and Weight: What Health Professionals Can Do About It and her most recent, Children and Weight: What Schools and Communities Can Do About It, soon to be released nationally by UC Cooperative Extension.
      • UC Riverside consumer education specialist Karen Varcoe and colleagues found that only 49 percent of eligible rural families receive food stamps and 20 percent of children eligible for low-cost health coverage don’t have it. They are investigating the reasons.
      • UC Davis community nutrition specialist Lucia Kaiser led a UC team that created a diabetes prevention education program Take Care of Yourself specifically for Latino audiences, a population at higher risk of developing this serious condition.
      • A study of young children in the Women and Infant Children (WIC) program revealed a startling fact 13 percent had anemia and 22 percent had iron deficiency despite efforts to provide the right foods and advice. UC Davis nutrition specialist Sheri Zidenberg-Cherr says more nutrition education is needed to reduce iron deficiency in these children.
      • UC Davis nutrition specialist Sheri Zidenberg-Cherr and colleagues have shown that a school gardening program can improve the nutrition knowledge and vegetable preferences of fourth-grade students. Their curriculum, “Nutrition To Grow On” received the Award of Excellence from the National School Public Relations Association.

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        For additional information about these projects, contact John Stumbos at (530) 754-9554 or Jeannette Warnert at (559) 241-7514.