- Author: Anita Brown, USDA NRCS, anita.brown@usda.gov, (530) 792-5644
How do you cut your water use by a third, cut your nitrogen use in half, maintain your tomato yield and improve your fruit quality?
“With patience, perseverance and by treating your soil like a living ecosystem — which it is,” says Jesse Sanchez.
Sanchez should know. He and Alan Sano have been experimenting with soil enhancements for 15 years on Sano Farms in Firebaugh. They believe they have hit upon a winning strategy — though their experiments continue.
Today, they grow 50-ton-per-acre tomatoes with half of the nitrogen (120 units) and a third less water than before. They also report fewer weeds and better tomato...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The numbers are beginning to trickle in confirming UC Cooperative Extension advisor Brent Holtz' hunch. Chipping and returning expired almond orchards into the soil where they grew is not only environmentally sound, it is economically smart.
(View a three-minute video of the machinery in action at the end of this post.)
After about 20 years, almond orchards' productivity and vigor begin to decline. Most farmers remove the old trees and plant younger, more vigorous replacements to keep up almond production.
In the past, old trees were easily and cheaply disposed of: they were...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Workshop aims to spark women's ambition to become leaders in fire management
Shortly after her son was born, Jeanne Pincha-Tulley was promoted to fire chief of a national forest. For the first six months, she brought the baby to work.
“Most of my colleagues were men between 40 and 50. I was 31,” recalled Pincha-Tulley, who was the first woman to achieve the rank of U.S. Forest Service fire chief in California. “My second son was 6 weeks old and nursing. They had no idea what to do. They absolutely freaked out.”
While great efforts are being made to recruit women into fire management, women hold only 10 percent of...
- Author: Lenya Quinn-Davidson
On Monday, Oct. 17, participants will gather in northwestern California for the first-ever Women-in-Fire Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (WTREX). The 12-day hands-on prescribed fire training, modeled after similar TREX events that take place across the country, will include participants with a full range of fire qualifications—from beginners to seasoned professionals—and from a diversity of backgrounds, including federal and state agencies, non-governmental organizations, tribes, universities, and more.
Participants are traveling from 12 different states and four countries, and will include 38 women and six men. This event will transcend the usual TREX emphasis...
- Author: Cheryl Reynolds
Last month, a California grape farmer was fined $10,000 for using a pesticide in violation of the label, then packing and attempting to sell the tainted fruit. DPR detected the residues of a pesticide on the produced that was not registered for use on grapes.
Cases like this are rare in California but remind growers how important it is to apply pesticides correctly by following all pesticide label directions. The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) runs the most extensive Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program in the nation and is hard at work ensuring that the fruit and vegetables we purchase and consume are free from...