Students, faculty and colleagues are encouraged to take advantage of these opportunities.
Pamela Kan-Rice, Assistant director, news and information outreach, UCANR
Three scholarships are being offered for students studying agriculture.UCANR
Applications and nominations of outstanding students pursuing careers in agriculture will be accepted through May 13, 2024, for UC Agriculture and Natural Resources scholarships and awards.
Students, faculty and colleagues are encouraged to take advantage of these opportunities to honor academic excellence and provide additional support for undergraduate and graduate students.
Bill and Jane Fischer Vegetation Management Scholarship is for students enrolled at ANY accredited California university, with preference given to graduate students. The recipient of the $1,000 (multiple awards possible) will be selected from students who are enrolled in fall 2024 pursuing degrees in vegetation management, weed science or agriculture specializations plant science, soils and plant nutrition, agricultural engineering, agricultural botany, plant pathology, plant protection and pest management, or agricultural economics. Students apply directly.
Howard Walton Clark Prize in Plant Breeding and Soil Building is for students enrolled at UC Berkeley, UC Davis or UC Riverside. The $5,000 (multiple awards possible) will be awarded to a promising student who will be enrolled as a senior in fall 2024 in the College of Agriculture and/or Natural Resources with demonstrated scholastic achievement and talent for independent research with reference to either plant breeding (leading to new/improved crops and new/improved varieties using appropriate tools) or soil building (leading to improving soil quality related to soil productivity and sustainability as a resource). Nomination by faculty member required.
Knowles A. Ryerson Award in Agriculture is for students enrolled at UC Berkeley and UC Davis. $2,500 (minimum one award for each campus) given to an international undergraduate student who will be enrolled in fall 2024 in the College of Agriculture and/or Natural Resources, in any curriculum, preferably after completion of the junior year. The award is based on high scholarship, outstanding character and promise of leadership. Nomination by faculty member required.
More information about the application process can be found on at https://ucanr.edu/anrscholarships.
For questions, contact Andrea Ambrose, UC ANR director of advancement, at apambrose@ucanr.edu.
Source: University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
- Author: Ben Faber
- Author: Ben Faber
The 2nd edition of the Avocado Problem Solver Field Guide is OUT NOW! It contains 14 new disorders (including six spotted mite, panicle dieback and tree lodging), it updates and expands the information provided in the original edition, includes three new beneficial insects and three new exotic pests, and includes 70 additional photographs as well as replacing many of the original ones. It is 30 pages longer than the 1st edition.
The new edition illustrates, describes, and provides management advice for 114 different pests, diseases, and other disorders of avocado in Australia, many of which are common to avocado industries in other countries. The first part of the book is expressly designed to help the user quickly identify the problem, this is achieved using 520 colour photographs which are arranged in order of plant part and grouped logically according to symptom. The caption of each photograph refers the reader to a page in the second part of the book which provides information covering the cause, general comments, description, prevention, and management of the problem.
All the pests are not found in California - yet- nor are all the diseases, but this is a beautifully illustrated and documented guide that can help CA avocado growers.
- Author: Ben Faber
Avocado Irrigation Calculator using CIMIS
(California Irrigation Management Information System)
Updated March 13, 2024
Gary S. Bender
Farm Advisor Emeritus – Subtropical Horticulture
UC Cooperative Extension – San Diego County
The irrigation requirement can be calculated each week by using CIMIS (California Irrigation Management Information System). CIMIS is a network of weather stations throughout California that takes daily information on evapotranspiration (ETo) of eight-inch tall grass and sends this ETo to a computer in Sacramento. ETo is basically the amount of water lost each day from this grass; it is calculated in inches of water. You can download this information when you want to irrigate your avocados and put it into an “irrigation calculator”. This information will be multiplied by the crop coefficient developed for avocados by UC Cooperative Extension farm advisors and specialists . This will give you the amount of water lost each day by avocados through transpiration and evaporation from the soil surface. Then, assuming the weather doesn't change, you can replace that amount of water when you irrigate.
Follow the Attached Files "CMIS exercise" link below to see how it's done.
CMIS exercise
- Author: Ben Faber
For years, I thought I was seeing fountain grass, an invasive grass that is found in all kinds of wild and disturbed settings. I was told it got its name because it was the only thing that would grow around communal fountains where people tamped down the earth while waiting their turn to fill their water jugs. It's a pretty thing and it's been planted everywhere because it is a pretty little thing --- and invasive. There a whole USDA Guide on Fountain Grass Management. A pretty thing that has gotten out of the garden and into the wild- https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5410113.pdf
The blue dots are distribution of Pennisetum villosum (Cenchrus longisetus): feathertop. from Calflora
But no, what I've been seeing has been a cousin called feathertop - Pennisetum villosum or at one time Cenchrus longisetus.
© 2023 Ron Vanderhoff - Calflora
Pennisetum villosum is an ornamental grass that is naturally distributed on hilly areas in warmer regions of Africa in the family Poaceae (http://foc.iplant.cn/). Several species of Pennisetum are popular in the garden for their bottlebrush spikes and cascading foliage. It has been widely planted and is found as escapes (got out of the garden) in California, Arizona, Kansas, Texas and other southern states. There have been more and more sightings in California, and Ventura county leads with the greatest number of observations according to the USDA Plant Data Base (https://plants.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=PEVI2). Most of the sightings in California have been coastal, so it's interesting that it's found in such diverse environments in other states. The findings here were made by Alison Colwell at the UC Davis Herbarium, https://herbarium.ucdavis.edu/index.html
It spreads by seed and rhizome, and in a few blinks of an eye, can spread rapidly into new territory.
I am interested to see how far feathertop has spread in the Ventura/Santa Barbara area, and for that matter from Santa Cruz to San Diego. Calflora has a website, where observations can be reported
https://www.calflora.org/ It's in the top left corner of the Home page "Add Observations".