- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Donning a flag lapel pin, attending the Veterans' Day parade and flying the Stars & Stripes are ways to display love of country. A growing group of experts say gardening should be added to the list.
"These days, digging some holes and planting a little lettuce or a few beets is a political act," wrote Los Angeles Times reporter Mary MacVean in the opening paragraph of her recent story on Victory Gardens, which also appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.
For the article, MacVean spoke to Ventura...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
It's cold in Washington, D.C., where the bulk of today's excitement lies, but since this is the ANR News Blog, I'm writing about the unseasonably warm weather in California. We can't really pin this unimaginably delightful January on global warming since many parts of the nation have been shivering under an Artic blast. But perhaps it is a harbinger of things to come if, indeed, scientists' predictions about global warming come to fruition and warm January days become the norm.
Warm winter is nice for picnics and the beach, but winter warmth can reduce crop yields later, according to an article in the San...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
President-elect Barack Obama has a few things to attend to in the coming months - wars, health care, education, poverty, to name a few. Many green thumbs would also like to see him tending a White House garden, or at least authorizing one.
A campaign encouraging Obama to plant a garden, launched by Roger Doiron, an organic gardener from Scarborough, Maine, has 20,000 supporters, according to an opinion piece in the Huffington Post. In the column, writer Paula Crossfield referred to an article by UC Cooperative Extension county director Rose Hayden-Smith, a history expert who is actively supporting a movement to...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Economic woes have been widely publicized in recent months, so they've made lots of appearances in this news blog. Today, we interrupt this trend to bring a tidbit of good news. The USDA announced with a press release yesterday it will award a $400,000 grant to UC Riverside for water quality research.
The award is administered through the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service’s National Research Initiative Water and Watershed competitive grants program.
The funds going to UC Riverside will develop cost-efficient treatment strategies that harness natural ways to eliminate bacterial pathogens...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
California's dairy operators are struggling with a bleak bottom line as the commodity price for milk has tumbled. According to a story over the weekend in the Fresno Bee, milk prices dropped 50 percent in the last six months, from about $20 for every 100 pounds to about $10. The overall cost to produce milk in California is estimated at $19 per 100 pounds, the story reported.
Bee ag reporter Robert Rodriguez spoke to UC Davis dairy specialist Leslie "Bees" Butler for his perspective on dairies' dismal numbers. He blamed the drop in milk value to dramatic changes in the export market. Australian producers are recovering from a recent drought that...