- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Cooperative Extension range research was featured at a field day Saturday in Tehama County, reported Julie Johnson in the Corning Observer.
Josh Davy, UCCE advisor in Tehama County, reviewed test plots were 60 varieties of annual and perennial range grasses were growing. Ken Tate, UCCE specialist, and Leslie Roche, postdoctoral researcher, both in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, gave an update on their long-term grazing research projects evaluating the effects of...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Steady rain so far this fall has produced a verdant emerald green panorama on California rangeland, reported Capital Press this week.
Livestock producers are elated, said Josh Davy, a UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Tehama County.
"It's been nice to start the year with some big rains because it fills up the reservoirs, puts some drinking water out there and it helps build deeper soil moisture in case it doesn't rain later," Davy said. "We hope it keeps going until March."
The 2012 rainy autumn has helped much of Northern California emerge from drought conditions,...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
California's long dry spell is prompting the media to begin contemplating the specter of another drought. Matt Weiser of the Sacramento Bee wrote that the dreaded D-word is back.
Among the first farming operations to be affected by lack of rain is livestock grazing, which is largely dependent on rainfall to grow forage for cattle and sheep, and to fill stock ponds the animals need for drinking water.
Josh Davy, livestock and range farm advisor with the University of California Cooperative Extension in Tehama, Colusa and Glenn counties, said many livestock owners are in a waiting...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A report in Capital Press about California's fall 2011 weather pattern - sunshine and valley fog occasionally punctuated by several days of rain and snow - included comments from UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Josh Davy about the effect of this year's weather on rangeland.
Germination occurred as a result of the season's first rains in October, but it didn't hold in some pastures because of the lull in precipitation, Davy said.
"This ought to get it up and going," Davy said of the rain that fell before Thanksgiving. "It usually takes between half and 1 inch in a week to get it...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Tehama County Resource Conservation District has purchased a rotary wiper, which it will rent to farmers, ranchers and landowners interested in using this herbicide application technology to control weeds, the RCD announced in a press release.
Sprays and granular applications of herbicides place the chemical near the ground, but the rotary wiper applies an herbicide to weeds that are taller than the desired plants. The equipment allows the operator to set the height of the rotating wiper and brush herbicide onto stems and the underside of leaves, where the herbicide is more readily absorbed.
Last year, UC Cooperative Extension advisors...