- Author: Mike Hsu
UC Cooperative Extension advisor tests ancient technique, new to California melons
As growers across California navigate severe drought, supply-chain challenges and rising inflation, reducing inputs has become an existential necessity. And for watermelon growers, a new twist on a thousands-year-old practice is showing real promise.
In the summer of 2018, watermelon growers brought a pressing problem to Zheng Wang, who had recently joined University of California Cooperative Extension as the vegetable crops and irrigation advisor for Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced counties.
Growers were seeing an...
/h3>- Author: Kathy Low, UC Master Food Preserver of Solano and Yolo Counties
Growing up, my parents told us stories of how as kids, they kept from starving during the Great Depression by not letting anything edible go to waste. To stay alive, they learned to eat beef tripe (stomach lining), chicken feet, cow tongue and other things not normally consumed. It was their stories that got me interested in learning about and sharing information on parts of fruits and vegetables normally discarded that can be preserved and eaten. Examples include citrus peel and watermelon rind.
The next time you eat an orange, grapefruit, tangerine or other citrus, you don't need to throw out the peel. Instead you can dehydrate it. Remove the pith (the white fibrous material between the skin and the peel)...
- Author: Janet Byron
A new federal voucher that gives low-income women access to a range of fruits and vegetables could provide unique new marketing opportunities for California growers.
In 2009, the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) began distributing monthly cash vouchers to low-income women with children to buy fruits and vegetables. The program reaches almost half of the infants and one-quarter of children under 5 years old in the United States.
A team of UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) researchers and nutrition advisors has been exploring the possibility of developing a farm-to-WIC program that would link these low-income consumers with local growers. The purpose of such a program would...