From 2015 Sonoma County Harvest Fair:

"This year's Friend of Sonoma County Agriculture is awarded to Stephanie Larson, director of the University of California's Cooperative Extension in Sonoma County and a farm advisor for over 20 years. The award recognizes Larson for her work in providing high-level livestock and range management expertise to local farmers and ranchers and developing economic opportunities to encourage young farmers towards success. From working to increase “agritourism” in Sonoma County to training young “agropreneurs” in ways to increase food production, Dr. Stephanie Larson stands out as a steadfast champion and promoter of Sonoma County's $3 Billion dollar agriculture industry.

Larson is working closely with Sonoma County Tourism, and her efforts are bringing more economic opportunities to local agriculture producers, making their operations more sustainable and economically viable. Her program integrates ecosystem services provided by rangelands and highlights the benefits of using grazing animals as tools to manage local landscapes. As a certified rangeland manager, she works with land managers to help them to make sound ecologic decisions about managing working landscapes for the benefit of all users. Larson is also the current principle investigator for the USDA Beginning Farmer and Rancher program, which is training “agropreneurs” to increase food production throughout a five county region. Larson is working to develop an incubator farm that will provide opportunities for these beginners to learn their skills and increase local food access. “Programs like this are important to combat the shrinking acreage available for growing crops and the climbing prices of farmland, particularly in Sonoma County,” says Larson."

At a half-day workshop on Friday, February 5th, 22 leading voices in Sonoma County's agricultural community came together at UC Cooperative Extension Sonoma County to co-define sustainable agriculture. The workshop, part of a statewide research project on sustainable agriculture knowledge, was funded by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) and the UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute.

It was run by researcher Michael Levy, a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at UC Davis, along with Mark Lubell, an influential social network scientist at UC Davis. Levy asked participants to define sustainable agriculture by drawing "mental models" consisting of the important aspects of sustainable agriculture and how they affect each other.

Participants first constructed their own mental models electronically by creating mind maps or a web of words linked together. Then the group constructed a larger mental model together and discussed the implications. According to Levy, “the data generated will lead to research that informs UC ANR programs and advances the social science of sustainability and agriculture, and it will help us get a richer picture of how sustainable agriculture knowledge is distributed and moves through the community.”

Conceptualizing each individual's understanding of sustainable agriculture as a network of related concepts allows Levy and Lubell to apply cutting-edge network analysis tools to test hypotheses and find new insights.

You can read about their initial findings in policy briefs on their website about what the community sees as the most important goals and strategies for sustainable agriculture and what the major themes are in the overall mental model of sustainable agriculture.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, members of the greater Santa Rosa community celebrated the National Day of Service at Paulin Creek Open Space Preserve.  Over 100 volunteers from 4H, local girl scout troops, Youth Connections, AmeriCorps and local neighbors came together to help preserve a critical riparian corridor within urban Santa Rosa. These engaged community members removed invasive French Broom from the preserve and planted native seed. These efforts will help the vegetation return to its natural state, improving wildlife habitat and stream health.

In conjunction with Sorrel Allen from the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District (SCAPOSD), this volunteer event was organized by Troy Cameron and Jenna Dohman, AmeriCorps members from the Watershed Stewards Program serving their term at California Sea Grant. The SCAPOSD has ongoing volunteer efforts to protect and enhance the natural resources in this preserve. The Watershed Stewards Program and SCAPOSD would like to thank all the 4H members that participated in this event, helping to protect natural resources in Sonoma County for future generations.

Site Background:
The Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District (SCAPOSD) purchased this land in 2002 when prospective development of two parcels of the land raised public awareness about the property and led to a call for preservation. The Paulin Creek Preserve encompasses 46 acres of land and 9 of those acres are owned by SCAPOSD which are open year-round to the public.

Paulin Creek flows through the middle of this preserve. It flows westward into Piner Creek, then Santa Rosa Creek, the Laguna de Santa Rosa, and finally reaches the Russian River before flowing out into the ocean. The Russian River is a class 1 fisheries stream as it has threatened and endangered salmonid species including Coho, Chinook, and Steelhead. Specifically, Steelhead have been seen in Paulin Creek, so this habitat is very important for the survival of the species in the Russian River system.  The Sonoma County Water Agency also owns a portion of this preserve and on their portion, there is a dam with a flood control reservoir. This holds back water to prevent flooding, but outflows are released throughout the year, so downstream of this dam Paulin Creek has water all year, even through the dry season in the summer. Paulin Creek Open Space Preserve also has diverse vegetation. It is home to a number of native plants including mixed grasslands, mixed oak woodlands (bays, coast live oak, Oregon oak, madrone, big leaf maple, buckeye), understory (snowberry, poison oak, native honeysuckle, native blackberry toyon) riparian woodlands and wetlands.

There are also invasive plants present including the French Broom that was removed during this event! While invasive plants can sometimes be pretty, they can severely outcompete native plants. Because they are foreign to the landscape, they may not have any natural predators in the area. Native plants might also not have defenses appropriate for this new plant. An invasive plant might be aggressive enough to completely dominate an area of land, which decreases biodiversity. As the invasive plant takes over, it can change food webs in an ecosystem. An animal used to eating the plant life in one area may not get the necessary nutrients from this new invasive plant, causing these animals to move to a new location. Similarly, new species of animals may come to eat this invasive plant.

Needless to say, this volunteer effort to remove invasive French Broom will greatly benefit the wildlife habitat on the Paulin Creek Preserve. Thanks again to all the volunteers who took time out of their busy schedules to lend a hand in their community!

If you are interested in learning more, visit Watershed Stewards Program or find them on Facebook: Americorps Watershed Stewards Project.

If you would like to hear about future volunteer opportunities please visit Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District, or find them on Facebook: SCAPOSD.

February 10, 2016 
Program, 8am to noon at Wells Fargo Center for the Arts
7am to 8am: Sign-in and breakfast
$40 if pre-registered by Feb. 19; $45 at the door

Sonoma County Grape Day presents research-based topics of interest to grape growers and vintners. This year Pierce's disease, vine mealybugs, spray technology and berry phenolic composition will be addressed.

The incidence of Pierce's disease (PD) in grapevines has been slowly increasing for the last few years and in 2015, vine losses brought back memories of the PD epidemic in the late ninety's. PD is lethal to grapevines and there is no cure. The bacterium that causes PD resides in non-symptomatic ornamental and riparian plants. It is moved into grapevines by insect vectors after they feed on those plants and then feed on grapevines.  Warmer than normal winter temperatures may have changed the relationships between the insect vectors, the bacteria and grapevines which may have resulted in more vine loss.

UC Berkeley researchers and Cooperative Extension advisors have recently started a three-year research project in Sonoma and Napa counties to gain information on vector populations inside vineyards year round, and the incidence of infected versus diseased vines in those sites. The objective is to improve management practices to reduce PD.

Vine Mealybugs

The take-home messages will be presented on a long term study that controlled mealybugs in vineyards for the purpose of reducing grapevine leafroll disease (GLD). Mealybugs are insect vectors of grapevine leafroll virus that causes GLD. Leafroll disease is not lethal; however fruit on diseased vines does not ripen normally and eventually yields are reduced.

Dr. Kaan Kurtural is the new UC Cooperative Extension Viticulture Specialist at UC Davis and is based at the UC Oakville Station. Most recently he was a professor at California State University in Fresno. His research interests include vineyard mechanization for optimizing crop load, yield efficiency and sustainability. He will present the outcome of research projects that investigated the development of anthocyanins astringency as affected by canopy management and irrigation amounts.

The invited speaker is Dr. Andrew Landers from Cornell University who is an expert in sprayer technology that has greatly increased spray coverage on the target and not off the target. He will discuss how to improve spray deposition on canopies in narrow vine rows that are common in the North Coast.

View the agenda and register at: www.ucanr.edu\scgrapeday