Occasionally plants show up in our office for identification and no one in the office knows what it is. So it's sent off to others who might know. This was the case of a perennial amaranth, also called goosefoot for some reason. This is Chenopodium californicum, also known as Blitum californicum.

Like other amaranths, it can be upright to 3 feet in height, or if mowed or grazed be more flattened or decumbent. It has a thick, fleshy stem that along with the leaves can be eaten. I guess pigs like it, because it's also called pigweed.

The leaves look sort of lettuce like, which gives it another name—Indian Lettuce.

The stem has also been used for...

Lettuce in the Salinas Valley is direct seeded by planting 3–4 times the amount of seed need and then thinning the stand to the desired spacing. Lettuce is one of the few crops that is still thinned because seed is still cheap enough and high yield potential is dependent on having maximum plant population.

In 2013 automated thinners were introduced to the Salinas Valley and are now employed to thin a significant portion of the lettuce crop. Labor shortages have spurred the growth in the use of automated thinner machines. The machines have basically three key components: 1) a camera to detect the crop, 2) computer for processing the images, calculating spacing and determining which plants to keep and remove, and 3) the kill...

Here's the latest from the UC ANR Topics in Subtropics blog written by Ben Faber, Farm Advisor, UCCE Ventura County.

It really has gotten out of hand--Hairy Fleabane and Horseweed which are both Conyza weed species that have run rampant this year because of the extra rain. It's also because they have become resistant to glyphosate herbicide. The problem has shown up all over the US and other parts of the world. Gradually as resistance has grown and their resistant fairy seeds have floated wherever the winds go, the weed is having a field day everywhere in...

There was a post written a few months ago by Rebecca Ozeran entitled “A Tale of Two Grasses,” describing her experiences with cheatgrass and contrasting its characteristics with another invasive annual, medusahead. It was an excellently written blog, and I encourage you to check it out!

http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=23889

As I rode my bike through a haze of smoke this morning, I decided it would be appropriate to describe the impacts I see this invasive annual having up in the northeastern corner of the state, because it is just about everywhere! (And I have some cool fire photos to share…) Cheatgrass...