ANR news blog

Woodland Daily Democrat picks up release

The Woodland Daily Democrat picked up a press release our office distributed a few days ago about funding UCCE nutrition educators received to create a low-literacy questionnaire to identify children on the path toward overweight or obesity. I delayed writing about this story's appearance in the news media a few days hoping that I would see it picked up elsewhere.

In essence, the article announces the fact that the National Research Initiative funded a $390,000 grant that will allow UC Cooperative Extension experts to document the specific behaviors associated with the growth of overweight and obesity, such as whether parents eat vegetables in front of their children, whether the children play outside, and whether the children eat breakfast every day.

"It's not enough for us to have a good idea what is going on," said principle investigator Marilyn Townsend, a nutrition specialist based at UC Davis. "We must prove it using a scientific process and that requires an accurate way to identify these behaviors."

Of course, releases that report findings carry more weight than those about research being funded, but this story does raise questions that would be of interest to nutrition professionals and enthusiasts. One can say the release is "evergreen," so it may yet live another day.

When weather is weird, reporters turn to UCCE

Any weather event seems to prompt the media to get reaction, and for the ag perspective, they frequently turn to the experts at UC Cooperative Extension.

A story by David Sneed this past weekend in The (San Luis Obispo County) Tribune reported on rainfall at the Central Coast. It said recent storms have brought San Luis Obispo County’s rainfall totals to slightly above normal and asserted that farmers and ranchers would like still more.

The weather station at Cal Poly, the article said, has records dating from 1869. It recorded slightly more than six inches of rain last year, while average precipitation at the Cal Poly station is 22 inches. Because of the disparity, UCCE farm advisor Royce Larsen and his NRCS colleague Karl Striby concluded that the average rainfall standard is not very useful, the story said.

“There is no such thing as an average year,” they wrote. “… We have to live with wet years and dry years.”

The Sacramento Bee ran a story advising residents to wait for rain-soaked planters to dry up before spring gardening. Reporter Pat Rubin spoke to UCCE advisor Chuck Ingels.

"Soggy gardening? I try not to do it," Ingels was quoted.

Another member of the Greatest Generation passes on

Over the weekend, the Sacramento Bee included a touching news obituary about retired UC Cooperative Extension food scientist George K. York II, who passed away last week at the age of 82.

In his late teens, Dr. York planned a career in professional baseball, but he was drafted by the Marines and was wounded in the invasion of Iwo Jima. After the war, Dr. York began college studies at Stanford, eventually earning a Ph.D. at UC Davis in 1960.

The story said Dr. York was a food bacteriologist with Cooperative Extension for more than 30 years, an authority on food-borne infections, and that he brought national attention to UC Davis as a major resource in food preservation.

Dr. York was regarded as the father of the master food preserver program. The obituary said he was popular with kitchen cooks for his practical presentations on canning tomatoes, curing olives, cooking with raw eggs and other home food tasks.

His son, George York III, said he loved getting out and talking to home canners, according to the article. "He connected with people so easily because he felt he was doing something really useful for society," his son is quoted.

In lieu of flowers, donations in memory of Dr. York may be made to the UC Cooperative Extension Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, 1111 Franklin St., sixth floor, Oakland, CA 94607-5200

UCCE cooperator receives IPM Innovator award

Lockeford farmer Chris Locke's sustainable farming methods were recognized by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, which named him an Integrated Pest Management Innovator, according to an article in the Stockton Record today.

According to the DPR news release, Locke has worked closely with UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Joe Grant for the last seven years to establish an innovative, sustainable operation.

Record reporter Reed Fujii wrote that Locke's great-great-grandfather, Dean Jewett Locke, founded the community of Lockeford after moving to California during the mid-19th Century Gold Rush.

Perhaps Chris Locke's deep roots in the land have inspired him to try sustainable farming methods, which include hedgerows of native and flowering perennial plants, bushes and shrubs to attract, preserve and enhance populations of beneficial insects, plus bat houses and owl boxes. He worked with Grant to test "puffers," battery-operated units that periodically send out a puff of codling moth pheromone that make it nearly impossible for the male insects to find a mate.

"It's just been, so far, an unqualified success," the article quoted Grant.

Antique story on the Web

Reading my Google news feed this morning was a little like finding a unique treasure in a dusty, out-of-the-way antique store. For some reason, a 1986 story from Mother Earth News was near the top of the page.

Written by Robert Kourik, the article is about miniature fruit trees being studied at the UC Kearney Research and Extension Center, a project that was under way about 20 years ago. With bonsai-like authentic proportions, the miniature trees came together to form an adorable Lilliputian orchard. The tree's diminutive size made for easy harvest, I recall, but apparently the compact canopy limited airflow, so there were fruit quality issues. (This isn't mentioned in the Mother Earth article.)

As part of the "throw back" the article says, "Miniature fruit trees are the wave of the future. At the 1980 North American Fruit Explorers conference at Stark Brothers Nursery, Paul Stark Jr. stated that he sees the miniature tree as the predominant commercial tree in the years to come."

The article says yields of miniature peach trees are "being tested at the Kearney station of the University of California Cooperative Extension" and it quotes generic researchers as saying, "Clearly, the gene that dwarfs tree stature does not adversely affect fruit size."

The Internet never ceases to amaze!

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