Not only did the Fresno Bee lose veteran ag reporter Dennis Pollock to its recent buyout cuts, the paper's garden reporter, Mzong Xiong, decided to take the buyout and continue her maternity leave indefinitely.

But it hasn't taken long for her replacement to find UC Cooperative Extension. Margaret Slaby, who together with columnist Mary Lu Aguirre are now covering the garden beat, wrote a charming piece about heriloom corn this week that included quotes from two Tulare County UCCE advisors.

The story centers on Gary Jones of Tollhouse, who is growing corn with kernals ranging from red, purple and pink to blue, black and teal, the article said. Small farm advisor Manuel Jimenez noted in the article the reasons why such varieties are less popular with commerical growers.

Modern field corn (for animal feed, corn meal and flour) and sweet corn are more disease-resistant, store better, and the ears tend to be more uniform in size than heirloom corn, Slaby paraphrased Jimenez.

Slaby also gave Carol Frate's self-evident assessment about the term "heirloom corn." Varieties are considerd "heirloom," according to Frate, when they've been around a long time. There are thousands of varieties of corn in all colors. Some varieties -- but not all -- are heirloom.

Frate and Jimenez were also credited in the story for providing information on planting and growing corn.

Incidentally, in a conversation I had today with the Fresno Bee business editor, Mike Nemeth, I learned that agriculture will be covered, for the most part, by Bob Rodriguez. A few years ago, Bob was dedicated to the ag beat, but then was reassigned to cover mainly energy and workplace issues. Nemeth said his business staff consists of four reporters, down from seven when he took on his post three years ago.