My fingers are crossed that the rain that started, continues in proper intensity and frequency to refill California's reservoirs! Davis enjoyed 1.5 inches with the weekend storm. Much more precipitation arrived in the mountains as snow. Although this created some treacherous driving conditions, it's our liquid gold in spring as runoff.
Last week was a mix of everything from setting the foundation to increase our reach in health equity to hiring new members of the ANR family. The Strategic Initiative (SI) Leaders met on Tuesday and took time to reflect on the year. What worked well? Where can improvements be made? A huge thank you to our SI Leaders who put in countless hours on various committees related to the All ANR Conference in April. Kathy Eftekhari, Kathryn Stein, Savannah Hicks and numerous others are also burning the candles at both ends getting the Conference into shape. Mark your calendars now for April 24 through 27. We'll see you in Fresno.
Program Council met Wednesday. We had interesting discussions related to the designation of UC Santa Cruz and UC Merced as part of the Agricultural Experimentation. The discussion was exciting, although we had more questions than answers.
Hats off to our awesome Human (HR) colleagues. We have an astonishing 100 positions open in one form or another. That's a HUGE workload! Please practice patience with our HR team if you're one of the people grateful for their efforts! Our HR staff are working diligently to identify committees, post vacancy announcements, advertise, staff committees, review applications, conduct interviews, and do the analysis for final salary offers. We welcome new Advisors-- Alec Dompka (Humboldt), Cuong Ngyuen (Imperial) and Janessa Hartmann (Shasta) and Specialist Fatemeh Khodadadi,(UC Riverside). We hired. We had 12 new Community Education Specialists hired in October ( Karyn Utsumi, Claudia Pardo, Cynthia Morales, Kevin Kamp, Karen Looye, Angelina Gutierrez, Yolanda Cruz, Rhiannon Willingham, Lorenzo Levinger, Michelle Ross, Emma Burt and Giselle Escobar. An addition either members joined in similar titles in November: and another eight began in November (Giselle Escobar, Zubia Mahmood, Mea van Staden, Mikele Olson-Calbert, Michael Ryan, Jill Tyler, Johnny Yand, and Mariela Wajar. .
Friday was the Citrus Display and Tasting for growers at Lindcove Research and Extension Center. 188 varieties of citrus were available on display. They were ripe (green dot), nearly ripe (yellow dot) or not ripe yet (no dot). I enjoyed tasting all eight varieties of blood oranges as well as all seven varieties of grapefruit. I even left my comfort zone and tasted a few varieties of the kumquats.
Master Gardener and CDFA "volunteers".
Thank you to Lindcove REC staff, UC Master Gardeners and CDFA staff. It took an army of people to pull off the Display and Tasting. It was exciting to see fruit with new genetics that provide HLB resistance. I enjoyed the opportunity to visit with growers and learn more about their operations and better understand what drives their management choices and concerns in the marketplace.
Enjoy citrus as the weather cools.