The UC Davis research appears in a report, "Our Changing Climate," released today by the California Natural Resources Agency and the California Energy Commission. The report is the third assessment from the California Climate Change Center since 2006.
UC Davis scientists authored nine of the 35 studies contained in the report. The UC Davis work addresses climate change impacts on native fishes, agriculture, urban planning, water management and other issues:
* Peter Moyle, a wildlife, fish and conservation biology professor in the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, studied the predicted effects of climate change on native fishes. His team found that most native fishes will suffer population declines, and some will likely go extinct. Fishes requiring cold water are particularly vulnerable.
Meanwhile, non-native fishes are expected to increase, although they will also experience habitat loss during severe droughts.
"California's unique native fishes are already in steep decline, and climate change is making the situation worse," Moyle said. "This is likely to increase the complexity of managing California's water supply. Preventing predictable extinctions is possible but will require planning now for increased water temperatures and more variable flows."
* James Thorne, a researcher in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, helped create a model that simulates how rainfall interacts with the landscape. Thorne's research group looked at hydrologic data from the past and present to help predict what may happen in the future. That model was used for other studies in the report, such as those regarding fire and agriculture, allowing cross comparisons among the researchers' work.
Thorne also looked at six different policy options for urban growth, including smart-growth, infill and "business as usual" approaches.
"If we want the most lands preserved for a variety of different purposes -- agricultural and biodiversity protection, reduced fire threats -- the infill policy was best," Thorne said.
* Studies by Louise Jackson, UC Cooperative Extension specialist and professor in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at UC Davis, complemented Thorne's growth policy conclusion. Her group's case study focused on greenhouse gas emission mitigation and adaptation to climate change in Yolo County. They found that "channeling much or all future urban development into existing urban areas" will help preserve agricultural land and open space, reduce Yolo County's greenhouse gas emissions and enhance agricultural sustainability. Their research also found that farmers concerned about climate change were more likely to voluntarily adopt practices that would conserve water and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Jackson's group also developed an agricultural vulnerability index for California that identified four areas as especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change: the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta; Salinas Valley; the corridor between Merced and Fresno; and the Imperial Valley.
* Jay Lund, director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, examined climate change adaptations for managing water in the San Francisco Bay Area. His group's research suggests that Bay Area urban water demands can be largely met even under severe forms of climate change, but at a cost. The cost includes buying water from agricultural users, using more expensive alternatives such as water recycling and desalination, and some increased water scarcity. A shared connection of public water systems, or interties, recently completed for emergency response, greatly aids adaptation, the study reports.
* Joshua Viers, associate director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, co-authored a study analyzing "water year" classifications.
These indices determine whether a year is considered wet, dry or in-between, as well as how much water is allocated and who gets it.
"Unfortunately, the method to distinguish different water year types is indexed to historical climatic conditions and is intended to represent an equal chance for any given year," said Viers. "Our science suggests that future climatic conditions are not likely to represent this history, and thus water management agencies may need to reconsider these arbitrary indexing thresholds going forward to achieve a more equitable situation."
Viers also co-authored a study about climate change's impact on hydropower production in the Sierra Nevada. It found that an 11 F increase in air temperature would reduce hydropower in the area by about 10 percent, and that most reductions would occur in the northern Sierra Nevada. The central Sierra Nevada would adapt better to changes in runoff, while hydropower generation in the southern watershed would decrease.
Other institutions, including UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, Stanford, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researched climate change impacts on electricity consumption, sea level, wildfires and coastal flooding.
This assessment will provide a foundation for the state's 2012 Climate Adaptation Strategy, with completion expected in December 2012. Comprised of scientific studies from several academic institutions, the assessment is directed by the Governor's Office and intended to help state and local communities protect public health, grow the state's economy, ensure energy reliability and safeguard the environment.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
To introduce more valley farmers to the benefits of conservation agriculture practices, Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation (CASI) produced a six-part documentary featuring California farmers, UC researchers and agency representatives. The series premieres Aug. 6 on the CASI website (http://CASI.ucanr.edu) with a 7-minute segment that lays out the theoretical principles and the scientific basis for conservation agriculture. Additional segments will be released each Monday for five weeks thereafter.
Throughout the series, viewers will meet farmers who are implementing conservation agriculture successfully and profitably on their Central Valley farms. The 6- to 10-minute episodes review the core principles and practices associated with conservation agriculture systems and provide examples of successful local adoption.
After the six-week series airs, viewers, farmers and others interested in conservation agriculture are invited to the UC West Side Research and Extension Center in Fresno County for the annual Twilight Conservation Agriculture Field Day, Sept. 13. The event, which begins at 4 p.m. and concludes when darkness falls, is free and includes a barbecue dinner. Viewers can get clarification on points from the video series and meet many of the farmers and scientists featured in the documentary, plus get a first-hand look at conservation agriculture research currently underway. To register for the Twilight Field Day go to http://ucanr.edu/TwilightRegistration. The West Side Research and Extension Center is at 17353 W. Oakland Ave., Five Points.
“Our goal with the video series is to reach a wider audience of farmers with our research results and on-farm success stories, which show conservation agricultural practices can help make farmers more competitive and sustainable in the long run,” said Jeff Mitchell, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis.
The Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation documentary series includes the following episodes:
Aug. 6: “Introduction to conservation agriculture” – The first video defines conservation agriculture and outlines its increasing credibility in the global context.
Aug. 13: “Maintaining crop residues” – California farmers have tended to adopt “clean cultivation” systems, but research has shown that maintenance of residues from the previous crop or a winter cover crop helps improve soil and reduces evaporation from the surface.
Aug. 20: “Conservation agriculture in tomato production systems” – These systems cut production costs, reduce dust emissions and store more carbon in the soil.
Aug. 27: “Conservation agriculture in dairy silage production systems” – Three dairy farmers committed to conservation agriculture systems in their silage production share their secrets and success.
Sep. 3: “Minimum tillage systems” – This video features examples of a number of reduced pass or ‘pass combining’ tillage systems that have been developed during the past decade.
Sep. 10: “Coupling conservation tillage with overhead irrigation” – Overhead irrigation systems, such as center pivots, are particularly useful when coupled with conservation tillage.
For more information, contact Mitchell at (559) 303-9689, jpmitchell@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Janet Byron
Conservation tillage seeks to reduce the number of times that tractors cross the field, in order to protect the soil from erosion and compaction, and save time, fuel and labor costs. Cotton crops are planted directly into stubble from the previous crop in the rotation.
In the study, conducted from 2000 to 2011 at the UC West Side Research and Extension Center in Five Points (southwest of Fresno), the number of tractor passes for a cotton-tomato rotation grown with a cover crop was reduced from 20 in the standard treatment to 13 with conservation tillage.
By the final years of the in the San Joaquin Valley study, cotton lint yields were statistically equivalent and even higher (in 2011) than with standard cultivation methods.
“The UC studies have consistently shown that conservation tillage can yield as well as standard tillage in a cotton-tomato rotation,” lead author Jeffrey P. Mitchell, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, and co-authors wrote in California Agriculture journal.
Their study, “Conservation tillage systems for cotton advance in the San Joaquin Valley,” as well as the entire July-September 2012 issue of California Agriculture journal, can be viewed and downloaded online at: http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.edu.
Mitchell is a founder of Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation (CASI), a diverse group of more than 1,800 farmers, industry representatives, UC and other university faculty, and members of the Natural Resources Conservation Service and other public agencies (http://ucanr.edu/CASI). CASI defines conservation tillage as a suite of cultivation practices — including no-tillage, minimum tillage, ridge tillage and strip tillage — that reduce the volume of soil disturbed and preserve crop residues in the field. Conservation tillage is common in other regions of the United States and parts of the world and is beginning to gain acceptance in California agriculture.
Technological upgrades to tillage implements have been critical to the advancement of conservation tillage systems. These include equipment that can target operations to just the plant row rather than the whole field as well as accomplish several operations at the same time.
Fuel use was reduced by 12 gallons and labor by 2 hours per acre in the conservation tillage plots. This amounted to savings of about $70 per acre in 2011 dollars.
Mitchell noted that more research is needed on the adequate development of cotton stands and the prevention of soil compaction under different conditions, but that the benefits of conservation tillage are becoming increasingly obvious. “Provided that yield performance or more importantly bottom-line profitability can be maintained and the risks associated with adopting a new tillage system are deemed reasonable, conservation tillage systems may become increasingly attractive to producers and more common in San Joaquin Valley cotton-growing areas.”
Also in the July-September 2012 issue of California Agriculture:
Agricultural burning and air quality: Southern California farmers in Imperial County regularly burn crop residues of bermudagrass in the winter and wheat stubble in the summer. A study of ambient air quality adjacent to and downwind of agricultural burning sites in the desert county found that particulate matter levels (PM2.5) were 23% higher on burn days than on no-burn days at four locations. Researchers from the California Department of Public Health also assessed community educational needs regarding agricultural burning and developed fact sheets in English and Spanish targeting the general public, schools and farmers.
The value of privately owned oak woodlands: More than 80 percent of California’s 5 million oak woodland acres are privately owned. In a survey, researchers from Spain and UC Berkeley asked private owners of California oak woodlands to place a monetary value on amenities from their land such as recreation, scenic beauty or a rural lifestyle. The technique, called “contingent valuation,” found that landowners would be willing to pay $54 per acre annually for private amenities from their land and that their willingness to pay per acre decreased as their property size increased.
Microchips for woody plants: Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags are widely used to track books in libraries, products during manufacturing, cattle from rangeland to the slaughterhouse, inventory in retail, runners in road races and much more. These tiny microchips (often the size of a grain of rice) are now being placed in woody plants such as grapevines and orchards to monitor crop diseases, track irrigation and pesticide applications, and help prevent the theft of valuable plants. In this review, Italian researchers discuss the emerging uses of RFID technology in agriculture.
Rainfall simulators to measure erosion: In their efforts to keep Lake Tahoe clear, researchers have been studying the movement of sediments into the lake using rainfall simulators. These fairly simple machines are placed on a slope; “rain” is created over a small frame, which allows sediment in the runoff to be collected and measured. However, the lack of standardization in erosion studies using rainfall simulators may be hampering progress. Mark Grismer, professor in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at UC Davis, makes the case for standardized field methodologies and data analysis.
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California Agriculture is the University of California’s peer-reviewed journal of research in agricultural, natural and human resources. For a free subscription, go to: http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.edu, or write to calag@ucanr.edu.
WRITERS/EDITORS: To request a hard copy of the journal, e-mail jlbyron@ucanr.edu.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
“When I started, there were about 22,000 acres, now there are more than 68,000 acres,” said Krueger, who retired July 1 as UCCE advisor in Glenn and Tehama counties and director for UCCE in Glenn County. Part of that expansion can be attributed to Krueger’s research showing how almonds and walnuts can be produced on marginal soils with high density plantings and drip irrigation.
“Bill Krueger is a great asset to our agricultural community,” said Erick Nielsen, who grows prunes and olives in Orland.
“We have enjoyed working with Bill for many years,” Nielsen said. “He has always been the kind of guy to just jump right in and help. We have appreciated his dedication to agricultural research and his knowledgeable guidance.”
Raised on a farm in Prosser, Wash., Krueger was introduced to farming by his parents, who grew Concord grapes and cherries. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in horticulture at Washington State University, then worked for a year as foreman at Mt. Adams Orchard Company in White Salmon, Wash., tending cherries, apples and pears.
In 1980, Krueger moved to California to become the UC Cooperative Extension advisor for tree crops in Glenn County.
“I’ve spent my entire career in Glenn County,” remarked Krueger, who specializes in production of almonds, walnuts, prunes and olives.
Seeking opportunities for growers to diversify their crops, Krueger and his fellow UC Cooperative Extension advisor John Edstrom planted a test plot of walnut trees at the Nickels Soil Laboratory in Arbuckle in 1986.
They set up a walnut orchard with 202 trees per acre, much closer than the 60 trees per acre of a traditional orchard. The two varieties that Krueger and Edstrom planted produce a large proportion of walnuts on lateral buds, which allows for hedgerow planting and mechanical pruning. Each year, a giant hedger with eight 38-inch saws buzzed down one side of the tree rows, cropping back branches and encouraging production. In alternate years, they pruned the opposite side of the trees. Rather than being flood irrigated as most walnut orchards, the Nickels orchard was watered and fertilized using drip irrigation.
Crop yields from the dense walnut tree plantings compensated for the marginal soils. The successful demonstration plot led to thousands of acres of walnuts being planted on similar soils.
In 1992, he added responsibility for olives in Tehama County, where the number of acres of olive trees has doubled from 4,000 acres to approximately 8,000 acres. Krueger is internationally respected for his research identifying the most effective method of chemically thinning olives to increase the size of the fruit. Chemical thinning of olives has become a common practice among Sacramento Valley table olive growers.
Over the years, he has collaborated on the development of integrated pest management practices for almonds, walnuts and prunes. In 2004, Krueger was a member of the team that California Department of Pesticide Regulation honored with its IPM innovator award for the Integrated Prune Farming Practices Program.
“Over the years he has assisted us with many different pruning trials in both our olive and prune orchards,” said Nielsen. “The last project he helped us work on was a trial for various degrees of hand pruning versus mechanical pruning in prunes. Bill has a great sense of the current market for the different crops and has always been a front-runner on moving forward with research and development projects.”
Krueger developed pruning strategies to enhance early production of prunes while developing tree structure capable of supporting heavy crop loads. He helped refine mechanical thinning to manage prune crop size, a technique developed earlier by UC researchers, and his efforts to extend this research to growers helped it become a common practice when needed.
His work, in collaboration with others, on reduced pruning of almonds has helped growers save money by reducing pruning costs.
In addition to advising growers, Krueger served a total of 13 years as director for UCCE in Glenn County, from 1996 to 2001, then resuming the helm from 2004 until his retirement.
Krueger has applied for emeritus status with UC so that he can finish up a few projects, but also looks forward to working on his own 10-acre olive orchard south of Orland during his retirement.
On Aug. 17, Krueger will be celebrating his career with friends and colleagues at Mills Orchards in Hamilton City. For details, contact Jody Samons at (530) 865-1155 or jesamons@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Diane Nelson, (530) 752-1969, denelson@ucdavis.edu
“Mel has been a mentor and leader within the range science community his entire career,” said Ken Tate, UC Cooperative Extension specialist, who holds the Russell L. Rustici Endowed Chair in Rangeland Watershed Sciences. “Mel’s ability to see emerging issues on rangelands, and to position UC ahead of these issues, has allowed us to keep our research and extension at the forefront of rangeland management.”
When George arrived at UC Davis in 1978, he was responsible mainly for forage trials, helping ranchers keep their land productive. But George could see issues with grazing and water quality on the horizon and worked to head them off at the pass.
In the early 1990s, he spearheaded the UC Cooperative Extension Rangeland Watershed Program, which uses education and applied research to help ranchers and regulators mitigate the risk of pathogens in water runoff from rangeland. Some 80 percent of California’s water passes through or is stored on rangeland and the UC Cooperative Extension Rangeland Watershed Program has helped develop management practices that keep that water clean.
“The Rangeland Management Program has been a tremendous help in protecting open space, habitat for plants and wildlife and healthy watersheds that California rangelands provide,” says Tracy Schohr, director of the California Rangeland Conservation Coalition, a band of 100 diverse environmental, ranching and policymaking groups committed to protecting the state’s diminishing rangeland. “They educate land managers and provide the objective, accurate information we need.”
George’s research and extension has improved millions of acres of rangeland in the United States, Africa, Europe, China and beyond. In 1991, for example, George worked with Chinese researchers to develop a research site in the Tibetan Plateau of Szechwan Province, helping develop a winter feeding program for their yak herds that doubled the survival of yak calves. In 1994, George helped Albania develop grazing practices to protect new forest plantations to replace those destroyed during the transition from Communist to democratic rule.
The list goes on and on.
“Mel has a knack for taking a complicated process and making it navigable for ranchers and other land managers,” says Tate who, like George, has been based in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences. “He has greatly advanced both the art and science of rangeland management.”
George got into range management in a round-about way, a journey that passed through farming and animal science and was nearly cut short by a plane crash.
Farming is in George’s blood going back 15 generations, a fact he learned not too long ago when he became a genealogy buff. He was raised in the Butte County town of Gridley and was the first in his family to attend college, receiving his bachelor’s degree in animal science from California State University, Chico. During his senior year at Chico, a professor interested him in range management, which led him to Texas Tech where he received his master’s in range management in August 1969.
The Vietnam War was in progress and in October 1969, George was drafted into the U.S. Army. In November 1970, he boarded a plane bound for active duty that crashed during takeoff, killing 40 people aboard. George was severely burned.
“But I lived, and was released with a medical profile that prevented me from going to a war zone,” George says.
He was stationed at Fort Ord until the summer of 1971 when he and his wife, Gail, moved to Logan, Utah, where George earned his Ph.D. in range ecology at Utah State University. He worked nearly three years on the faculty at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, before coming to UC Davis in 1978.
George has earned countless awards over the years, including the Outstanding Alumnus at Utah State University in 2000, the prestigious James H. Meyer Distinguished Achievement Award at UC Davis in 2007 and the College of Agriculture Distinguished Alumnus Award from Chico State University in 2008.
George will stay busy in retirement, still working on a slew of rangeland research projects under way in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences.
“It’s such a fascinating field because rangeland is the most complex agricultural system there is,” George says. “You have to be willing to think outside the box to manage so many moving parts, and I like that. There are so many issues on the horizon like carbon storage and protecting biodiversity.”
And even in retirement, George will do all he can to keep our rangelands healthy and sustainable for generations to come.