- Author: Fadzayi Elizabeth Mashiri
Statements such as: "This year is the best (or worst) grass year of my adult life" or "We started seeing this weed on our property about 10 years ago and now it is all over" are commonly used to describe rangeland condition. Although such statements are most likely correct, what is lacking in most cases is rangeland monitoring data to support these statements.
What is rangeland monitoring? Rangeland monitoring is observing, collecting and analyzing data to document change over time and how these changes may relate to management and environmental factors such as climate and soil.
Landowners need monitoring programs...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
When almond orchards are about 25 years old, farmers must pull out the trees and plant new ones to maintain quality and yield. Typically, the old trees are pushed out and burned or ground up and hauled to a co-generation plant. However, UC Cooperative Extension advisor Brent Holtz believes there may be a better way.
Holtz has been pioneer in ag burn alternatives throughout his 26-year-career with UCCE, and going back still further on his family almond farm near Modesto. Beginning in the early 1990s, Holtz and his father experimented with chipping almond prunings instead of burning them, long before air quality regulations required wide implementation of the practice.
When...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Rain in December raised hopes for an end to the California drought, but storms have stayed away since the New Year began. January 2015 is shaping up to be the driest January since officials began keeping records 137 years ago, according to the National Weather Service.
California's continuing water crisis is leading to decreased and more variable water supplies for San Joaquin Valley farmers, and the region's forage production sector is being hit particularly hard.
“Corn silage and alfalfa have traditionally used lots of water and current and future water restrictions are forcing many farmers to rethink their forage production strategies,” said
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Before Americans of European descent began actively farming and developing the beautiful, temperate California coast, vast stretches from San Francisco to the Mexican border were covered with a low-growing, aromatic plant community called coastal sage scrub. The ecosystem supported an array of seasonal wildflowers, such as California poppy, lupins, wild onions and sego lilies.
Because of its gentle topography and proximity to coastal cities, however, two-thirds of the coastal sage scrubland has already been converted to housing or farming, said Edith Allen, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences at UC Riverside. The remaining coastal sage...
- Author: Trina Wood
Golden eagles in the western United States may be at risk of infestation by an exotic and possibly new species of mite that causes a fatal skin disease, according to an Emerging Infectious Diseases case report published in October 2014.
Two adult golden eagles that were recovered in California between July and August 2013 were infested by a mite with morphologic features similar to those of Micnemidocoptes derooi, a species of mite seen only once, in an African palm swift in West Africa more than 40 years ago.
Both eagles had substantial feather loss and scabbing on the head, neck, and legs and...