- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A glorious foothill display of yellow flowers and their spicy-sweet fragrance may delight the senses, but they pose a serious problem for California.
Scotch, Spanish and French broom were introduced from Europe in the mid-1800s as lovely, easy-to-grow garden accents and land stabilizers, but they have become aggressive invaders threatening native plants and increasing fire hazards.
“These brooms crowd out our native flora and form large, dense stands of just broom,” said Scott Oneto, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in the Central Sierra. “It’s also displacing the birds and animals that would live in this environment with native...
- Contributor: John Stumbos
- Author: Katherine E. Kerlin
A recent study led Peter Moyle, professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology at UC Davis, predicts the demise of 82 percent of California’s native fish if present trends continue.
The study, published online in May in the journal PLOS ONE, assessed how vulnerable each freshwater species is to climate change and estimated the likelihood that those species would become extinct in California within 100 years.
The researchers found that, of 121 native fish species, 82 percent are likely to be driven to extinction or very low numbers as climate change speeds the...
- Author: Marissa Palin
Sustainability has become a buzzword. Everywhere you look it's sustainable this, sustainable that. But what does it really mean? What makes something truly sustainable? And what does it mean in terms of food production?
April's Global Food Systems Forum invigorated the conversation. The event convened some of agriculture's leading experts to address the plethora of challenges that face our global food systems. The conversation brought forward several hot topics: GMOs, large scale vs. small scale production, nutrition and more.
But even with the riveting debate, the question remains: What is sustainability? Is it focusing more on natural ecosystems? Is it being...
- Author: Mary Louise Flint
Oils are some of the most useful pesticides available for managing pests on woody ornamentals and fruit trees. They are also widely used on many herbaceous flowers and vegetables. Oils control a range of soft-bodied insects and mites, as well as several foliar diseases including powdery mildew (Table 1). Not only do oils leave no toxic residues, they are safe to use around people, pets, and wildlife; have low impact on beneficial insects; and won't harm honey bees unless applied directly to flowers during the time of day that bees are foraging.
Oils used for managing pests on plants are most often called horticultural oils. Horticultural oils are derived from petroleum sources, and are sometimes called...
- Author: Rachael Freeman Long
- Author: Daniel H Putnam
Alfalfa farmers are on their second hay cutting in California’s Central Valley. Lush green fields are swathed with new generation rotary disk mowers that are nearly twice as fast as the conventional sickle mowers, cutting about 150 acres of alfalfa a day. Alfalfa hay fields are cut from four to ten times a season, averaging about seven tons per acre per year. It’s a profitable crop these days, with prices for high quality hay frequently reaching $250/ton.
But in addition to its over $1 billion value to the state of California, alfalfa provides a host of environmental benefits that are frequently overlooked. What are these benefits?
Benefits to the soil. In addition to being an important cash...
