- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
When droughts strike California, people who rely on shallow domestic wells for their drinking, cooking and washing water are among the first to feel the pain. Aquifers have become depleted from decades of overuse. Drilling deeper is an option for farmers, but prohibitively expensive for low-income residents in disadvantaged communities in the San Joaquin Valley.
A UC scientist believes managed aquifer recharge on agricultural lands close to populations with parched wells is a hopeful solution.
Helen Dahlke, professor in integrated hydrologic sciences at UC Davis, has been evaluating scenarios for flooding agricultural land when excess water is available during the winter...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources will receive $865,000 to help farmers in the Colorado River basin and the Salinas Valley integrate digital tools and artificial intelligence into their growing systems. The funds are part of a $10 million Sustainable Agricultural Systems grant from the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture to improve the sustainability of the nation's food supply.
The intensive agricultural industry of the Colorado River basin – which includes the Palo Verde, Coachella and Imperial valleys in California; the Yuma Valley and other areas, such as Wellton-Mohawk Valley in Arizona...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Sweeping acres of striking golden flowers may soon grace California's desert southwest. UC Cooperative Extension irrigation specialist Khaled Bali believes sunflowers may be an ideal crop for the state's most punishing agricultural region.
California produces more than 90 percent of the country's hybrid sunflower planting seed, which is shipped around the nation and world. The seed is used to grow sunflower seeds for a healthy snack or salad topper, and for seeds that are expressed into sunflower oil, valued for its clean taste and polyunsaturated fat.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
University of California students are taking a long journey through California to trace the state's complicated and critical water supply. The recent graduates and upper-division co-eds from UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley and UC Davis are part of the UC Water Academy, a course that combines online training with a two-week field trip for first-hand knowledge about California water.
The tour began June 18 at Lake Shasta, the state's largest reservoir, and followed the water's course to the Sacramento Valley, through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and south along the Delta-Mendota Canal. Since a key water destination is agriculture, the UC Water Academy toured the
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
The rotten-egg stink that invaded Southern California in September was blamed by scientists on an unfortunate combination of a large fish die-off in the Salton Sea, a storm churning the fetid lower levels of the sea and unusual gusts from the southeast blowing the odors toward Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Times.
That was just latest episode in a series of environmental woes for the lake that formed 150 miles southeast of Los Angeles in 1905 when the Colorado River flooded the Sonoran Desert. Now the Salton Sea is mainly fed by fresh water drainage from nearby farms and waste water...