- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Sudden oak death is a misnomer because it doesn't fell a tree like a lightning strike nor does the disease limit itself to oaks. Nonetheless, the moniker has stuck and UC scientists remain committed to containing the culprit.
UC, federal and state agencies and landowners in Humboldt County recently received national recognition for their collaborative efforts to halt the spread of sudden oak death. Kathleen Merrigan, U.S. Department of Agriculture deputy secretary, praised the partnership during her visit to Davis on May 16.
Yana Valachovic, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Humboldt County, and
- Author: Janet Byron
Managing crop residues to essentially make them disappear has been the norm in California agriculture.
But a growing body of research, and experience with conservation tillage on thousands of acres of Central Valley farmland, is showing that reducing tillage and leaving crop residues on the soil surface can improve water use efficiency.
“Crop residues are an inevitable feature of agriculture,” Jeffrey Mitchell, cropping systems specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences, UC Davis, wrote in the April-June 2012 issue of California Agriculture journal....
- Author: Katherine E. Kerlin
How wood is used after it is cleared from a forest and where that forest is located largely affects the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere, according to a new study by UC Davis.
The study, published this week in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Climate Change, provides a deeper understanding of the complex global impacts of deforestation on carbon storage and greenhouse gas emissions.
When trees are felled to create solid wood products, such as lumber for housing, that wood retains much of its carbon for decades, the researchers found. In contrast, when wood is used for...
- Author: Ann Brody Guy
- Adapted from an article by: Sarah Yang
The competition between farmers and fish for precious water in California is intensifying in wine country, say biologists at the University of California, Berkeley.
A recently published study links higher death rates for threatened juvenile steelhead trout with low water levels in the summer and the amount of vineyard acreage upstream. Like salmon, steelhead trout migrate from freshwater streams to the ocean before returning to their birthplace to spawn. Steelhead trout in Southern California and the upper Columbia River are endangered, and several other populations, including those in Northern California, are...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When you drive around Yolo County farmlands, you may see them: a colorful mix of native forbs meant to attract bees and other beneficial insects.
What's a forb? A forb is a broad-leaved herb (as opposed to grass) that commonly grows in a field, prairie, or meadow or alongside farmland.
What's the best mix of native forbs?
Native pollinator specialist Neal Williams, assistant professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, and research associate Kimiora Ward are researching which native forbs perform the best.
So far, the plants that have performed the best in their Yolo County trials...
