- 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: Jeannette E. Warnert
Summaries of presentations from the 2016 Organic Agriculture Research Symposium (OARS) held in Pacific Grove are now available online at http://eorganic.info/node/16778. Many of the workshops and keynote presentations were recorded live and may be viewed via the eOrganic YouTube channel.
The event, which was co-sponsored by the Organic Farming Research Foundation...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A team of researchers has received a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to find new ways to combat Johnsongrass, one of the most widespread and troublesome agricultural weeds in the world.
“Johnsongrass is a huge problem,” said Jeff Dahlberg, UC Cooperative Extension sorghum specialist and director of the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier, Calif. “It impacts many different crops and is very hard to control.”
Dahlberg is part of the team that includes scientists from Virginia, Kansas, North Carolina, Texas and Georgia. Andrew Paterson, director of the Plant Genome...
- 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
California’s role as an emerging world leader in the development of green energy technologies offers the state’s farmers the opportunity to diversify their cropping systems and increase their income.
Sacramento lawmakers have given the California Energy Commission an annual budget of $100 million to support the development of alternative and renewable low-carbon fuels. In addition, the State Alternative Fuels Plan set goals of reducing petroleum dependence by 15 percent and increasing alternative fuels use by 20 percent by 2020. These efforts are meant to help meet the growing fuel demands of the world population while reducing greenhouse gas emissions in California to 1990 levels.
“With the new mandates, there are new...