- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Some of the best practices for maintaining healthy home gardens and landscapes also cut water use, a particularly important benefit during the drought. That's the case with compost. UC Agriculture and Natural Resources' environmental horticulture advisors and UC Master Gardeners have long encouraged Californians to liberally use compost to improve their soil.
“Adding compost to your soil on a regular basis increases the amount of water your soil can hold, therefore decreasing the amount of times you need to apply water to your landscape,” says Missy Gable, the director of the UC Master Gardener program, in...
- Author: Aubrey White
Writing on Earth Day, I am reminded of one of the world's major successes in environmental protection, the Montreal Protocol. Originally signed in 1987, it works to phase out ozone-depleting substances, including the soil fumigant methyl bromide, commonly used by strawberry growers.
Twenty-seven years later, the realities of enacting the Montreal Protocol are still taking shape, and strawberry growers are, with each harvest year, a step closer to a complete phase out of the fumigant and increased restrictions on alternative chemical fumigants used for disease suppression.
UC research has focused on how to make an economically viable and effective transition away from the soil fumigant. Initial alternatives include...