- (Public Value) UCANR: Protecting California's natural resources
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
With Californians sheltering in place to stop the spread of new coronavirus COVID-19, the annual citizen science project to map sudden oak death disease has been redesigned to ensure the safety of participants. The first in a series of SOD blitzes of 2020 will be April 11 in Napa. The events are free.
“We have been able to redesign the 2020 SOD Blitzes to make them a safe and legal activity that allows volunteers to exercise outdoors, and this powerful citizen science program will help us protect our forests' health,” said Matteo Garbelotto, UC Cooperative Extension forest pathology specialist and adjunct professor in the Department of Environmental Science,...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
These workshops have been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
California water-rights holders are required by state law to measure and report the water they divert from surface streams. For people who wish to take the water measurements themselves, the University of California Cooperative Extension is offering training to receive certification in Redding and Woodland.
At the workshop, participants can expect to:
- clarify reporting requirements for ranches.
- understand what meters are appropriate for different situations.
- learn how to determine measurement equipment accuracy.
- develop an understanding...
- Author: Rose Hayden-Smith, PhD
Rose Hayden-Smith, UC Cooperative Extension digital communications in food systems & extension educator, talked with Matthew Shapero about his work protecting California's natural resources. This is the second in a series featuring a few scientists whose work exemplifies UC ANR's public value for California.
Matthew Shapero is originally from California and has worked as an ANR Cooperative Extension livestock and range advisor since September 2017, based in Santa Barbara and
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Ranching has a long history in California, starting when Spanish missions were established in the early 1700s, continuing as ranchos under Mexican rule, and persisting as a solid industry today with about 38 million acres of range and pasture lands in the state.
Those rangelands produce much more than beef. California's water flows from the land, healthy soil and grass sequester carbon, and wildlife thrives alongside the revenue-generating cattle. Rangeland also has a significant esthetic value. Green rolling hills in the spring, dotted with stately oaks, paint an iconic California scene.
At the annual Rangeland Summit held by UC...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Hedgerows bordering farmland – plantings with native trees, shrubs, bunch grasses and wildflowers – support bug-eating birds, which helps with on-farm pest control, according to research by recent UC Davis graduate Sacha Heath and UC Cooperative Extension advisor Rachael Long. The study was published in the October 2019 issue of the online journal Ecosphere.
The authors glued codling moth cocoons to walnut tree trunks and covered some with cages that exclude birds to test the effect that bird predation has on controlling moth pests. If...
