- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Bigcone Douglas-fir is an evergreen conifer native to the mountains of Southern California. Repeated wildfires and drought are threatening the species' existence in its native range, reported Bettina Boxall in the Los Angeles Times.
The reporter visited a Santa Barbara County site peppered with tall, dead trees where UC Cooperative Extension fire specialist Max Moritz is studying the species' fate.
"You don't see anything," he said. "It has a fairly depressing quality to it, given the mortality and no regeneration."
The area was burned by the Zaca Fire 11 years ago, something the fire-resistant conifer...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
How they survived: Owners of the few homes left standing around Paradise, Calif., took critical steps to ward off wildfires
(Washington Post) Sarah Kaplan, Frances Stead Sellers, Nov. 30
…Though the United States spends upwards of $2 billion each year on fire suppression and billions more helping communities recover, the current budget for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant Program is just over $200 million — and it must address hurricanes, earthquakes and a host of other natural hazards as well as fires. Cal Fire provides grants for forest management and tree removal, but not structure modification.
The budget for the University of California...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Low-lying morning clouds in Southern California coastal areas form the predictable "June Gloom" in early summer - at least, they used to. The combination of urbanization and a warming climate are driving up summer temperatures, reducing cloud cover and increasing the risk of bigger and more intense wildfires, reported Julie Cohen of UC Santa Barbara's The Current.
UC Cooperative Extension specialist Max Moritz, UC Santa Barbara geography professor Dar Roberts and colleagues published the study results in the journal Geophysical Research...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Scientists' Newest Tool To Fight Agricultural Toxin: A Video Game
(KVPR) Kerry Klein, Feb. 28
It wasn't long after the invention of the internet that scientists discovered the potential for using computing power as a citizen science tool. One of the earliest examples was a computer program developed in the 1990s that allowed users to search for life on other planets. Now a new collaboration takes aim at something a little closer to home: An intersection between citizen science, health, and agriculture, with implications right here in the San Joaquin Valley.
…Aflatoxin is the most potent natural carcinogen known. It's caused by a fungus...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
The new study “Climate Change Trends and Impacts on California Agriculture” by UC scientists Tapan Pathak, Mahesh Maskey, Jeffery Dahlberg, Faith Kearns, Khaled Bali and Daniele Zaccaria was published Feb. 26 in the journal Agronomy.
"This article received more than 1000 views in less than a day," Pathak wrote in an...