- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A group of sixth-grade students didn't stop at hugging a beloved tree at Mt. Madonna County Park, they came equipped to administer life-saving treatment, according to a story in yesterday's Santa Cruz Sentinel. The Mt. Madonna School students are aiming to protect a tanoak believed to be among the largest in California from Sudden Oak Death.
The children were led by their teacher, James Rohan, who attended a UC Berkeley training session with foresters and nursery owners to learn how to treat at-risk trees. According to the Sentinel story, the students drilled 20 small holes around the tree's trunk, injected them with Agri-Fos and plugged the holes...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Director of the UC Cooperative Extension office in Yolo County, Kent Brittan, has found a way to maintain the jobs of county-paid staff even as the Board of Supervisors cut the organization's budget 11.4 percent compared to last year. The five people will each cut their hours - and therefore their pay - by 20 percent, according to a story in the Davis Enterprise.
That means no one loses a job, but also that the Woodland UCCE office will be closed on Mondays. The reduced schedule will affect all extension programs, from the county's 4-H program to pest control on farms and at the Davis Community Gardens, Brittan said told reporter Jonathan...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Trees around the Valley are laden with ripening figs, according to an article in the Merced Sun-Star today that said harvest typically takes place in the final weeks of June. Writer Jonah Owen Lamp centered his story on the fig orchard of Tonetta Gladwin, a third-generation fig grower in Merced County.
"I believe that Eve gave Adam a fig, not an apple," she was quoted in the story, adding that apples are not indigenous to the Middle East. "The fig was the downfall of man."
However, she said, the fresh fig still has an anonymity in the U.S. produce industry. Lamb turned to UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Oregonian blogger Carrie Sturrock called around the country on a quest for commentary about lead contamination in her own backyard. One of the sources she found was UC Cooperative Extension's Don Hodel of Los Angeles County.
Sturrock wrote that she lives in a house built in 1911, well before regulations banned lead in house paint. She deduced that lead sluffed, scraped or sanded from the siding may be in the soil, so she wanted to find out whether eating home-grown fruits and vegetables posed a health risk.
Soil testing revealed elevated levels of lead in her backyard soil. However, Hodel assured her, "Plants don't take it...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The dire economic straits in which many California dairy operators find themselves have prompted UC Cooperative Extension to collaborate with other agencies to provide a suicide prevention online seminar, according to an article in Dairy Herd Management.
The webinar, held this morning, covered farmer stress, depression and suicide prevention. According to an article published in the Los Angeles Times late last month, two dairy operators have recently committed suicide. Low milk prices that have dairy farmers selling cows for hamburger meat and...