- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The birth and demise of trees is bread and butter for UC Cooperative Extension. Today, two stories document a small part of UCCE's close connection with trees.
The Monterey Herald reports that Bill Tietje, an area natural resource specialist with UCCE in San Luis Obispo County, is coordinating the planting of 1,000 valley oak trees. The planting stems from a visit by Rep. Sam Farr with rancher Jack Varion.
"Jack is a great example of how ranchers can be great stewards of our land. The trees are just one of many great ideas Jack has come up with, and I look forward to more. Jack is an inspiration for ranchers and...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A story in the California Farm Bureau Federation publication AgAlert this week, with analysis of Gov. Schwarzenegger's budget proposal, includes concerns about cuts faced by UC's Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension.
AgAlert assistant editor Kate Campbell interviewed the state farm bureau's director of taxation and land use John Gamper for the story.
Gamper noted that state budget support for AES and UCCE has been in a "severe downward spiral" over the past two decades, with budget cuts of 20 percent and 25 percent to AES and CE, respectively, in 2002-03...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Packer, a Lenexa, Kansas,-based publication that focuses on fresh fruits and vegetables, ran a story yesterday about an ongoing dispute over CDFA handling of avocado imports from Mexico. (The story is available on The Packer's Web site only with a subscription.)
In short, the article says Mexican avocado producers are suing CDFA for unreasonably blocking Mexican avocado shipments to California. Mexican avocados were allowed entry to the California market beginning Feb. 1, 2007. Later that month, the agriculture department rejected 11 truckloads of the fruit because of the presence of live scale insects. Reporter John Chadwell sought insight from UC Riverside...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Viticulture farm advisor Larry Bettiga of the Salinas County UC Cooperative Extension office wrote a column that ran in the "Business Monday" section of the Salinas Californian today. The article makes a strong case for local agricultural research.
Local research has been instrumental in helping the Monterey County wine grape industry achieve and maintain a reputation of being early adapters of new technologies, Bettiga asserted in the article.
He noted that, when phylloxera was found in the Salinas Valley in the early 1980s requiring the replanting of some vineyards to phylloxera-resistant...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Our Master Gardeners make appearances in the media quite a bit. Usually, they pop up in my subscribed feeds for their numerous workshops, garden tours, advice columns, seminars and workshops, such as in this garden calendar from the Santa Cruz Sentinel. As a result, I don't always report on the Master Gardener stories that appear, so I missed an excellent piece in the San Jose Mercury News on Jan. 12.
Master Gardener Rebecca Jepson introduced a new monthly column in the paper, which has a weekday circulation of over a quarter million. Jepson...
