- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A lengthy New York Times article published this week reported on the efforts of retired UC Berkeley forest and genetics professor William Libby, who is helping create a collection of clones from at least 100 of California's tallest and oldest redwood trees. The cloned trees will be donated to whoever wants, and is able, to care for them. They will not be patented, but will remain in the public domain. Clone-seedling redwood forests have already been planted in England, France, New Zealand and elsewhere
Using the clones of the biggest and oldest trees gives reforestation efforts reliability and control you don’t...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Associated Press ran an article about research led by the Texas A&M extension service to cultivate artichokes in the Lone Star State. Manager of the California Artichoke Advisory Board in Castroville, Pat Hopper, seemed to express doubt in the article about the Texas effort to produce what has come to be a California crop.
"These guys in Texas don't know what they're in for" with the sensitive plant, Hopper was quoted. "I would wish them luck in finding a market in Texas. Texas is not one of our best buyers of artichokes."
Texas A&M professor Daniel Leskovar said the goal is to provide another product for the Winter Garden area, about 80 miles west of San...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
When the Contra Costa Times set out to write a story about the plight of landowners in Canyon where oak trees are dying from Sudden Oak Death, the reporter sought information from the California Oak Mortality Task Force, a program established at UC Berkeley that focuses on Phytophthora ramorum, the plant pathogen which causes Sudden Oak Death.
Reporter Elizabeth Nardi interviewed task force public information officer Katie Palmieri for information about removing diseased trees from private and public property. Palmieri said the task force does not have a recommendation on when trees...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A publication called Government Technology went to former director of the Western Center for Food Safety at UC Davis Jerry Gillespie for a story about the ease with which community food and water supplies can be contaminated, accidentally or intentionally.
Gillespie noted that contamination at one processing plant can have widespread implications because food from a single source tends to be distributed widely.
"We've learned that, for example, with the spinach outbreak in Salinas County, it affected more than 18 states," he said. "So in a very quick order, we can have widespread contaminated product."
Agriculture in the United...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Yesterday, UC Davis news service distributed a news release about an audit that found some funds intended for the Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program were misspent. While FSNEP is administered at the UC Davis campus, ANR advisors and program representatives in 40 counties deliver the program to the clientele.
The news was widely reported in the media. The Sacramento Bee mentioned in its story the information was released in response to a public records request made by the newspaper. The reporter, Carrie Peyton Dahlberg, spoke to UC Davis news service director Mitchell Benson. He told...
