- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
ABC TV-7 news reported last night that sudden oak death has made a comeback in Northern California oak woodlands.
"There is a resurgence of sudden oak death from Monterey through Mendocino, more than a million trees killed so far and that number rises daily. Those dead oaks can contribute to the fire danger and change the look of our forests in more ways than one. Experts say we're one major wildfire away from changing the look of some of our forests forever," says the story posted on the program's Web site.
The reporter went to UC Cooperative Extension natural resources advisor Steven Swain for expert comment.
...- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies held a telephone news conference yesterday featuring UC Davis agricultural economist Phil Martin, who has written a paper titled "Farm Labor Shortages: How Real? What Response?" The paper examines workers' wages, farmers' earnings and the prospects of mechanization.
A handful of newspapers reported on the story, including the Sacramento Bee, Central Valley Business Times, and the
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A Bay Area television station called on UC Cooperative Extension wood durability advisor Stephen Quarles to comment for its story about "house-eating" fungus found in an East Bay home.
CBS TV-5 produced a story for yesterday's broadcast and Web site about the "rare fungus attack." Poria, the report said, is most common in the Gulf states, but it has attacked more than 200 homes in Northern and Southern California.
For the story, the TV station gave Quarles the title "fungus detective."
"You'll see them often behind a door you don't open so often," Quarles told the station. "The feeling that...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Fresno Bee ran an op-ed piece in Sunday's paper by Selma farmer Carol Chandler, a former UC Regent and UC Davis graduate, and Huron farmer Stuart Woolf, a UC Berkeley graduate. They made the case that California can't afford to not fund the UC system. They noted that a recent government report on "Investment Planning in the 21st Century" raises the possibility of eliminating all state funding for the UC system.
In their article, the writers said the proposal doesn't make sense to them. "If the recommendations in the report are implemented, UC Merced, and the other nine campuses that make up the world's greatest public research university, will be at risk,"...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Cooperative Extension natural resources advisor Sabrina Drill planned a Santa Clarita Valley workshop on fire resistant vegetation long before the Southern California firestorm of 2007, but the severity of the disaster brought increased attention to her work.
Los Angeles Times staff writer Deborah Schoch covered the Nov. 3 event for the Sunday paper and quoted Drill extensively about fire hazards introduced when plants have been brought to Southern California from other locales.
Some of the non-native plants, unaccustomed to LA's hot summers, dry up and become fire hazards, Drill...
