- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Sunday Riverside Press-Enterprise ran a lengthy article marking the 10th anniversary of news that rocked the fledging Temecula wine industry: newly arrived glassy-winged sharpshooters were spreading Pierce's disease and threatening to wipe out grapevines.
The article said the region is a key battlefront in the quest for ways to overcome the challenges of producing quality wines in the presence of GWSS. Almost $400 million has been spent on Pierce's research in California since the outbreak, the newspaper reported, but experts believe it could be 7 to 10 years before the experiments yield a practical...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The continuing efforts of UC scientists to battle Sudden Oak Death were featured today on Quest, KQED's radio program about Northern California science and environment.
The story opens with UC Davis plant pathologist David Rizzo describing why the term "Sudden Oak Death" is a misnomer.
The disease, he said, "is not particularly sudden, it doesn’t just infect oaks and it doesn’t result in death of all plants."
The six-minute radio story includes interviews with Matteo Garbelotto, an extension specialist in forest pathology at UC Berkeley. He...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The California Department of Food and Agriculture has decided to spray a natural pesticide commonly used on organic farms in the Ventura County community of Ojai to knock down a local infestation of gypsy moths, according to an article in the Ventura County Star.
The gypsy moth was deliberately introduced into the United States in 1868 by French scientist Leopold Trouvelot, who wanted to breed a disease-resistant, silk-spinning hybrid caterpillar. Some moths escaped from his Massachusetts lab and the insect became a notorious pest of hardwood trees in the eastern United States, according to a
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Sarah Palin's dismissal of fruit fly research (criticized in a Salon.com article that was covered in this blog) is reverberating on the Internet. In the news blog "The Scientist," writer Bob Grant included reaction from two UC entomologists and other scientists.
Here's the YouTube video in which the vice presidential candidate derides "fruit fly research in Paris, France":
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
As the 2008 presidential election reaches its crescendo, even ANR experts get into the action. Salon.com today posted a mocking commentary on what it calls "Sarah Palin's latest swat at science" that included comments from UC Cooperative Extension's Paul Vossen.
In a speech in which Palin ridiculed earmark money, she noted sarcastically that one such allocation was made for "... fruit fly research in Paris, France," Salon writer Kevin Berger reported.
But, of course, there is more to the story. Berger surmised that Palin was referring to money secured by Mike...