- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Christmas tree production is a big business that offers economic benefits and environmental impacts, reported Erin Blakemore in Popular Science.
Christmas trees' environmental tolls include fuel for helicopters to harvest and trucks to transport, but UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Lynn Wunderlich says fertilizer and pesticide use are the main culprits.
"There is pesticide use across the board," she said.
Christmas tree farmers can use integrated pest management tools to reduce pesticide use, including monitoring for pests and natural predators...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Unprecedented Study Discovers what Urban Coyotes Really Eat
(Care2) Laura Goldman, March 30
Hiking boots, avocados, candy wrappers and fast-food containers. These aren't a few of my favorite things, but they are some of the items found inside the stomachs of dead urban coyotes in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
…Since the study began over a year ago, the researchers, led by Dr. Niamh Quinn, the human-wildlife interactions advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension, have discovered that cats make up only about eight percent of a coyote's diet.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Winegrape growers who rely on groundwater are worried about the dismal rainy season so far, reported Ed Joyce on Capital Public Radio. He quoted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as saying that, barring "epic rain and snowfall," the drought will likely continue through the spring and summer.
Joyce spoke to a a dismayed winemaker, a worried vineyard manager and he gathered background for his four-minute story by interviewing Lynn Wunderlich, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor for El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras and Tuolumne counties.
"There's a lot of concern out there amongst growers that I work with in the four...
