- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Strawberries in the Santa Maria Valley and tomatoes in San Joaquin County are a bit under the weather, according to reports from local newspapers. The Stockton Record reported that tomato growers are facing significant losses from the beet curly top virus. The Santa Maria Sun said last year's whitefly infestation caused an outbreak of pallidosis-related decline.
Record reporter Reed Fujii spoke to Brenna Aegerter, UC Cooperative Extension...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Many Californians swear by the "superior" flavor of home-grown, farmers market or roadside stand tomatoes. UC Cooperative Extension vegetable crops specialist Tim Hartz says consumers may wish to give grocery store fruit another chance, according to the Associated Press.
“For the life of me I don’t understand all the consternation that some people have about the quality of the tomatoes at the supermarket," Hartz was quoted. “What you can buy at the supermarket now is probably superior to the choices that you had 15 to 20 years ago."
Winter tomatoes...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Many parts of California offer the perfect summer climate for growing tomatoes. In fact, it's so good gardeners often find themselves with more tomatoes than they can eat fresh on salads and burgers.
To manage this bounty, UC Cooperative Extension Master Food Preservers offer classes that teach Californians the "lost art" of canning, a process which keeps summer in a jar to enjoy all year, according to an article in the Sacramento Bee.
The story, written by Debbie Arrington, featured 12-year veteran UCCE Master Food Preserver Lillian Smith, who teaches canning and other preservation techniques in Sacramento...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Davis Cooperative Extension post-harvest specialist Marita Cantwell told Bee reporter Niesha Lofing that consumer demand for high-flavor tomatoes has prompted greater availability of a diversity of tomato varieties in hues from golden yellow to deep burgundy.
"Sales are greater if...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
For automated, mechanical weed control to work, scientists must teach machines how to distinguish between unwanted vegetation and the crop being cultivated. A new, high-tech system using x-rays to detect tomato stems is under development by UC Davis Cooperative Extension agricultural engineer David Slaughter and USDA Agricultural Research Service researcher Ron Haff. The output from the x-ray detector is input to a microcontroller that controls a pair of pneumatically powered mechanical weed knife blades.
Slaughter and Haff's work was explained this week in an online newsletter produced by