- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The California Report, a popular radio news program that is broadcast throughout the state on public radio stations, devoted five minutes this morning to a solution found at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center for a serious pistachio production problem.
Reporter Alice Daniel interviewed Kearney-based UC Davis plant pathologist Themis Michailides, who led the team that discovered how to expose pistachio trees to spores of a beneficial fungus that displaces the fungi that produce aflatoxin.
Though the story was broadcast this morning, it can still be heard on The California...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Nut harvests in California are winding down, and growers of almonds, walnuts and pistachios are mostly happy with their yields, reported Tim Hearden in Capital Press.
- Almond growers expect to meet an early estimate of 1.95 billion pounds statewide, which would be a record
- Pistachio growers in the San Joaquin Valley are enjoying their second-largest crop ever after last year's record yield
- Walnut growers expect this year's yield to be 485,000 tons, slightly lower than last year's 503,000 tons
"The rumors I've heard is that guys are still complaining about the quality" of walnuts, said
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The economic impact of the pistachio industry in California, Arizona and New Mexico amounts to $1.9 million for each day of the year, $682.5 million annually, according to a report commissioned by the Western Pistachio Association. The greatest economic impact is in California, where the majority of pistachios are grown.
Consultant Dennis H. Tootelian arrived at these figures using data from the Census of Agriculture, USDA, CDFA, and the University of California Cooperative Extension's Sample Costs to Establish and Produce Pistachios, according to a
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Even though Salmonella scares are reverberating in the news media, UC Davis Cooperative Extension food safety specialist Linda Harris says that, overall, the nation's food supply is safe.
Comments from Harris, a food-safety microbiologist at the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at UC Davis, appeared in a story by Barbara Anderson in today's Fresno Bee.
"I would hate for consumers to approach the grocery store with trepidation," Harris was quoted in a story published today. Most of the food in grocery stores, she told the reporter, has been processed in some way that reduces or eliminates...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Last week, the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch ran a Sacramento Bee story about pistachios, a tree nut once produced exclusively in the Middle East that is today an important California crop. The story focused on 82-year-old Harry Dewey of Yolo, who told reporter Gwen Schoen that he helped bring the crop to the Golden State.
According to the story, University of California researchers were studying the tree nut in earnest when President Jimmy Carter imposed an embargo on Iran, the world's No. 1 pistachio producer.
"I offered to plant pistachios for UC to find out if it...