- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A group of trained and dedicated volunteers have been tasting avocado samples at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier to determine whether the GEM avocado variety can stand up to the tried-and-true Hass in grocery stores, reported Dale Yurong on ABC 30 Action News.
Yurong visited the sensory lab at Kearney where nine tasters have been meeting for months to help inform UC and USDA research that may enable commercial production of avocados in the San Joaquin Valley, an area believed to be unsuitable because of hot summers and cold...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
California avocados are the best in the world. So says downtown restaurant manager Daniel Avalos in a Valley Public Radio story by reporter Ezra David Romero.
The fact that they currently thrive only on a small swath of coastal Southern California is being challenged by UC Cooperative Extension specialist Mary Lu Arpaia. She is on a mission to find avocado varieties that withstand the hot summers and cold winters of the San Joaquin Valley, where irrigation water and crop land are more abundant and cheaper.
She hopes to find avocado varieties that ripen at various times of...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The California avocado industry is getting much-needed hope from results of a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) study on high-density planting, reported Lesley McClurg on Capital Public Radio. One farmer featured in her report said, because of the drought, he is paying $1,600 per acre-foot for water, an all-time high.
Gary Bender, an advisor with UC ANR Cooperative Extension in San Diego County, believes that increasing per-acre yield will help farmers stay in business.
“We've been growing avocados wrong all these years and we're finally starting to figure it out," Bender...
