- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC CalFresh educators took part in a field trip for fourth-graders in Fresno where the children tasted a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, reported Dale Yurong on ABC 30 Action News.
"We encourage them to try it and then they try it and wind up liking it," said UC CalFresh nutrition educator Kristi Sharp. "That's a saying that we say - you can't judge it unless you try it."
Fresno Unified School District is the state's largest recipient of funds from the fruit and vegetable program, Yurong reported. In addition to including fruits and vegetables at meals, the district is...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Growing fruit that's good enough to compete with candy bars and potato chips is the goal of public and private fruit breeders, according to a recent Sacramento Bee story by Anne Gonzales. The story centered on Floyd Zaiger, whose company has been turning out fruit for 50 years.
Zaiger is one of the few private breeders operating on a large commercial and worldwide scale, said UC Davis geneticist and plant breeder Tom Gradziel. U.S. universities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are typically the powerhouses behind finding successful hybrids, because the...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
With winter winding down, fresh fruit season in California is right around the corner. The first fruit to come off trees in May and June are bing cherries.
The Stockton Record reports today that consumers can expect a bounty of the delicious and healthful fruit. California's cherry growers could produce a record-breaking 10 million 18-pound boxes of fruit this spring, according to the article by Reed Fujii. Last year California cherry growers produced 8.3 million boxes.
Excellent weather and an increasing number of acres planted to cherries is the reason for the projected growth, the story said.
In the past, the focus of the...
