- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The warmest winter since 1907 in south-central Texas has left its peach crop with inadequate chill hours this year, reported Lynn Brezosky in the San Antonio Express-News.
Without sufficient chill hours over the winter, the buds didn't get the re-boot they need to bloom in proper synchrony, which is important for blossoms to set fruit. The leaves have also been slow to emerge. "The trees look like it's still winter," said Jim Kamas, Texas A&M AgriLife Extenson horticulturalist.
“The lack of chill hours is a big deal,” said Larry Stein, extension horticulturalist...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
California's summertime stonefruit - peaches, nectarines, plums, and apricots - are tending to be smaller in 2015, reported Lesley McClurg on Capital Public Radio. But don't despair. The smaller fruit is typically tastier, said a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) expert.
"That smaller peach this year very likely is sweeter than the moderate-sized peach of last year," said Kevin Day, UC ANR Cooperative Extension advisor and director in Tulare and Kings counties.
Most of the change in fruit size can be...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Kevin Day, a UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor for Tulare County, has been comparing the quality of fruit on stone fruit trees pruned conventionally, in hedge rows and other configurations for 17 years. Now he and his colleague Ted DeJong, UCCE specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, are taking a new look at small-sized trees, reported KSEE Channel 24 news in Fresno.
The idea is...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Low production, low prices and labor issues are plaguing the California cling peach industry and prompting farmers to pull out their orchards in favor of growing something that carries less risk, reported Joshua Emerson Smith in the Merced Sun-Star.
Many environmental factors can significantly compromise a peach harvest, said Maxwell Norton, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Merced County.
"For tree fruit you need to have a greater net profit than you do raising tree nuts because growing tree fruit is so much more risky," he said. "The biggest risk of all is not being able...
- Author: Brenda Dawson
An article by Ching Lee in today's Ag Alert focused on the effects of budget cuts on agricultural student programs at California universities. "Budget cuts have had a profound effect on all areas of the campus," Diane Ullman, associate dean for undergraduate academic programs at UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, told the reporter. She explained the college faces challenges keeping agricultural production facilities, instructional equipment and technologies updated to deliver hands-on education — even though the office has seen student applications increase by 70–80 percent.
