- Author: Devii R Rao
Do you have livestock in San Benito County? If so, you'll want to attend the livestock pass fire training which will be hosted by the Ag Commissioner's office and presented by CAL FIRE.
A holder of a San Benito County Livestock Pass may have access to a closed area during a disaster if granted by the incident commander, a law enforcement official or their designee. Access to the ranch property is only for the purposes of sheltering, moving, transporting, evacuating, feeding, watering, or administering veterinary care to livestock.
Date: June 21, 2024
Time: 9:00 am
Location: Bolado Park
RSVP by June 7 required: 831-637-5344 or bmancilla@cosb.us
Click here for the flyer with more details.
Livestock Meeting Flyer 2024 Updated
- Author: Jennifer Codron, UC Master Food Preserver Volunteer
Spring has sprung and not only are the birds and bees stirring, but humans on the Central Coast are out and about after a much-needed rainy winter season.
There are parties, garden workdays and spring cleaning to attend to. All of these activities leave very little time for working in the kitchen! When my rhubarb started coming in, I decided I wanted to use the fresh stalks without spending too much time in the kitchen. So, I made strawberry rhubarb jam with low-sugar pectin. (Ball Realfruit Low or No-Sugar Needed Pectin)
Friends and family often ask for a lower sugar product so no-sugar/low-sugar pectin is a great solution to use with a berry jam recipe. The peel-off label on the jar of pectin provides a useful table of ingredients listing the amounts to multiply by the number of jars you wish to make. My water bath canner fits about 7 jars, so I multiply the recipe by four to make about 8 - 8oz. jars of jam. That eighth jar is always my sampler that I do not process and just store in the fridge.
Strawberries can often be found at the farmers markets on the Central Coast, sometimes year-round! These were purchased at Cal Poly while I was in the orchard u-picking citrus fruit.
I grew up with rhubarb growing in our garden in Michigan. My Finnish grandmother always had a patch in her garden, too. It is not always easy to find here on the Central Coast, so I decided to plant my own. These stalks came from my second plant which did much better planted in full sun.
The people of China were the first to use this plant as a medicinal herb over 5,000 years ago. When the English discovered rhubarb, they began eating the leaves which caused great stomach discomfort as the leaves contain oxalic acid and should never be eaten. Two hundred years later, Europeans discovered the tart stalks and used them to make tarts, which gave rise to the nickname “pie plant.”
University of Wisconsin Horticulture
Now let's get started. First, follow this link to read up on how to properly prepare your jars.
Once your jars are preparred, clean and remove any blemishes and stems. Chop your strawberries, arranging them in a single layer. I use an old-fashioned biscuit cutter for chopping the berries. I leave it a little chunky as I like pieces of fruit in my jam.
Then, measure the chopped strawberries.
Chop the rhubarb into equal sized pieces.
Then, mix the chopped and measured fruit into heavy bottom pan and add water or fruit juice.
Gradually stir in pectin and bring to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly.
Then add sugar. It is important to fully dissolve the pectin before adding the sugar.
Return to a full rolling boil and boil hard for 1 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and skim any foam off the top that has formed.
Pack jam into prepared 8 ounce jars and measure the head space. There should be ¼ inch from the jam to the top of jar.
De-bubble each jar by sliding the tool down the sides of each jar.
Process the jars for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath canner at a full rolling boil. Steam will escape through the side of the lid during this process. At any point, if the water drops below the boiling point, start your timer over for the full processing time as directed by the recipe. After 10 minutes, turn off the heat, remove the lid and let the jars stand for 5 minutes.
After the 10 minute processing time and 5 minute standing time, carefully remove the lid and let the steam escape away from you. Leave the jars in the water bath canner for another 5 minutes.
When removing the jars, be careful not to tip the jars. Leave any remaining water collected on the lid in place. Water spots will likely form on the lid, which is ok. A little vinegar on a clean towel will easily remove those water stains.
Remember to label and date the jar and remove the band for storage. Store for a max of one year.
This recipe is a quick process and perfect for a teacher gift or host gift for spring parties, or to include with your beach picnic in the summertime!
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- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you're a member of the Hammock lab, you're family.
So it was no surprise--no surprise at all--when Jean-Pierre Delplanque, Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies announced that Hammock is a recipient of a 2024 Graduate Studies Distinguished Graduate and Postdoctoral Mentoring Award.
“Your dedication to mentoring is truly commendable, and this recognition is well-deserved,” he told Hammock in an email.
The annual award recognizes “the vital role mentoring plays in the academic and professional development of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars at UC Davis.” The professor will receive a certificate and a $1,000 education enrichment award.
Hammock, who holds a joint appointment with the Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Center, “is an incredible mentor, legendary scientist, highly supportive colleague, and a great friend,” wrote nominator and former Hammock lab member Guodong Zhang, now an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Nutrition. “He richly deserves this prestigious award.”
Zhang described the Hammock lab as a “highly multidisciplinary, with members having scientific backgrounds in nutrition, pharmacology, analytical chemistry, cancer, pain, and environmental toxicology. From these extensive interactions within and outside of the research group, I have learned how to conduct scientific collaborations."
“The 3-year postdoc training in the Hammock lab stands out as one of the most rewarding periods in my research journey,” Zhang related. “In my moments of experimental setbacks, Bruce was a constant source of encouragement, guiding me on extracting valuable insights from negative data. Conversely, when experiments yielded positive results, he offered insightful advice and introduced me to other labs at UC Davis, thus broadening the scope of our research projects. Bruce was most excited about the ‘unexpected data' because of his belief that such anomalies often herald new scientific discoveries. And he always encouraged us to perform experiments to disprove his favorite hypotheses, fostering a positive and nurturing research environment.”
In his letter of nomination, Zhang shared comments by four other Hammock lab alumni: Kin Sing Stephen Lee, now an assistant professor, Department of Chemistry, Michigan State University; Yuxin Wang, lead computational biologist and manager of the Stephen Lindemann lab, Purdue University; Weicang Wang, assistant professor, Department of Food Science, Purdue University, and Susanne Mumby, retired assistant dean for postdoctoral affairs at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. (Read the comments here)
'If Science Is Not Fun, It Shouldn't Be Done!'
We remember when Marlin Rice, a past president of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) chronicled Hammock in a 2020 Legends feature in the ESA's American Entomologist and asked what he looks for in researchers seeking to join his lab. "Curiosity," Hammock replied. "And then there's this: If science is not fun, then it shouldn't be done. And if they enjoy science, then they probably will be successful."
A member of the UC Davis faculty since 1980, Hammock is known for his expertise in chemistry, toxicology, biochemistry, entomology and human health research. His work in enzyme research alone spans more than 50 years. He co-discovered a human enzyme termed Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase (sEH), a key regulatory enzyme involved in the metabolism of fatty acids. The enzyme regulates a new class of natural chemical mediators, which in turn regulates inflammation, blood pressure and pain, and is in human clinical trials to replace opioid analgesics.
As director of the UC Davis Superfund Research Program (funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences) for nearly four decades, Hammock supported scores of pre- and postdoctoral scholars in interdisciplinary research in five different colleges and graduate groups on campus. campus. He ran a pre- and postdoctoral training grant associated with this program and in addition for 15 years was principal investigator of a NIH training grant in the UC Davis Biotechnology Program.
Hammock is an internationally celebrated scientist. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the National Academy of Sciences, the California Academy of Sciences, and ESA. At UC Davis, he received both the Academic Senate's Distinguished Teaching Award and the Faculty Research Lectureship. In 2020, UC Davis Chancellor Gary May awarded him the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award.
His story, however, begins in Arkansas.
A native of Little Rock, Ark., Bruce received his bachelor's degree in entomology (with minors in zoology and chemistry) magna cum laude from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, in 1969. He received his doctorate in entomology-toxicology from UC Berkeley in 1973 with John Casida at UC Berkeley. Hammock served as a public health medical officer with the U.S. Army Academy of Health Science, San Antonio, and as a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation, Department of Biology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.
In the Army, he served as a medical officer at Fort Sam, Houston, and what he saw--severely burned people in terrible pain--made a lasting impression on him. Today he's deeply involved in his research at UC Davis and the company he founded, EicOsis, in 2011 to alleviate pain in humans and companion animals.
And today, UC Davis distinguished professor Bruce Hammock is a newly announced recipient of a 2024 Graduate Studies Distinguished Graduate and Postdoctoral Mentoring Award. Not only highly commendable, but so well-deserved!
/span>- Author: Ben A Faber
Come learn about what cover crops grow in Ventura and how they can be managed
The first half of the event will take place Hansen REC featuring 19 diverse cover crop s and croip crop mixes with unique features and benefits. The second half will take place at the Rodale Institute COC showcasing the innovative roller crimper as it efficiently terminates cover crops
- Posted by: Gale Perez
Register before the cost goes up
Weed Day 2024 :: click link below
https://wric.ucdavis.edu/events/weed_day_2024.html
Last day to get to early-bird cost is May 24, 2024. Register now!
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More events...
2024-June 24-25 :: Diagnosing Herbicide Symptoms 2024 :: click link below
https://wric.ucdavis.edu/events/diagnosing_herbicide_symptoms_2024.html
2024-June 27 :: Automated Technology Field Day 2024 :: see attached flyer :: No registration and it's FREE!
2024 Automated Tech Field Day