- Author: Kendra T Rose
Dear Colleagues,
1) USDA NIFA is soliciting pre-applications for the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI). The purpose of the SCRI program is to address the critical needs of the specialty crop industry by awarding grants to support research and extension that address key challenges of national, regional, and multi-state importance in sustaining all components of food and agriculture, including conventional and organic food production systems. Projects must address at least one of five focus areas:
- Research in plant breeding, genetics, genomics, and other methods to improve crop characteristics
- Efforts to identify and address threats from pests and diseases, including threats to specialty crop pollinators
- Efforts to improve production efficiency, handling and processing, productivity, and profitability over the long term (including specialty crop policy and marketing)
- New innovations and technology, including improved mechanization and technologies that delay or inhibit ripening
- Methods to prevent, detect, monitor, control, and respond to potential food safety hazards in the production efficiency, handling and processing of specialty crops
Visit the program web page at Specialty Crop Research Initiative | NIFA (usda.gov) for more information.
Pre-Applications Due: 2:00 P.M. PT, November 8, 2024 (Full applications by invite only)
Project Types:
Coordinated Agricultural Projects (CAPs)
Project period: Up to 5 years
Normally, Federal funds will not exceed $2,000,000 per year (Median award amount: $5,756,354)
Standard Research and Extension Projects (SREPs)
Project period: Up to 5 years
Normally, Federal funds will not exceed $1,000,000 per year (Median award amount: $2,180,834)
Research and Extension Planning Projects
Project period: One year
Federal funds up to $50,000 per project
2) The Center for Produce Safety research program is directed toanswering critical research questions that fill the gaps in our foundational understanding and systems-based implementation in specific areas of food safety practices for fruit, vegetable, and tree nut production, harvest, post-harvest handling, and distribution. The objective is to provide the produce industry with practical, translatable research data that can be used throughout the supply chain.
Please refer to the 2025 CPS Research Priorities on the CPS website.
Award Amount: Research projects cannot exceed $200,000 per year; Proof of concept proposals cannot exceed $50,000.
Pre-Applications Due: November 6, 2024 (Full applications by invite only due 02/06/2025)
Visit the Center for Produce Safety web page at for more information.
Thank you.
Kimberly Lamar, Associate Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)
- Author: Loren Nelson
Have you enjoyed your summer in the garden so far? It is now the first week in September so it's time to start looking forward to the fall.
This week on In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners, join Teena and Katrina around the kitchen table to discuss just what to do out there this month. Now is not a really busy time as it is still hot but know that October will be the time to get a lot of things IN the ground and other things OUT! Now, we can plan a bulb garden.
Seek out the best drought-tolerant or native plant material AND any contractors needed to redesign a patch of your landscape. Deadhead roses and fertilize so you can have beautiful blooms around Thanksgiving! You'll get great design tips for the flower garden. Tall, short, and colorful swaths of blooms. Sweet peas! Seeds. Six-packs. What have you!
Learn more and listen to "In The Garden" radio show podcasts.
Podcast Topic: This Month In The Garden - September 2024
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/h4>/h2>/h3>/h2>- Author: Grace Nguyen-Sovan Dean
California's forests have long been adapted to fire, where the presence of regular, low-severity fires helped maintain forest health. After decades of fire suppression, many private forest landowners are interested in reintroducing fire to their landscape through prescribed burns. When planning for a prescribed fire, landowners must consider a variety of factors, including the age of their trees.
A new study from Hunter Noble (University of Nevada, Reno) and Rob York (UCCE) sheds insight on how prescribed fire affects stands of varying ages. The 2024 paper is a continuation of research conducted at Blodgett Forest Research Station following a 2018 prescribed burn. The new findings provide crucial information for Sierra Mixed-Conifer (SMC) land managers who seek to implement prescribed fire in young forests.
For the tree species in the SMC forest type (Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, sugar pine, incense cedar, white fir and giant sequoia), low-severity fire is a natural part of the ecological process. Reintroducing fire to young, reforested SMC stands can help protect areas burned by high-severity fires from future “reburn” fires by reducing fuel. This study seeks to help answer the question: what is the earliest age you can burn a stand of trees?
In this study, tree mortality rates among 12, 22, and 32-year old stands at UC Berkeley's Blodgett Research Station were observed two years post-burn. There is little known about the effects of prescribed fire on young trees, as prescribed burns are often used to treat older trees with more fire-resistant characteristics. However, understanding when fire can be reintroduced to young stands is critical for those in California managing reforested, post-wildfire landscapes.
When surveying trees in each age class, researchers found that the 32-year old stands experienced the lowest rate of tree mortality (78% of trees survived), whereas the 12-year old stands experienced the highest (31% of trees survived). The 22-year old trees had a 63% survival rate.
An important consideration is that burn conditions may have greatly contributed to the recorded high mortality rate among the 12-year stands. The 2018 burn was conducted at the end of the burn prescription, meaning conditions were hotter and drier than is typical. York and Noble described these mortality results as a “worst case scenario”, referencing a previous study that described a 0-24% mortality rate for a similarly aged stand. However, the authors note that a high mortality rate may not necessarily be undesirable if one's management goal is to create a “low-density, high-complexity stand...similar to historic conditions.”
For those managing post-fire landscapes, utilizing prescribed fire is beneficial towards preventing reburns and can work in harmony with reforestation treatments. However, as outlined in the study, burning under different conditions can significantly affect tree mortality, yielding higher or lower rates. York and Noble conclude that when land managers seek to implement prescribed fire, identifying an acceptable level of tree mortality is key, and burning under the right conditions can lessen fuel loads without sacrificing tree survival in the years to come.
Read the full article here: https://doi.org/10.3733/001c.117485
- Author: Brianna Aguayo Villalon
Christian Black joined the Nutrition Policy Institute at the University of California in September 2024 as our 2024-2025 UC Bonnie Reiss Climate Action Fellowship, Sustainable Agriculture and Food Fellow. Black is a graduate student pursuing a Master's in Public Health with a concentration on Community Health at UC Irvine Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health, where he[1] [2] utilizes salivary biomarkers and wearable devices to study the relationship between harsh prison environments and health longevity. As an NPI fellow, Black will support efforts to improve food and nutrition security among currently and formerly incarcerated individuals in California. This 10-month fellowship is part of the 2024-2025 UC Bonnie Reiss Climate Action Fellowship Program, formerly known as the UC Global Food Initiative, which supports the UC's climate goals by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and establishing climate programs and policies centered on equity, sustainability, and resiliency. In addition to working with the NPI Farm to Corrections project team, Black will participate in UC systemwide activities.
- Author: Rosie D
Are you ready for autumn to begin and be done with the heat of the summer? I am looking forward to the fall and it can start anytime in my book! However, looks like we are (still) in for warmer than “normal” temperatures for the foreseeable future.
So, what to do in the rose garden this month? Towards the middle of the month, you can lightly prune your roses. This is not the major pruning you will do in February. Instead, you can cut any spent flowers or hips to the next set of leaflets that have either five or seven leaves. (Some roses have five leaves on their leaflets and other varieties have seven.)
This is a light trim only. Prune by cutting ¼ inch to ½ inch above an outward-facing bud eye. What is a bud eye? It is the small bump found where the leaf meets the stem/cane on the rose bush. If any canes have died during this summer (hint - they are black all the way to the soil), clip those off at the base. Only trim a maximum of 1/3 of the overall size of the bush.
If you see that by trimming the bush, there will be very little foliage left on it, don't trim it at all. Leave it alone and see how the rose bush looks in the spring. Having no foliage on your rose bush is the quickest way to kill it. What typically happens is that, when a rose is cut back with no foliage on it during this time of year, the canes will turn black and the plant slowly dies. I learned this lesson the hard way, when I first started growing roses many years ago. The safest thing is to leave your roses alone if trimming them will leave no foliage on them at all.
Again, always make sure your pruning shears are sharp and clean. Wipe with an alcohol wipe between each rose bush. Don't use bleach on your pruning shear blades as it can damage them. The alcohol wipe won't, and it will kill any diseases on the blade so they don't affect your rose bushes.
If your roses are on drip irrigation, run your system in the early morning or evening (on the days we can water) to give your roses a chance to thoroughly hydrate. Check your irrigation system to see that it is operating correctly and none of the emitters are clogged. If an emitter is delivering more or less water than the other emitters on the line, change it out for a new one. That one emitter can affect the whole system. Replace it when there is a problem.
If you grow roses in pots, make sure that they are getting enough water. If the soil has pulled away from the pot, water can run through the pot but not hydrate your plant. Make sure your potting soil allows water to get to the plant. You should re-pot your roses every couple of years. The longer the soil is in a pot, the less porous it becomes in the root zone. New soil would be in order. Don't do this now. Wait and put this on your spring chore list when your rose is dormant.
Towards the middle of the September, it is time to feed your roses. You can use a rose food (8-10-8), liquid fish or seaweed fertilizer and alfalfa meal. If the fish fertilizer smells like fish and you have a lot of neighborhood cats, you may want to use the seaweed fertilizer instead.
Alfalfa meal (not the pellets which contain sugar/molasses and can attract rodents) contains a chemical called triacontanol. It will stimulate new growth in your roses. Make sure you water the bushes before you add the alfalfa meal. Add about a cup of alfalfa meal to the soil for large, established roses and about a ½ cup for large, established mini roses. Water again afterward. Never fertilize a dry or stressed plant.
If you are using an organic rose fertilizer, apply the recommended amount (it is on the label), after the 15th of the month. You can also put down some compost. Make sure you water after putting down the fertilizer. If you wish to use liquid fish/seaweed fertilizer, mix according to the package directions. You can do this every other week up until the middle of November. Then it will be time to start giving your plants a rest for a nice bloom next spring. You should have lovely blooms for Thanksgiving, and I even have had lovely blooms for Christmas (depending on the weather).
It is still important to watch out for spider mites. You can hose those off with a good blast of water and make sure to blast the underside of the leaves as well. It is still too hot to use horticultural oil. You will burn your plants.
Pumpkin Patch roses
Until next time . . . "Autumn leaves don't fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar." - Delia Owens, "Where the Crawdads Sing"