- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
At the end of June, the distinguished careers of five UC Cooperative Extension advisors concluded when they retired. The new retirees are
- Mark Gaskell, UCCE small farms advisor for San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties
- Gene Miyao, UCCE vegetable crops advisor for Yolo, Solano and Sacramento counties
- Kim Rodrigues, director of the Hopland Research & Extension Center and UCCE forest advisor
- Blake Sanden, UCCE irrigation, soils and agronomy advisor in Kern County
- Steve Tjosvold, UCCE horticulture advisor for Santa Cruz and Monterey counties
Below are brief vignettes about each of the retirees.
UCCE small farms advisor Mark Gaskell retires
Gaskell, who began his career with the University of California's Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources as an advisor for small farms and specialty crops in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties in 1995, retired July 1.
“If it wasn't for Mark Gaskell, I wouldn't have lasted three years,” said Tony Chavez, who grows 40 acres of blueberries, blackberries and some raspberries in Nipomo.
Blueberries weren't grown in California until Gaskell planted test plots of southern highbush blueberries in 1996 to give small-scale growers a new crop option. What was once a niche crop is now planted on over 7,000 acres in the state and California currently leads U.S. production of fresh blueberries.
Recently Gaskell's knowledge of coffee production has been in demand.
“Personally, I would not be where I am today professionally without Mark's guidance, support and friendship,” said Jay Ruskey, CEO and co-founder of Good Land Organics. “He brought me my first coffee plants in 2002.”
With Gaskell's research-based advice, the Goleta grower has produced premium coffee. His Caturra coffee made Coffee Review's Top 30 coffees in 2014 and in 2017 Daily Coffee News reported that Blue Bottle was selling the California-grown coffee for $18 per ounce.
“Industry-wide, there are many farmers who have benefited directly from working with Mark, but there are far more farmers who are currently benefiting today from the specific crops and farming systems he has introduced through his service as a University of California farm advisor,” Ruskey said. (Author: Pam Kan-Rice)
Gene Miyao, UC Cooperative Extension vegetable crops advisor, retiring after 38 years
Miyao had been exposed to UCCE farm advisors from a young age.
“My parents were small-scale farmers in Yolo County. We knew of the value of UCCE and the UC system,” Miyao said.
During his 38-year-career, Miyao has witnessed dramatic changes in production systems of processing tomatoes, a crop on which he focused much of his efforts. Growers went from using open-pollinated seed to hybrids and they changed from direct seeding to transplants. Tomato production has seen a major reduction in Phytophthora root rot, and a rapid spread of Fusarium wilt race 2.
Over the years, Miyao has conducted significant research, including work to better understand the benefits of cover crops, supplemental applications of potassium and phosphorous, and applying composted chicken manure in tomato production. He cooperated with a team of advisors to demonstrate the value of sulfur dust for powdery mildew control and the risk of spreading the disease fusarium wilt from infested stem pieces. Miyao was an author of the recent cost production study titled Cost of producing processing tomatoes in the Sacramento Valley and Northern Delta with sub-surface and surface drip irrigation.
In all Miyao wrote 69 peer reviewed articles. However, he said, the local newsletters, field meetings and field calls were always his priority in order to stay well connected to his local clientele.
In retirement, Miyao said he will complete some of his 2018 field projects. He's also planning to travel with his wife Donna to national parks and other destinations. And he is looking forward to fishing in the local waters. (Author: Jeannette Warnert)
Kim Rodrigues, Hopland Research and Extension Center Director, retires after 27-year career with UC ANR
When she became regional director for the 23 counties in the North Coast and Mountain Region in 1999 and relocated her family to Davis from Eureka, she recounted that “it was July, and they went from cool, coastal fog to the Valley heat and wondered about my sanity!”
She later became the executive director of Academic Personnel for ANR when the regions were restructured and ANR was centralized.
She returned to county-based academic work at HREC in the summer of 2014. Initially there as an interim assignment, Rodrigues fell in love with the place and the people and accepted the formal assignment at HREC in 2015. She notes that working at HREC has been “an excellent culmination to my career. Working with colleagues on relevant research, such as living with wildlife, integrates the many professional roles I have had throughout my career.”
Noted as a competent and trusted forester, she has served on the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (BOF) briefly and on the BOF Professional Forester's Examining Committee for several years.
Rodrigues is also known for her collaborative leadership and facilitation skills and led the public participation team, together with Drs. Maggi Kelly and Lynn Huntsinger, for the long-term research titled the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project. She is recognized as an excellent facilitator for large-scale and smaller scale public meetings designed to share science with diverse public interest groups, agencies and decision-makers, in order to seek new solutions for resolving ongoing conflicts over public trust resources, such as water, wildlife and more.
Her passion is working with diverse groups to address complex environmental conflicts to seek shared understanding and new agreements. “It is amazing how diverse input can help frame innovative solutions that individuals or small groups may not readily identify,” she said.
She plans to remain engaged in research and extension related to living with wildlife, cumulative watershed effects and managing conflicts of all types. She is also looking forward to spending more time with her husband, four children and grandchild.
Although sad to leave many aspects of her work at UC ANR, she said, “I remain deeply grateful to UC ANR for such a wonderful career, and I remain committed to support UC ANR to succeed in any way I can going forward. I have been fortunate to work with amazing colleagues and truly respect the work we do for the land grant mission.” (Author: Liz Sizensky)
Blake Sanden, UCCE irrigation, soils and agronomy advisor in Kern County
He helped growers with on-farm soil and water problems, organized and spoke at workshops across California and conducted applied field research projects focusing on irrigation, salinity/fertility management for all crops, and agronomic field crop production of alfalfa, dry beans and oil crops.
Blake has a bachelor's degree in International agricultural development and agronomy and master's degree in irrigation and drainage from UC Davis and 35 years of experience in California production ag, international ag development and extension.
Significant projects of his include: development of salt tolerance thresholds for high production California pistachios in the San Joaquin Valley, soil moisture monitoring techniques and irrigation efficiency assessment on 12,000 acres in Kern County and deficit irrigation in early citrus navel oranges.
Over the last eight years, Sanden has fulfilled a vision that started nearly 30 years ago. Through collaboration with nearly 50 University of California researchers, farm advisors, extension specialists, the Wonderful Farming Company and almond industry representatives, he played a crucial role in documenting the increased level of water and fertilizer use necessary for optimal almond yield – increasing the statewide average yield by more than 50 percent.
But some of his greatest joys and heart-felt satisfaction lay in development work in Africa – 3 years of missionary service in the 1980s developing vegetable gardens in Zambia and month-long training/consulting trips working with farmers and extension agents in Uganda, Ethiopia and central Asia.
When asked what he'll miss the most about his career, he said the interaction with the growers, most notably “seeing the ‘ah-ha' light up in a grower's eyes when he finally grasps the solution.”
He remembered a particular time in May of 2004 when a sugarbeet grower called him seeking his advice on whether or not to irrigate his 380 acres of beets one last time before harvesting. That was the way he had always done it. So Sanden went out and spent a couple of hours using his hand probe to check the moisture of the fields down to a three-foot depth.
“I ask, ‘Ken, when did you last probe this field?'” Sanden recalled.
‘“Oh, I really didn't check it this year?' he says.”
“Do you really need to irrigate or is this enough water to get through harvest?” noting that he already had enough moisture.
“I guess it's enough, but that's why I asked you out here. It wouldn't hurt to put on the irrigation would it? I'd feel better. Of course we did get the digger stuck a couple times last year because the field was too wet.”
“Too much water does hurt beets because you will reduce sugar percentage and can get rot and lose tonnage,” Sanden replied.
“OK, it makes me a bit nervous but you say I have at least four inches of water stored in the soil that the beets can get at.”
That year Ken was the top sugar producer in Kern County and got the Silver Beet Knife for highest percentage of sugar, Blake recalled.
“With that two hours worth of field scouting he probably made an extra $300,000 in the saved irrigation and increased sugar,” Blake said. (Author: Tyler Ash)
Steve Tjosvold, UC Cooperative Extension environmental horticulture advisor, 38 years
“I interned for two advisors and then separately filled in for the programs of two advisors that went on sabbatical leave,” Tjosvold said. “I use that experience, knowledge, contacts and friendships to this day.”
Tjosvold was named the environmental horticulture advisor in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties in 1983.
Tjosvold's early career focused on the management of nursery and landscape plant diseases and insect problems, as well as methods to improve water use and postharvest handling in nursery crops. In addition, Tjosvold helped establish the use of scouting in ornamental production by working with other farm advisors to document effectiveness statewide. Later, his research and outreach on sudden oak death and light brown apple moth helped growers understand the pests and take action to reduce their impact on production systems and the environment.
Tjosvold wrote or contributed to 94 peer-reviewed publications and 234 industry publications. He served as editor/co-editor of UCNFA (UC Nursery and Floriculture Alliance) News.
During his career, Tjosvold received three distinguished service awards for outstanding teamwork (1997, 2004, and 2006) and one for outstanding extension (2004). He received the 2008 Western Extension Directors' Award of Excellence for a farm water quality planning project. In 2012 he received the outstanding research award from the California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers, and in 2015 he was honored with the Award of Excellence from the Western Extension Directors Association for a team effort that addresses Sudden Oak Death.
In retirement, Tjosvold plans to start a UCNFA blog to help replace the loss of the UCNFA newsletter due to retirements. He will also be available locally for focused educational projects and consultation. Tjosvold, an avid fly fisherman, said he will spend the first month of his retirement camping and fly fishing in Montana. (Author: Jeannette Warnert)
- Author: Nate Seltenrich
- Editor: Julie Van Scoy
California land managers and wildlife experts are increasingly tasked with managing the return of long-suppressed predators to the landscape, including wolves, mountain lions, badgers, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, and bears. As a result, California is poised to see growing numbers of complex human-wildlife interactions, said Justin Brashares, UC Berkeley professor and UC ANR researcher.
State and federal policies once incentivized the removal of large carnivores, even offering bounty payments, Brashares said. The last California grizzly became a victim of such practices in 1922. The gray wolf was exterminated shortly thereafter, only to make a historic return 90 years later in the form of a single young male called OR-7, who has been followed into California by several other wolves.
Beginning in the 1970s with the federal Endangered Species Act and the banning of bounties, things began to change. Poisons and leghold traps were prohibited in 1998. Next came an end to the sport hunting of mountain lions in 1990, bear hunting with dogs in 2012, and bobcat trapping in 2015. The cumulative result of these actions, which eased centuries of pressure on wild animals treated as pests, has been a “quiet carnivore recovery” happening across our state, Brashares said. And depending on whom you ask, that may be a great thing or a terrible thing.
An ecologist or environmentalist might emphasize the role of carnivores in maintaining healthy ecosystems.
“What we're seeing across the state, particularly over the last 10 years, is arguably an unprecedented recovery of our wildlife communities,” Brashares said.
A livestock rancher, meanwhile, might view the development with dread.
“They're the ones most likely to be negatively impacted by the return of these animals.” A similar divide, he notes, exists between urban and rural dwellers.
“Those who face the challenges of coexistence with carnivores on a day-to-day basis tend to be more negative about their return,” he says.
The rest of us tend to view the return of carnivores — particularly large, charismatic ones — much more favorably.
“In more-urban communities, we often have the luxury of interacting with carnivores on our own terms, by going out and seeking them in wild settings, away from our safe living and work environments, in places like Yosemite National Park,” Brashares said.
But anyone who has lost a dog or cat to a mountain lion, let alone commercial ranchers trying to protect their livelihood from hungry coyotes and wolves, may feel differently. Even so, he said, reliance on lethal control as the primary strategy for managing predators in the state is becoming a thing of the past.
How to behave instead is, in part, a question for science — and one that Brashares is working to answer through ongoing research at the University of California's Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC), in southern Mendocino County. There the university owns a 5,300-acre parcel with oak woodland, grassland, chaparral, and riparian environments — and, according to recent surveys, wildlife densities on par with those in Yellowstone and Yosemite. Linked to the massive Mendocino and Shasta-Trinity National Forests, it's part of a corridor of undeveloped and protected land extending all the way to the Canadian border. As such, it commonly hosts coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions and black bears.
The facility is also home to more than 500 sheep, on-site since the 1950s for the study of sustainable agricultural practices. But sheep, open space, and carnivores spell conflict, and the flock has regularly suffered significant losses to coyote predation. The coyotes, in turn, have traditionally been shot on sight, in line with established wildlife management practices in agricultural settings.
In 2014 alone, nearly 50 lambs were killed by coyotes at HREC, and another 178 went unaccounted for. Meanwhile, 26 coyotes were killed to prevent further losses to the flock. Toward the end of the year, when Kim Rodrigues became director of HREC, she realized the current system wasn't working and set about to fix it.
Rodrigues brought on more guard dogs and a new shepherd; she improved fencing, and changed the rules about shooting coyotes and other predators. She also initiated a number of research efforts, in which Brashares now plays a lead role, to critically evaluate the effectiveness of tools like dogs, fences, and “fox lights,” which are randomly lit on the fields to scare off predators. Brashares and Rodrigues are also studying how to better use technology like GPS, drones, and tagging to understand the often-mysterious behavior and movement of carnivores and their prey, in hopes of gaining new insights for human-wildlife coexistence.
After Rodrigues instituted some of these changes, the numbers of lamb and coyote deaths at HREC began to decrease dramatically. In 2016, fewer than five lambs were believed to have been killed by coyotes, with another eight unaccounted for, and just seven coyotes were shot.
In a bid to make HREC a statewide hub for cutting-edge research and discussion around human-wildlife interactions, Rodrigues enlisted Brashares's help in December 2015 in hosting a community conversation with stakeholders about the management of wildlife and livestock using nonlethal methods. A second discussion is planned for this June.
“My research and extension focus is now on how we can start to explore standard operating procedures that actually have a stated goal to protect both the livestock and the wildlife, and not one or the other,” Rodrigues says. “It's changing the either/or conundrum to thinking about how we really value both on the landscapes that we're managing.”
Excerpted from the Spring 2017 issue of Breakthroughs, the magazine of the College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley. Read the full article.
- Author: Jeannette Warnert
Reposted from UCANR news
The prescribed burn was carefully orchestrated by CalFire. Wide swaths of vegetation had been cleared around the 7-acre and 9-acre study areas and the weather carefully monitored before a truck-mounted “terra torch” sent streams of flammable gel into the brush, igniting a raging fire.
The fires at Hopland set up a study for a UC Berkeley doctoral student researching post-fire nitrogen cycling, provided a training ground for new CalFire recruits who will be battling blazes in the summer, and launched a new partnership between HREC and CalFire.
Chaparral shrublands, which cover about 7 percent of California natural lands, are vital California ecosystems. Chaparral contains 25 percent of the state's endemic plant and animal diversity. Nature and Native Americans burned chaparral at regular intervals for millennia, providing fresh new growth for foraging animals.
“After a chaparral fire, you typically get a flush of ephemeral wildflowers, some of which are very rare, which you haven't seen for 30 years or since the last fire,” said Lindsey Hendricks-Franco, a doctoral student at UC Berkeley who is conducting research at Hopland. “The amazing thing about these plants is their seeds can survive in the seedbank for decades. Then heat or smoke or an open canopy can stimulate them to germinate. It can be beautiful.”
The most abundant plant in Hopland chaparral, chamise, is barely fazed by fire. The plant's underground burl will soon sprout after a fire, and chamise seeds readily germinate in ash-enriched soil.
To understand the role of nitrogen cycling in the post-fire chaparral ecosystem, Hendricks-Franco and her research staff clambered over dense brush before the fire to collect soil samples and place ingenious heat sensors that document the burn temperature. After the fire, she returned to each site to collect post-treatment soil samples and heat sensors.
“It's a challenge to put sensors in a fire this hot. Most heat sensors are destroyed by the intense heat,” Hendricks-Franco said. “I painted four- by four-inch tiles with a variety of heat-sensitive paints. The paints change color at different temperatures. When I collect the tiles, they will give me an idea about the temperatures reached in the fire.”
The controlled burn at Hopland was the first step in rebuilding a partnership with CalFire, said Kim Rodrigues, who has served as the facility's director since 2014. The areas burned in April were previously burned by CalFire for fire research in the 1990s.
“We've been here since 1951 offering applied and relevant research,” Rodrigues said. “It's primarily research on ecosystem management in oak woodlands, grassland and chaparral. Fire on the landscape is a management tool.”
The 5,800-acre research facility is one of nine such centers managed by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources in a variety of California ecosystems, from high desert near the Oregon border, low desert in the Imperial Valley, Sierra Nevada forests and San Joaquin Valley farmland. Hopland is also home to 500 sheep.
Hopland CalFire battalion chief Michael Maynard was the incident commander at the April controlled burns, which he said also fulfilled CalFire objectives.
“It's good to be back here to join up with the University of California,” Maynard said. “The fire falls into our realm of training and expertise and we're helping their realm of expertise, which is research. There are 10 plots on this specific research project, so we'll be back soon.”
Maynard brought in newly hired firefighters for training on setting and controlling a prescribed burn.
“It's important that we brush up on our skills. We have seasonal employees that have hired on early and are participating. So the all-around training value is incredible and pays off later in the summer,” Maynard said.
CalFire will be back at Hopland in the fall to implement another chaparral burn so Hendricks-Franco can compare the fate of nitrogen in areas that burn before the hot, dry summer season to areas that burn in the fall and are followed by rain.
View scenes from the controlled burn in the video posted on YouTube.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The prescribed burn was carefully orchestrated by CalFire. Wide swaths of vegetation had been cleared around the 7-acre and 9-acre study areas and the weather carefully monitored before a truck-mounted “terra torch” sent streams of flammable gel into the brush, igniting a raging fire.
The fires at Hopland set up a study for a UC Berkeley doctoral student researching post-fire nitrogen cycling, provided a training ground for new CalFire recruits who will be battling blazes in the summer, and launched a new partnership between HREC and CalFire.
Chaparral shrublands, which cover about 7 percent of California natural lands, are vital California ecosystems. Chaparral contains 25 percent of the state's endemic plant and animal diversity. Nature and Native Americans burned chaparral at regular intervals for millennia, providing fresh new growth for foraging animals.
“After a chaparral fire, you typically get a flush of ephemeral wildflowers, some of which are very rare, which you haven't seen for 30 years or since the last fire,” said Lindsey Hendricks-Franco, a doctoral student at UC Berkeley who is conducting research at Hopland. “The amazing thing about these plants is their seeds can survive in the seedbank for decades. Then heat or smoke or an open canopy can stimulate them to germinate. It can be beautiful.”
The most abundant plant in Hopland chaparral, chamise, is barely fazed by fire. The plant's underground burl will soon sprout after a fire, and chamise seeds readily germinate in ash-enriched soil.
To understand the role of nitrogen cycling in the post-fire chaparral ecosystem, Hendricks-Franco and her research staff clambered over dense brush before the fire to collect soil samples and place ingenious heat sensors that document the burn temperature. After the fire, she returned to each site to collect post-treatment soil samples and heat sensors.
“It's a challenge to put sensors in a fire this hot. Most heat sensors are destroyed by the intense heat,” Hendricks-Franco said. “I painted four- by four-inch tiles with a variety of heat-sensitive paints. The paints change color at different temperatures. When I collect the tiles, they will give me an idea about the temperatures reached in the fire.”
The controlled burn at Hopland was the first step in rebuilding a partnership with CalFire, said Kim Rodrigues, who has served as the facility's director since 2014. The areas burned in April were previously burned by CalFire for fire research in the 1990s.
“We've been here since 1951 offering applied and relevant research,” Rodrigues said. “It's primarily research on ecosystem management in oak woodlands, grassland and chaparral. Fire on the landscape is a management tool.”
The 5,800-acre research facility is one of nine such centers managed by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources in a variety of California ecosystems, from high desert near the Oregon border, low desert in the Imperial Valley, Sierra Nevada forests and San Joaquin Valley farmland. Hopland is also home to 500 sheep.
Hopland CalFire battalion chief Michael Maynard was the incident commander at the April controlled burns, which he said also fulfilled CalFire objectives.
“It's good to be back here to join up with the University of California,” Maynard said. “The fire falls into our realm of training and expertise and we're helping their realm of expertise, which is research. There are 10 plots on this specific research project, so we'll be back soon.”
Maynard brought in newly hired firefighters for training on setting and controlling a prescribed burn.
“It's important that we brush up on our skills. We have seasonal employees that have hired on early and are participating. So the all-around training value is incredible and pays off later in the summer,” Maynard said.
CalFire will be back at Hopland in the fall to implement another chaparral burn so Hendricks-Franco can compare the fate of nitrogen in areas that burn before the hot, dry summer season to areas that burn in the fall and are followed by rain.
View scenes from the controlled burn in the video below:
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Mendocino County supervisors decided to sever ties with the USDA's division of Wildlife Services, reported Peter Fimrite in the San Francisco Chronicle. The decision was made after environmental groups said the agency was indiscriminately killing predators, such as mountain lions and coyotes, because they are a threat to livestock.
The article featured a gallery of 10 artful photos taken at the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center, which maintains a research sheep flock of 500 breeding ewes. Record-keeping of sheep losses to predators began at Hopland in 1973. Coyotes are the most serious predator problem.
Hopland staff use a variety of non-lethal and preventative methods to protect sheep from predators, such as fencing, mob grazing and frequent pasture rotation and guard dogs, according to Kim Rodrigues, the director of the research and extension facility. Currently there are five guard dogs at the center. The guard dogs bond with sheep and protect them primarily by barking and other aggressive behaviors when strangers or predators are near the sheep flock.
