- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
To underscore the importance of Japan to California agriculture, a group of agricultural leaders joined Karen Ross, California Department of Food and Agriculture secretary, on a trade mission in March. Vice President Glenda Humiston participated in a series of meetings and events in Japan, which is our state's fourth-largest agricultural export market, valued at over $1.6 billion.
While speaking on a panel during the California-Japan Climate Summit, Humiston highlighted UC ANR's pioneering work in extending science-based solutions to help growers and ranchers thrive and adapt to climate change.
At the California Pavilion of the World Smart Energy Week show in Tokyo, the group saw some of the agricultural technology innovations on display – technologies that will be vital in addressing the climate crisis and other challenges.
The group met with Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. At the meeting, Ross recognized Japan's strong trade partnership and collaboration on market access for agricultural products, as well as organic certification. They also discussed California's Sustainable Pest Management Roadmap.
The California-Japan Climate Summit highlighted climate opportunities related to renewable energy, hydrogen, port infrastructure and agriculture. The delegation visited AgVenture Lab and Tongali, two accelerator programs developing proof of concepts for agricultural startups.
“When we got to the AgVenture Lab in Tokyo as part of our California Grown Trade Mission, I was surprised to see our logo on the PowerPoint our host used,” Humiston said. “He went on to say several times how important their partnership with UC ANR was. It definitely made my day!”
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Burns, an assistant professor of biological sciences, will discuss "Reproductive Diversity and Sexual Conflict: Opilionid (Daddy-LongLegs or Harvestmen) Mating from the Female Perspective," when the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology hosts her seminar at 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 19 in Room 122 of Briggs Hall.
Harvesters or "daddy-longlegs" belong to the "ancient arachnid order Opiliones, which includes spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks," she says. "Although harvesters are often mistaken for spiders, they are very different! Harvesters (Opiliones) and spiders (Araneae) form separate branches in the arachnid tree of life. Harvesters do not have fangs, nor do they make venom or silk!"
"Sexual reproduction may pose myriad short-term costs to individuals through sexual conflict or the disruption of beneficial allelic combinations," Burns writes in her abstract. "Despite these costs, sexual reproduction is nearly ubiquitous in animal systems. To better understand the factors responsible for maintaining sex, study of alternative reproductive systems is necessary. We use daddy-longlegs or harvestmen (Arachnida: Opiliones) to understand how sexual conflict and post-copulatory mechanisms drive reproductive trait evolution. I will describe recent projects in my laboratory focusing on facultative asexuality and female reproductive morphological diversity in two groups of temperate harvestmen species from the United States and Japan."
The Burns Lab, she says, "studies the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms that contribute to sexual conflict in animal mating systems. We are interested in how demography, environmental factors, and evolutionary selective pressures influence reproductive morphology, genitalic function, mating behaviors, and holistic mating systems, especially in the leiobunine opilionids — a.k.a. harvesters, harvestpeople or 'daddy-long-legs.' We combine macroevolutionary and population-level approaches to understanding the biodiversity of arthropods, incorporating next-generation genomic sequencing, functional morphology, bioinformatics, and cytological methods into our toolkit. Current projects are focused on species groups in the United States and Japan with intriguing reproductive traits: parthenogenesis, sex ratio bias, reproductive armaments, and potential reproductive endosymbionts."
Burns holds a bachelor's degree in biology, awarded in 2006 from Macalester College, St. Paul, Minn., and a doctorate in behavior, ecology, evolution and systematics, awarded in 2014 from the University of Maryland, College Park. She accepted her current position in the fall of 2017 after completing a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship in biology. She studied Japanese leiobunine harvestmen in Japan.
Read her research on Population Genomics and Geographical Parthenogenesis in Japanese Harvestmen (Opiliones, Sclerosomatidae), published in 2017 in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
![Harvesters or daddy-long legs mating. (Photo courtesy of Mercedes Burns Lab) Harvesters or daddy-long legs mating. (Photo courtesy of Mercedes Burns Lab)](/blogs/blogcore/blogfiles/65928.jpg)
![Harvestman collected in Japan. (Photo by Mercedes Burns) Harvestman collected in Japan. (Photo by Mercedes Burns)](/blogs/blogcore/blogfiles/65937.jpg)
![Mercedes Burns on collecting trip in Japan. Mercedes Burns on collecting trip in Japan.](/blogs/blogcore/blogfiles/65938.jpg)
- Author: Mark Bolda
Really interesting video forwarded to me by colleague Steven Koike this morning concerning a largish "white strawberry" grown in Japan. Cultivated in Karatsu in the south, these berries fetch an eye popping equivalent of 40 bucks a tray. That said, the grower, Teshima Yasuhito, is only harvesting 10% of the fruit since expected grade is very, very high.
Sorry, can't embed this video, so you have to follow the link, the video is very high quality and worth the watch.
Small quibble, but an important one since it concerns the translation of an aspect of the fruit's flavor. The grower is made to claim that in a way the flavor is "mysterious" but that is not what exactly he says. He says it is "fushigi" (不思議) which does not translate to "mysterious". Consider that the title "Alice in Wonderland" translates to "Fushigi no kuni no Alice" (不思議の国のアリス) we can deduce that he is actually saying it is a "wonder" or maybe even "amazing".
At any rate, sure would like to try one to make my own assessment of this white strawberry, and maybe someday I will.
6/15/2017 Reader and strawberry grower Thomas Flewell adds the following comment concerning white strawberries and strawberries in Asia in general:
"Hi Mark: I have sampled several of the Japanese strawberry varieties at a greenhouse operated by my client in central China. The flavors are all distinctive and very different to the taste expected from strawberries in the US. Among those I tasted was a white strawberry from Japan. Not sure it was the same one mentioned in your blog. The US and the Asian market criteria for what makes a good strawberry are very different to one another - literally worlds apart."
Thanks Steve for the forward!
H/T Thom Flewell, thank you.
XX
- Author: Hannah Murray
- Photographer: Susan Flaherty
One of our Master Gardeners is living in Japan for the year and sent along these photos of winter gardening. She reports that despite the cold and snow, local gardeners continue to grow vegetables through the winter. Here are some photos of cabbage and daikon.
- Author: Gareth J Mayhead
Last week I was fortunate enough to attend two excellent meetings that focused on different aspects of forest products and biomass utilization. The first was the Restoring the West Conference held at the Utah State University Campus in Logan. The conference was sub-titled “sustaining forests, woodlands and communities through biomass use” and covered a wide range of topics ranging from forest and range management to marketing and biomass utilization technologies. The focus was very much on pinyon-juniper ecosystems found throughout the inland west including areas in California (such as east of the Sierra Nevada and the north eastern part of the state).
![Utah State University campus, Logan & fall colors in Logan Canyon Utah State University campus, Logan & fall colors in Logan Canyon](http://ucanr.org/blogs/WoodyBiomass/blogfiles/9095.jpg)
It is great to visit other geographic areas outside of California as it helps to put our situation and challenges with respect to forest ecosystem restoration and the utilization of woody biomass in context. California is lucky that it still has a forest products industry infrastructure. There are still 23 operational sawmills in the state along with 30 operational biomass power plants, and 7 other primary processing facilities (including veneer, panelboard and wood shavings). It is easy to forget how fortunate we are that some industry continues to exist in California and gives land managers options for material disposal that are simply not available in the interior west. We are also lucky that we deal with a variety of tree species that means that we have a choice of utilization options from sawmilling down to compost and electricity generation.
Presentations from the conference were recorded and I believe they will be available online soon.
On Friday I headed to Anderson for a workshop organized by the California Licensed Foresters Association on California’s Forest Products Markets. There was a significant focus on the export markets for logs which is having a major impact on west coast saw log prices. Prices for log export at west coast ports (including Samoa and Oakland) range from $500-$1100 per MBF. The major historical markets were Japan and Korea which allow export of logs with the bark on. In the past couple of years China has become the major player and requires the bark to be removed from the logs. There was an interesting discussion on the different business practices of the alternative markets. It appears that the Chinese market can be very volatile compared to Japan and Korea. It was interesting to hear descriptions of the Chinese sawmills where the logs go – they typically consist of two bandmills, lots of workers and no other mechanization. It was questioned how it is possible for them to make money based on Chinese lumber prices versus the prices paid in the US for logs and the transportation costs. The presenters were excellent and also covered topics such as the state and Federal log export bans, Forest Service Stewardship Contracting, distribution centers, transportation systems, specialty markets, electrical markets and carbon. It was a full day and very informative.
Links:
California Licensed Foresters Association
Restoring the West Conference