- Author: Hawau E Bojuwon
UCCE Kern County and CNAP partners community garden training increased knowledge for 18 local agencies on cultivating and maintaining food-based gardens, and supported UC ANR's commitment to healthy families and communities.
The Issue
According to County Health Rankings & Roadmap, Kern County's food insecurity rate of 23.8% exceeds California's rate of 18%. Almost 74% of Kern County adults are overweight or obese, posing chronic disease risks such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
How UC Delivers
The Kern County Nutrition Action Plan (CNAP) for a Healthy Kern empowers local communities to create a culture of healthy living. Collaborative efforts to prevent obesity and other chronic disease include direct and indirect education, outreach, and policy system environmental changes (PSE) to create positive wellness environments where people work, live, and play. UCCE Kern County's Nutrition, Family, and Consumer Sciences Advisor chaired the Kern CNAP for a Healthy Kern, working to help prevent food insecurity and obesity. CNAP collaborated with Kern County Public Health Services Department, McKinley Elementary School, and Kern County Library to plan and conduct the McKinley Home Garden Training program for representatives from 18 community-based organizations.
Research shows that food-centered gardening leads to increased consumption of fresh foods from backyards and community gardens. The UCCE Kern training program included information on gardening basics, health benefits of gardening, and healthy lifestyle choices. Participants received vital information and skills to develop and maintain gardens in food-insecure communities.
The Impact
As a result of UCCE Kern County collaborations to conduct the McKinley Elementary School gardening training, participants from 18 community agencies increased their knowledge of gardening methods and resources available to start and sustain a garden. Significant changes among participants were documented with a pre/post survey developed by the CNAP. Before the garden training, 78% of participants reported little to some knowledge, skills, or understanding about gardening, and 22% reported having a lot to a great deal of knowledge. In post-survey results, 22% of participants reported little to some knowledge, skills, or understanding of gardening, and 78% reported a lot to a great deal of knowledge, demonstrating a doubling of knowledge that was held prior to the training.
Results of the training were shared at the Kern County Nutrition Action Plan (CNAP) coalition meeting, which led to a Parks and Recreation inquiry indicating interest in establishing additional gardens across Kern County. Participants noted the benefits of the training as learning how systems work together to achieve impact and serve the community; a great program to teach the younger generation healthy options; impacting their work around implementing Policies, Systems, and Environmental (PSE) changes; a great idea for summer camp classes for students; useful information to start a garden and use the fresh vegetables in nutrition education classes, and implementing herb box container gardening at churches.” These results demonstrate how UCCE Kern County, in partnership with other local agencies, provided knowledge and skills to support healthier families and positive built environments in the community.
/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>- Author: Iris Craig
By Iris Craig, U.C. Master Gardeners of Napa County
Gardening can be a positive influence on children, teens and adults. Scientific evidence shows that it can help alleviate stress, instill a feeling of accomplishment, improve respect for nature, even provide a sense of awe and wonder at watching plants grow.
Studies have shown that children of any age may improve motor skills by gardening. They also learn about the life cycle of plants and insects. Many a sunny window in a kindergarten classroom displays fast-germinating radishes, sunflowers and beans in milk cartons.
Do gardening and exposure to green space have a positive effect in the lives of children? As a classroom teacher and parent, I can confidently affirm that they do. One Spanish study found that children exposed to green space at home and at school developed more white brain matter, resulting in better cognitive, physical and mental health, more success in learning as well as a sense of wonder.
Just having plants in the classroom has a positive effect. As a teacher at an inner-city high school, I would bring in a pot of tulips in the spring and place them on my desk, perhaps to brighten my own spirits, but ultimately to spark interest among the students.
One day I noticed a group of ninth-grade boys discussing the changing tulips. As inner-city students, they hadn't seen many flowers near their homes and had no idea that tulips opened flat during the day. Much to my joy, they would “check out the plant” each day and chat about it upon entering the room.
Another study conducted in schools in England, Kenya and India concluded that hands-on garden experience heightened students' sense of responsibility. They improved at teamwork and showed a greater respect for nature and themselves.
School gardens can be incorporated into the science, reading, math and art curriculum. They may improve nutrition, encourage physical activity and boost agricultural and ecological literacy, with resulting improvements in behavior and attitudes.
Spending time outdoors gets children away from technology and television, helps them burn energy and promotes social interaction. When parents of children with attention deficit disorder were asked to describe situations where the symptoms were alleviated, the majority suggested outdoor activities in green settings, including gardening. These activities had a positive impact on behavior, including socializing and impulse control.
But it's not just children and teens that benefit from gardening. A meta-analysis of scientific studies on gardening showed that gardening improves ones mood, and also results in increases in life satisfaction, quality of life, and a greater sense of community. (A meta-analysis is a study looking at the outcomes of many individual studies for overall trends and results.) If you are already a gardener, you know how much better you feel after you spend some time outside in the garden. Evidence of the physical, mental and social benefits of gardening cannot be overstated. Gardening also seems to reduce medical visits and need for medications. Science says you may even lose some weight and increase your bone density if you take up gardening!
If you have been thinking about getting into gardening, want to learn something new or improve your gardening skills, come have fun with us doing the hands-on activities planned for the Napa County Master Gardeners' Fall Faire, where science fair meets carnival.
Some of the Fall Faire's booths with science based fun for adults, children and teens include: Good Bugs versus Bad Bugs; Worm Composting; Carnivorous Plants; Mushroom Madness; Soil: It's Not Dirt; Secret Life of Plants; Pollinator Paradise; Hay/Straw Bale Gardening; Beverages from the Garden; Seeds for Fall Planting; Herb Crafts and Seeds; Planting Succulents; Natural Dyeing; Garlands from Your Garden and Garden Tool Care.
Admire the display of creative scarecrows and vote for your favorite. Stop by the Master Gardener Help Desk to get your gardening questions answered. Want to know which tree to plant? Pick up a copy of the Master Gardener's Trees of Napa Valley (cash or check please). There will be a food truck, a seating area, live music and games for all ages.
Community groups with booths at the fair include 4-H, California Native Plant Society, Natural Resources Conservation District, Napa Compost and Recycling, Connolly Ranch, The School Garden Doctor, Napa Water Conservation District, beekeeper George Altobell and the Bonsai Society.
Napa County Master Gardeners' second annual Fall Faire will take place on Saturday, October 5, from noon to 4 p.m., at 1710 Soscol Avenue in Napa. Tickets are $5 for adults. Children 15 and under are free with an accompanying adult. Purchase tickets online with a credit card. Cash and check only will be accepted at the door. Find more on the Fall Faire at http://napamg.ucanr.edu/fallfaire/.
The UC Master Gardeners are volunteers who provide UC research-based information on home gardening and answer your questions. To find out more about upcoming programs or to ask a garden question, visit the Master Gardener website (http://napamg.ucanr.edu) or call (707) 253-4221 between 9 a.m. and noon on Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays.
- Author: Andrew Sutherland
- Posted by: Elaine Lander
Two species of Blatta cockroaches can be common peridomestic pests in California, including the familiar oriental cockroach (B. orientalis) and a relative newcomer, the Turkestan cockroach (B. lateralis, Figure 1). Adults of both species are large (usually one inch or more in length) and conspicuous insects that harbor and breed outdoors within moist crevices around structures, such as subsurface utility ports, voids associated with concrete expansion joints, and soil cracks formed at junctions of landscape and hardscape elements (Figure 2).
From these harborage sites, cockroaches venture out at night to feed on a wide variety of organic materials, such as food waste, manure, and both plant and animal matter in various stages of decomposition. In many cases, foraging cockroaches may enter structures that are not properly sealed, often triggering complaints and calls for pest control services.
What's the concern?
Though they don't pose the same threats to public health and indoor air quality as do German cockroaches (Blatella germanica), oriental and Turkestan cockroaches are often targeted by both indoor and outdoor insecticide applications, usually in the form of liquid or aerosol sprays. Perimeter protection services, where liquid formulations are regularly sprayed around building exteriors to provide repellency or residual toxicity for pests that may invade the structures from outside, are especially common for cockroaches. Such programs may be largely ineffective, however, since without exclusion measures, insects can still invade, only to die within buildings.
In addition, many insects have developed resistance to commonly used active ingredients, especially pyrethroid insecticides, due to widespread exposure in the environment and limited variety in pesticide products. Finally, such programs may be prohibited or discouraged because of regulations enacted to protect the environment and surrounding communities (see “Ask the Expert” on page 6 of the Summer 2019 issue of the Green Bulletin). For instance, public schools in California provide challenging settings for traditional perimeter protection since spray applications require special posting, notification, and reporting.
For all these reasons, professionals in California may consider alternatives to perimeter spray programs in order to provide effective control of these nuisance cockroaches for their customers.
Gel baits have proven very effective when used to control German cockroaches indoors, but can they be used for outdoor species? Furthermore, the use of baits within self-contained, tamper-proof bait stations is exempt from the notification and posting requirements associated with public schools.
Oriental and Turkestan cockroaches are most active during the warm summer and early autumn months, when conditions in many parts of California are extremely harsh, with very high daytime temperatures and very low relative humidity. Can baits hold up under those conditions and remain attractive, edible, and palatable to cockroaches?
Laboratory and Field Trials
In order to measure the potential efficacy of exterior summertime applications, new groups of cockroaches were provided bait deposits dried on a lab bench for seven days. This drying period resulted in significant water loss from gel baits, rendering them quite hard and brittle. Nevertheless, exposure to dried baits also resulted in widespread mortality, with most groups of cockroaches exhibiting mortality at or near 100% after 14 days. In some cases, very little bait was consumed, suggesting that contact rather than ingestion contributed to mortality. These results suggest that many different professional cockroach baits are attractive to Blatta species, even when insects have access to alternative food and water sources, and that bait deposits can effectively kill cockroaches even when they are dried.
At these sites, three different bait products (Table 1) were applied within separate large (100-foot radius) treatment areas and compared to areas that were left untreated in terms of cockroach density, as measured by sticky traps placed out overnight once a month for one year. Bait was applied during periods of cockroach activity within locked rodent bait stations (Figure 4) or within subsurface utility ports (four bait placements of 1 g to 3 g per treatment area as needed monthly, according to observed cockroach density). Six applications were made at the Mendocino County site, while only two applications were made at the Riverside County site.
Control was achieved at both sites, but the population crash observed in Mendocino County was dramatic (Figure 5): 90% fewer cockroaches were trapped just one month after the baiting program began. Trap catches also fell by up to 50% in untreated plots. We believe these widespread decreases were driven by secondary and even tertiary mortality caused by cannibalism of bait-intoxicated cockroaches or scavenging of bait-killed cockroaches. This suggests that cockroaches in our field trial moved from one treatment area to the next, meaning that Turkestan cockroaches may venture more than 100 ft from harborages during foraging. Cannibalism was commonly observed in our overnight trapping programs, with trapped cockroaches dismembered and consumed by others (Figure 6).
At the Riverside County site, populations were smaller, foraging activity was lower, and population density within untreated plots remained high throughout the study. The one-year period ended at this site in October 2018, and preliminary data show that baits effectively reduced the population by 80% to 90% as compared to no treatment at all (Figure 7).
What did we find?
The results of this project suggest that bait-only programs can be very effective when used against oriental and Turkestan cockroaches in California, even when populations are large. The products tested were all very effective. We believe bait-only programs represent important alternatives to perimeter sprays and should be strongly considered when seeking to minimize exposure risk within IPM programs and when serving sensitive sites such as schools and child care centers, hospitals, municipal properties, and public outdoor spaces.
[Article originally published as "Outdoor baiting programs for cockroaches can provide excellent control" in the Summer 2019 issue of the Green Bulletin. For more on cockroaches and their management, see our Pest Notes: Cockroaches.]
/h2>/h2>/h2>/div>- Author: Ben Faber
Spanish-language Ag Field Supervisor Courses Available at Ventura College
Applications are now being accepted for Ventura College's Agriculture Supervisor Development Program. The 12-week program consists of Spanish-language Level I and Level II courses designed to help potential front-line supervisors develop the skills to effectively lead, communicate and manage field workers while ensuring regulatory standards are met.
The Level I course is for those new to the program; the Level II course is for those who have completed the first course. The courses are designed for Spanish speakers who are learning English. All lessons will be delivered in Spanish and will include weekly English practice. Students are expected to attend all sessions, as well as the graduation celebration where students will receive a certificate of completion.
Applications to the program are now being accepted for the November 1 – February 12 session. Classes meet each Tuesday and Thursday from 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m (Level I) or 2:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. (Level II). Courses will be held at Ventura College, Day Road Center, 71 Day Road, Ventura, CA, 93003
/h1>- Author: Pew Research Center by Abigail Geiger
Meanwhile, whites, who continue to make up by far the largest share of the U.S. public school population, tend to go to schools where half or more of students are white.
In 2014, the most recent year for which data are available, 44.1% of black public elementary and secondary school students attended schools where at least half of their peers were also black. Among Hispanics, 56.7% went to schools where at least half of students were also Hispanic.
Since 1995, black public-school students have become somewhat less isolated from students of other racial or ethnic backgrounds, while Hispanics have become more isolated. In 1995, 51.4% of blacks were attending schools where at least half of students were black. Meanwhile, 52.6% of Hispanics were going to schools where half or more students were Hispanic.
These long-term shifts in enrollment are partly the result of the changing racial and ethnic composition of the United States – and, as a result, of its public schools.
The share of Hispanics enrolled in public schools has almost doubled since 1995, when they made up 13.5% of all students. As the share of students who are Hispanic has grown, the share who are black has decreased slightly.
In 2014, about eight-in-ten whites (81.6%) attended schools where at least half of students were also white, a decrease from 90.5% in 1995.
The share of white public-school students attending schools where the vast majority of students are white has also shrunk over the past 20 years. In 1995, nearly half (48.6%) of white public-school students attended schools where at least 90% of students were also white. In 2014, this was the case for just 21.9% of white students. The share of blacks attending schools where at least 90% of students are black has also decreased, from 22.1% in 1995 to 15.4% in 2014. But the share of Hispanics attending schools where at least 90% of students are Hispanic has grown slightly since 1995, from 15.4% to 16.9%.
Asians, who have also driven part of the growth in America's classrooms and in the country overall in recent years, are less likely than whites, blacks and Hispanics to attend schools where at least half of students are their own race or ethnicity. In 2014, just 12.9% of Asians attended schools where this was the case, which is likely due to their relatively small share of the overall public-school population. American Indians, Alaska Natives and Pacific Islanders – who make up even smaller shares of the public student population – were also much less likely than those in other racial or ethnic groups to attend schools where at least half of students are of the same race or ethnicity.
Source: Published originally on pewresearch.org, Many minority students go to schools where at least half of their peers are their race or ethnicity, by Abigail Geiger, October 25th , 2017.