- Author: Mike Hsu
John Karlik, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Kern County for environmental horticulture and environmental science, will retire July 1. Karlik began his work in Kern County in 1984 with an emphasis on the commercial rose plant industry and local horticulture outreach.
Karlik's teaching activities included five levels of 12- to 15-week horticulture education classes offered in three locations in Kern County, usually two or three classes held each year. For the past 25 years, he has collaborated with Darrell Feil, co-owner of Abate-a-Weed in Bakersfield, to hold landscape management seminars that connect community members with experts on a wide range of topics.
“What I love about John is a couple of things: first, his knowledge base is amazing – he's a treasure of Kern County, for what he's done education-wise,” Feil said. “And second, he has a very active mind – and so many people benefit from that in our community.”
Karlik expanded his teaching to include 10 horticulture study tours to gardens and landscapes of Europe and Asia, and the photographs from those visits enhanced his outreach and contributed to his chapters on landscape design in the Arizona and UC Master Gardener Handbooks.
He earned his B.S. in soil science from the University of Minnesota and M.S. in horticulture from Michigan State University.
Taking advantage of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources' flexibility and sabbatical leave, he completed a doctorate at UCLA in Environmental Science and Engineering, and changed his research focus to air-quality-related projects. That led to a lecture series on atmospheric science and policy, including climate change, which Karlik offered annually for 15 years as a visiting professor at Central European University in Budapest, and resulting in a service award from that institution.
In recent years, he led four tours to study ecosystem response in the still-radioactive Exclusion Zone at Chernobyl, Ukraine, site of the world's worst nuclear accident.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Karlik shifted from in-person classes and offered 75 hour-long Zoom presentations on horticulture, landscape design, climate change and environmental science topics, finding an audience in California and in other states.
Karlik also has held a variety of positions in ANR committees, including Academic Assembly Council and the Communications Advisory Board.
“I especially appreciate the many collegial relationships I have within UCCE, ANR, and on several campuses,” Karlik said. “Authorship on many publications reflects those relationships.”
In retirement, Karlik expects to offer assistance at the UCCE office in Kern County and as an editor for a forthcoming ANR book. He intends to pursue interests in instrumental music and the study of languages.
“We've been really blessed to have a guy like John around,” Feil said.
- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
The 8th International IPM Symposium to be held March 23-26,2015 in Salt Lake City, UT is approaching. Thank you to those of you who have already registered for the meeting.
Don't miss the opportunity to hear plenary talks from:
- Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy, Director of USDA's National Institute for Food and Agriculture
- Dr. Marc L. Lame, Clinical Professor at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs and Director of their Masters of Science Environmental Science Program
- Dr. David R. Shaw, Vice President for Research and Economic Development, Mississippi State University
- Dr. Mark Gregory Robson, Dean of Agricultural and Urban Programs and Professor of Plant Biology and Pathology, Rutgers University School of Environmental and Biological Sciences; Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at the School of Public Health
- Mr. Jim Jones, Assistant Administrator, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), U.S Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA).
Other highlights include:
- More than 45 concurrent sessions on IPM in urban, school, agronomic, vegetables, fruits, and rangeland settings
- Presentation of the International IPM Achievement Awards to outstanding individuals and teams
- Over 175 poster presentations on current IPM projects and research
- Exhibits on IPM products and services
Discounted registration fees available through Friday, February 27.
Visit http://ipmcenters.org/ipmsymposium15/ for details.
Share with your colleagues.
- Author: Ben Faber
25% Discount on International Avocado Quality Manuals and Booklets (English and Spanish)
Description: This comprehensive avocado quality resource is printed on heavy weight gloss paper and comprises 70 pages (8.5” x 11”) of information, including 85 photographs, with sections on assess quality, ripening, external quality, internal quality, cultivars, and damage scenarios.
Through the end of June we are offering a 25% discount on the beautiful “International Avocado Quality” manuals and booklets, available in both English and Spanish.
The regular price for the manuals is $45, now on sale for $33.75; and the regular price for the booklets is $15, now on sale for $11.25. We invite you to order a copy for your library today. U.S. addresses only, please use our online storehttps://marketplace.ucdavis.edu/C21642_ustores/web/store_cat.jsp?STOREID=2&CATID=7&SINGLESTORE=true . International addresses, please use our printed order form.
http://postharvest.ucdavis.edu/files/71523.pdf
Please use the code “IAQ25%” to receive the discount.
- Author: Katherine E. Kerlin
As drought dries the landscape and rising global temperatures make for decreasing crop yields, farmers are faced with the question of how to feed billions of people in a way that both reduces global greenhouse gas emissions and adapts to the realities of climate change.
Scientists and policymakers from around the world will gather today through Friday, March 20-22, at the University of California, Davis, to grapple with the threats of climate change for global agriculture and recommend science-based actions to slow its effects while meeting the world's need for food, livelihood and sustainability.
The Climate-Smart Agriculture Global Science Conference, planned in coordination with the World Bank, builds on a 2011 international meeting on this theme in the Netherlands.
"Climate change, which brings severe weather events and more subtle but equally menacing temperature changes, presents unprecedented challenges to the global community," said UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi.
"In California, where we rely heavily on snowmelt for irrigation to grow half of our nation's fruit and vegetables, we are acutely aware that scientists and policymakers must join forces to lessen the potential effects of climate change," she said.
Katehi will open the conference on Wednesday, March 20, along with Thomas Vilsack, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (via video). The public is invited to attend the opening day’s program (8:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m), free of charge; and the closing day’s afternoon program (noon-3:45 p.m.), also free of charge. These will be held in Jackson Hall of the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. (Lunches not included.)
Catherine Woteki, USDA undersecretary, will speak Thursday evening, March 21.
Other speakers will include: Ben Santer, climate researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a member of the National Academy of Sciences; Joseph Alcamo, chief scientist for the United Nations Environmental Program; and Patrick Caron, general director for research and strategy of the French Agricultural Research Center for International Development. Also speaking will be outstanding scientists from dozens of universities and research institutes from around the world.
Conference topics will focus on the implications of cutting-edge agricultural, ecological and environmental research for improved design of policies and actions affecting agricultural management and development; identifying farm and food-system issues, determining research gaps; highlighting emerging research initiatives; and developing transformative policies and institutions.
The conference will conclude with participants developing and endorsing a declaration regarding the key research and policy messages that result from conference presentations and discussions. This declaration is expected to point toward science-based policies and actions for global agriculture that will mitigate climate change and encourage adaptation to maintain food security, livelihoods and biodiversity.
- Author: Marissa Palin
How does this play into food security? According to research done by the Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice (MRFCJ), food security is a women's issue. In Uganda, men make the money, but women feed the family. It's women who are out plowing the fields, cooking meals for their families, adapting practices to deal with climate change, caring for livestock, and the list goes on.
Watch this video on the MRFJC's work in Uganda.
But food security shouldn't be a women's issue. It should be a people's issue. So how do we include men in the global conversation? Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and keynote speaker at our Global Food Systems Forum, discusses this important issue in her video below.