- Author: Janet Hartin
As 2020 comes to a close, I'd like to express my deep appreciation and thanks to all of our UCCE San Bernardino County Master Gardener volunteers who have given the ‘gift of their time' to provide credible information to the gardening public. Even during COVID, they've found creative and safe means to continue reaching the public by converting face-to-face classes and workshops to online opportunities.They've gone above and beyond their expected volunteerism by helping those in need during these difficult times by working with our partners to distribute free seeds, trees, and wattles (for erosion control) and ensuring a happy holiday season for children and adults in need through a gift drive. Through COVID, the UCCE Master Gardeners have maintained their email and phone helplines to help county residents solve their gardening quandaries (linked here) mgsanber@ucanr.edu and (909)387-2182.
Master Gardener volunteers helped thousands of county residents landscape more sustainably, grow food in home, community, and school gardens, and deepen their appreciation of nature. They:
- Taught classes on drought-resistant landscapes and growing food in home, school, and community gardens
- Hosted ‘Ask the Master Gardener' sessions
- Provided education to community and school gardeners
- Distributed gardening information and answered questions at Farmers' Markets, community fairs and other events
- Answered home gardening questions via email and phone helplines
- Shared gardening information through social media
- Helped promote planting trees to cool urban heat islands in underserved neighborhoods and communities
- Helped take research data on the 'trees for tomorrow' project
- Published the monthly Master Gardener newsletter (thanks Phoebe, Debbie, Maggie, Robin, Sue and contributing authors!)
A special ‘shout out' to our monthly 2020 ‘Spotlight' Master Gardener volunteers for their extraordinary service:
I'd also like to recognize our dozens of non-profit partners including Inland Empire Resource Conservation District and the County of San Bernardino.
And, last but far from least, I'm forever thankful to UCCE San Bernardino County Master Gardener Coordinator Maggie O'Neill whose passion, heart, and expertise keeps the program thriving!
Happy Holidays to All!
- Author: Janet Hartin
I'd like to extend a warm welcome to the 56 newly accepted trainees in our UC Cooperative Extension San Bernardino County Master Gardener class that starts Tuesday, October 1st in Loma Linda. We are excited to meet and greet those of you taking the class in person as well as our online desert and mountain students. The first evening we will go over the syllabus outlining the subject matter we'll be covering over the next 18 weeks, distribute training materials, and discuss expectations. Our team is here to help you navigate the volunteer management system (VMS), become familiar with events and activities current Master Gardeners are involved in, and - most of all - to help guide you and to address questions and any concerns you have along the way.
Thank you for choosing to become a UC Master Gardener volunteer. We look forward to helping you help your community save water and reduce the impacts of urban heat islands through the incorporation of drought-resistant sustainable landscaping; enhance food security and health by expanding home, school, and community food gardens; and enhance the health, well-being and sense of community by promoting an appreciation of nature and outdoor activities.
I also want to assure you that both the midterm and final exam are intended to help you help the public, not memorize endless facts and figures with little practical value. Therefore both exams are open book, open notes. Our main goal educationally during the class is to familiarize you with credible UC ANR resources to enable you to provide accurate information to the public. Topics include the selection and care of fruits, vegetables, and landscape plants; integrated pest management stressing prevention; soil/water relations and irrigation to maximize plant health and minimize water waste; sustainable food systems; plant propagation; prevention and control of weeds and invasive plants; helping mitigate the impacts of climate-change with well placed trees; and more.
Main contacts for the UCCE Master Gardener Program of San Bernardino County:
Master Gardener Coordinator: Maggie O'Neill (magoneill@ucanr.edu)
Office/Promotion Manager: Robin Rowe (rjrowe@ucanr.edu)
See you Tuesday!
Janet
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Janet Hartin, UCCE Area Environmental Horticulture Advisor (San Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles Counties), Master Gardener Manager (San Bernardino and Riverside Counties), UCCE County Co-Director (San Bernardino County)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Claudio Gratton, associate professor in the Department of Entomology, University of Wisconsin, will speak on “Sustainable Bioenergy Landscapes: Can We Balance Our Need for Production and Biodiversity?” at a UC Davis Department of Entomology seminar on Wednesday, April 10.
His seminar will take place from 12:05 to 1 p.m. in Room 1022 of the Life Sciences Addition, corner of Hutchison and Kleiber Hall drives. Katharina Ullmann of the Neal Williams lab is the host. The seminar is scheduled to be recorded for later viewing on UCTV.
“Increasing demands for food, and now fuel, have put pressure on our agricultural lands,” Gratton says. “Land use and land cover are continuing to change the way we manage our lands with significant biological and ecosystem-level consequences.”
“The ‘simplification’ of the agricultural landscape, that is the removal of natural and semi-natural areas in the landscape and the increase in monocultures of annual crops, is typically associated with a decrease in species richness and increases in crop pest abundance,” he said. “These effects go beyond mere aesthetics. The consequences of landscape simplification are felt by growers who apply more pesticides in landscapes dominated by annual cropland. The question then, is can we balance our needs for agricultural production (both food and fuel) in a way that supports other ecosystem services on which we as humans depend?”
“I argue that understanding the relationships between landscape structure and the tradeoffs between ecosystem services will be a key a designing ‘custom’ multifunctional landscapes.”
Gratton, who has a bachelor of science degree in biology from the University of Illinois (1991) and a doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley (1997), joined the University of Wisconsin faculty in 2003. His research group works broadly in the field of landscape ecology in both agricultural and natural systems. In Wisconsin agriculture, he has been interested in understanding how beneficial insects, such as pollinators and lady beetles, utilize the landscape and carry out important functions such as pollination of crops and suppression of insect pests.
His work in agroecology has included studying insect landscape ecology and conservation in potatoes, rotational grazing, grasslands, soybeans, cranberries and apples.
Gratton has worked with growers to understand how to best manage non-crop “natural” areas in the landscape in order to enhance and conserve beneficial insects. He is also an active member of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center as part of the team looking at developing sustainable bioenergy crops. He teaches courses in insect biological control, multivariate analysis and coastal field ecology.