- Author: Kathryn M Stein
As California enters another dry period, it can be painful to think about the last time the state was in this situation. There is value, however, in looking back to the last long drought.
“California's historic drought presents an opportunity to apply insight from on-the-ground managers to develop future adaptation and mitigation strategies for management and policy decision-making. Ranchers are among the first to experience the social, economic, and environmental impacts of drought, so they are essential in co-developing management and policy guidance for building rangeland resilience to drought,” says Grace Woodmansee, UC ANR Livestock and...
- Author: Kat Kerlin
The podcast Water Talk launched its second season on Friday, April 2. This season focuses in part on drought, a water issue at the top of many minds during this relatively dry rainy season.
"In California, drought is not 'if,' it's 'when,' said Water Talk co-host Faith Kearns, academic coordinator with the California Institute for Water Resources in the preview episode.
"The second season includes a diverse group of guests from every corner of the state, border to border," said co-host Samuel Sandoval, a UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the UC Davis Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources.
The weekly podcast will feature discussions of agriculture, water policy, environmental...
- Author: Faith Kearns
Michael Mendez is an assistant professor in the School of Social Ecology at UC Irvine, and has spent time doing public policy work as an advisor, senior legislative consultant, lobbyist, and as a gubernatorial appointee during the passage of California's internationally acclaimed climate change laws. Most recently, Governor Newsom appointed Michael to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, which regulates water quality in a region of 11 million people. He is author of the book Climate Change from the Streets (Yale University Press).
You've had...
- Author: pam.kanrice@ucop.edu
California's $86 million date industry produces more than half of the nation's dates. Most of the fruit is grown in the arid Coachella Valley. Despite efforts by growers to conserve water, data was lacking on date palms' actual water use to refine the best irrigation management for the crop until a recent research project led by Ali Montazar, UC Cooperative Extension irrigation and water management advisor for Imperial and Riverside counties.
“California dates are grown in the hottest and most arid climate in North America and require substantial amounts of water in order to bring a successful crop to fruition,” Albert Keck, Coachella Valley date grower and chairman of the California Date Commission,...
- Author: Faith Kearns
Finding a tree that produces the right amount of tasty fruit or nuts under the unique growing conditions of a given orchard takes a lot of science and a little bit of art. It's a mix and match process that involves finding a tree base, or rootstock, that is well-adapted to a particular place and also manages to get along well with the fruit or nut tree cultivar that is grafted to it.
“Rootstocks are incredibly important in agriculture because they help us produce a uniform product under very different growing conditions,” says Katherine Jarvis-Shean, an orchard systems advisor with the University of...