Maintaining and caring for the Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Educational Fruit/Nut Orchard has been a tremendous pleasure over the last 7 years. Not only does the orchard provide over 50 different varieties of fruit and nuts throughout the year but could provide an educational outreach resource to the local community via schools, local residents, Master Gardeners, and California Naturalists.

Providing late winter and early spring maintenance to your home orchard requires fruit tree publication research, speaking with your local nursery personnel, thoughtful planning and due diligence. Knowing where fungus and insects are hibernating over the fall/winter seasons and removing/destroying physical structures known as “mummies” will determine the future health of your fruit/nut trees. These “mummies” are harboring many different types of brown rot (Monilinia fructicola and M. laxa) and insects (see Figure 1, 2, & 3). “In summer, especially when there are rains or dews that moisten the fruit surface, the spores (brown rot fungus) germinate and penetrate the fruit. Some rotten fruit rot from the tree and decay on the ground. Others remain attached to the tree and slowly shrivel into wrinkled, black, and tan structures called mummies. The mummy is composed of both fungal and plant tissues and is a survival structure for the fungus.” ¹ 

Figure 1-Fruit/Nut tree physical structures "mummies" harboring fungus spores and insects. Photo by" Nikolai Schweitzer

Identify, collect, and eliminate this over-wintering physical structures to decrease future pest activity. Using a bucket, keenly glance over each fruit/nut tree individually and collect leftover, shriveled, old fruit on tree branches and the ground. If you remove the “'mummies” from the tree and dispose of them on the orchard floor, the fungus spores and insects will continue to live and multiply and infect your home orchard. Transport the bucket full of “mummies” away from the fruit/nut trees to prevent future contamination. Now, in my recent efforts to find out the best environmentally conscious method of disposal, I was unable to locate research publications advising a preferred direction. I ended up burying them in the soil ½ a mile away. Will the bugs and fungus die/live/prosper? I could time the disposal of “mummies” when I burn an agricultural pile of debris or soak the bucket in water with a small percentage of citric acid. Readers are encouraged to chime in and submit their opinions and thoughts. I appreciate your time and effort reading this message.  

Figure 2-Inside "mummies' spiders, earwigs, moth larvae, grubs, ants, and beetles. Photo by: Nikolai Schweitzer

Figure 3- Over-wintering insects - Oriental Fruit moth larvae? Photo by: Nikolai Schweitzer

¹Geisel P.M., Ingels C.A., and Norton M.V. 2007. The Home Orchard: Growing Your Own Deciduous Fruit and Nut. University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Pub. 3485.

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On February 9th, UC Davis Hydrology Professor Dr. Gregory Pasternack brought 13 lucky students from his Field Methods in Hydrology class to explore one of the watersheds here at Sierra Foothill Research & Extension Center. In his 21^st and likely final year teaching this course, Dr. Pasternack was kind enough to share some reflections with us below:

“I always run this class trip in February and usually the view of Deer Creek across the canyon is stunning. In the final section before it convenes with the Yuba River, Deer Creek plunges an amazing 400 feet vertical per mile.  With a flow of a couple hundred cfs that we typically see in February, it's just a stunning view.  I once tried to hike down into that section from Mooney Flat Road, but the bedrock is very smooth and the waterfalls too extreme, even when dry. It's a postcard-worthy view for sure.

UC Davis Hydrology students work as a team to collect data here at SFREC.

UC Davis Hydrology walking trails along rolling oak hillsides of SFREC, headed toward their next data collection site.

The Schubert catchment is small yet still quite adventurous to university students. Some students come from urban regions with little outdoor experience, while others are avid outdoor adventurers yet have little practical experience with doing science in nature. The goal of experiential learning is to put students into new situations with one-on-one experiences with nature where they have to use their knowledge and experience to problem solve. Not only are students learning science, but they are learning how to work together in a team, and even how to dress effectively to do safe outdoor research. People might be surprised to hear that part of the course involves teaching about clothing, but the technology of textiles for outdoor work has improved so much and students have little exposure to thinking about safety from a clothing perspective.

UC Davis Hydrology students work together and learn the importance of outdoor clothing selection while collecting data.

Lectures are the most efficient way to inject the most amount of information into the human brain in the shortest amount of time. Unfortunately, people tend to not retain most of that information unless they perceive a critical need to know something at a given moment in time. With quick access to the internet, people are becoming less knowledgeable and more dependent on search. What a field trip like this does is provide motivation to learn and retain lecture knowledge, because it will be required to be safe and effective during the field trip as well as to complete the associated homework assignment. Down in the Schubert watershed, cell phones don't work, so you have to really know what you're doing and not rely on technology to tell you what to do.”

UC Davis Hydrology students say a final farewell to SFREC as they head back to the vans.