Find out what goes on in Loma Vista 4-H from the following Featured Club Happenings  submitted by Loma Vista 4-H co-leader Heidi Marshall.

The members of Loma Vista 4-H in Ventura have enjoyed a great year of fun projects and activities.  We have 70 members ranging in age from 5 to 18.  Although our club doesn’t have large animal projects, our members enjoy projects for small animals: cavies, rabbits, and dog care and obedience.  Other projects we take pride in are archery, arts and crafts, presentations, cooking, roots and shoots, sewing, hiking, horticulture, and yoga.

We’ve had lots of fun club meetings this year with guests such as a magician and a fitness instructor who taught us how to kick box.

For community service, we organized Trick or Treat So Others Can Eat, helped at dog shows, planted native plants in a salt marsh in Carpinteria, and volunteered at the historic Dudley House in Ventura.  Our teen members are working on a plan to help introduce 4-H activities to children whose parents are in the military.  We also fundraise to help support a boy in Tanzania so that he can get through school.  He wants to become a doctor some day.

We are fortunate to have Emily Morris and Michael Scott, former 4-Hers who recently graduated from college, leading our presentations project.  Several of our members participated in Preliminary and County Presentation Days this year.

We’ve had a busy year so far in Loma Vista 4-H.  We have a terrific support system of parents and project leaders who make our great activities possible.  Our next adventure will be the Ventura County Fair!

Featured Club Happenings are part of Clover Lines, our county 4-H newsletter. Our Clover Lines newsletter as well as others produced in our office can be found here.

Susan Gloeckler, our Ventura County 4-H Program Representative, has been working to set up 4-H clubs at area military bases. This work is part of a larger federal initiative to create 4-H clubs at military bases across the world so that when families are transferred to a new base, children can continue to enjoy the program and have consistency of involvement in the same organization from one place to the next.

Recently 4-H youth at the Port Hueneme Naval Base and at Point Mugu have been participating a variety of activities including: visiting local farms, growing vegetables, learning where food comes from, and the importance of good nutrition. These fun learning experiences were provided by UCCE staff, 4-H volunteers, Master Gardener volunteers, and youth program leaders at the bases.

On Monday August 3^rd, The Ventura County Star wrote a great article about the military 4-H program. The entire article can be read here.

The following Featured Club Happenings was submitted by Piru 4-H Club President, Kris Dewey.

It has been a busy year for Piru 4H! Our members have been provided many educational opportunities because we have a fabulous group of project leaders.

• Our geology project has visited the Santa Paula Oil Museum.
  

• The Cultural Appreciation project attended a Renaissance Fair.
  

• Our swine group is as big as ever and toured a local butcher shop.

• We have two members in the beef group taking animals to the fair in August.
  

• The teatime participants have been learning proper etiquette and took turns hosting tea parties.
  

• Several scrapbooking members took field trips to scrapbooking shops and had a great time learning how to showcase their favorite photos.
  

• We had a cake decorating group that made wonderful snacks for our general meetings.
  

• Our fishing group went on camping field trips and had a great time learning how to bait and cast hooks.
  

• The community service project members participated in TOTSOCE (Trick or Treat So Others Can Eat), made Christmas Baskets and Valentines for U.S. military veterans, and most recently helped sort clothes and other donations and serve lunch at a homeless shelter in Ventura.
  

• We offered the members and their parents the opportunity to attend a CPR class.
  

We are planning a year-in-review to celebrate the successes of this year after the Ventura County Fair and wish all of you a great 2010 season!

Featured Club Happenings are a regular feature in Clover Lines, our 4-H newsletter. Back issues of Clover Lines can be found on our website.

Below you will find a summary of what we did last month. By no means does this summary capture all that we accomplished or began, but it gives a nice glimpse of what we do.

1. Research Activities

This is a sampling of the research activity conducted in June.

• Established an experiment testing an herbicide for management of yellow nutsedge, a major weed in production agriculture costing Ventura County growers thousands of dollars annually to control.  For more information on nutsedge and its impact, please read previous blog posts.
• Established an experiment testing an organic method of soil disinfestations by creating anaerobic conditions in strawberry beds and monitoring effects on plant pathogen Verticillium dahliae.  This research makes direct contributions by addressing the issue of seeking alternatives to fumigants such as methyl bromide.
• Finished four field trials that evaluate management options for four pests detrimental to the strawberry industry. Management strategies included physical, thermal and chemical control measures.
• Initiated a project with CA Dept. of Food and Agriculture and local strawberry growers to introduce a biocontrol agent for Lygus bug, the #1 insect pest for strawberries and significant for other row crops.
• We are continuing research on minimizing irrigation needs for strawberries, which addresses both economic and environmental issues.

2. Educational Activities

This is a sampling of the educational activities conducted in June.

A. Grower/Clientele Education

• Jim Downer presented sessions at a regional meeting on nutrition of palms and diseases of shade trees. 100 in attendance.
• Ben Faber participated in a program at UC Riverside on Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP), which poses a significant threat to the citrus industry.  It was clear that fruit from affected areas coming into Ventura County packing houses could be a host for the psyllid.   Ben spoke to Henry Gonzales about this and as a result the import of lemons from Imperial County (quarantine area) to Ventura for repacking has been restricted to reduce the likelihood of introducing the pest here.   Both Faber and Rose Hayden-Smith participated in a meeting that brought packers together with the Ag Commissioner, where they hammered out a solution/agreement.
• Ben Faber delivered two grower workshops, one on avocado irrigation and the other on techniques to reduce surface water contamination.
• Rose Hayden-Smith presented her research on gardening and community development at a City of Minneapolis/IATP event attended by more than 100 people.  She also presented a two-hour workshop on Victory Gardens, past and present, to a sold-out audience in Minneapolis.  She offered a talk on gardening trends and public policy in Oxnard to an audience of 75.  Earlier in the month, she facilitated an Urban Agriculture Symposium for 175 people in Chicago, which generated public policy recommendations for the USDA.
• Monique Myers presented the Ventura County RESTOR Project at the National Marine Educators conference in Monterey.
• Monique Myers organized a focus group for Ventura City/County Planners and city storm water experts addressing low impact development and emergency safety issues.
• 4-H staff trained staff at Pt. Mugu and Port Hueneme Naval Bases in the basics of 4-H program management.  Also trained new 4-H club leaders.

B. Youth Education

• Monique Myers directed/facilitated the last of 8 RESTOR teacher/student field trips to Ormond Beach (~70 students per trip).  RESTOR is a grant-funded wetlands/ecological restoration program linking teachers and youth with science education and community service opportunities.
• Monique Myers led a RESTOR Project field trip with 28 student essay contest winners and their teachers on the NOAA research vessel Shearwater.
• 4-H held a Science, Engineering and Technology Day at the military base.
• 4-H held events at both military bases kicking off the new 4-H programs there.

3. Publications

• UCCE staff. Launched a UCCE/Farm Advisor blog  http://ucanr.org/blogs/venturacountyucce/
• UCCE staff.  Produced a new UCCE/Farm Advisor educational brochure.
• Daugovish, Oleg and Maren Mochizuki submitted a paper to HortTechnology detailing the potential for carbon dioxide to be taken up by raspberry plants to boost productivity instead of being released to the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas.   We hope this method will gain attention as one of the ways to tackle a global issue on a local scale.
• Downer, James and Maren Mochizuki. 
  • Two manuscripts accepted to HortTechnology.
    • Pruning landscape palms
    • Diseases of palms.
• Downer, James.  Landscape Notes – Landscaping Trees.  Available at http://ceventura.ucdavis.edu/newsletterfiles/Landscape_Notes17660.pdf
• Downer, James: Article on mulches in Western Arborist Magazine.
• Downer, James,   Article on a new pest, the Date Bug, in Southwest Trees and Turf Magazine.
• Faber, Ben and Newman, Julie, et al.  2009.  Re-evaluation of the roles of honeybees and wind on pollination in avocado.  J. of Hort Science and Biotech (84)3:255-260.
• Faber, Ben and Newman, Julie, et al. 2009. Farm Water Quality Planning Project – From Education to Implementation.  Statewide Conf., Sacramento April 27-30.
• Faber, Ben. 2009. Cherry Vinegar Fly in Ventura County.  VC Farm Bureau Newsletter 41(7): 2-3.
• Hayden-Smith, Rose, et al.  Proceedings of the Chicago Urban Agriculture Symposium.  Includes policy recommendations for the USDA and other cities relating to urban agriculture. http://www.chicagobotanic.org/wed/index.php
• Myers, Monique, et al. Differences in benthic cover inside and outside marine protected areas on the Great Barrier Reef: influence of protection or disturbance history? was published on-line (in advance of printing) this week in Aquatic Conservation. (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/84503925/issue)
• Newman, Julie.  Wrote an article for Greenhouse Management & Production, a national grower magazine
• Monique Myers and Sabrina Drill won an Award of Merit from the 2009 Ecology Awards for their Quagga Mussel manual.