Archive Nut, Prune and Olive Programs

During the first week of August, the California Avocado Society, Inc., California Avocado Commission, University of California Cooperative Extension hosted six Laurel wilt researchers from the University of Florida.

The Beatle Boys made their mark in Liverpool, but across the pond, specifically at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis, the real Beetle Boys emergedentomology-driven youth who have made their mark with the Coleopterists Society, an international society devoted to the st...

Every year we see some off-types in our public varieties that have a genetic mutation we call elongated upper internode. This mutation causes the internode below the panicle to elongate, resulting in panicles that stick above the canopy. Some have confused this abnormality with weedy rice.

Preliminary grain yield results for our fall-planted common wheat, triticale, durum wheat and barley trials are now available on the UC Small Grains Research and Information Center website: http://smallgrains.ucanr.

Many growers don't hear about the amount of research and extension activity that is going on surrounding the Shot Hole Borers and Fusarium Dieback. This pest/disease complex affects not only avocados, but many other tree species, including many California natives.

Talk about a butterfly ballet... A large Western tiger swallowtail, Papilio rutulus, with a wingspan of about four inches, flutters into the Vacaville, Calif. pollinator garden and lands on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia).

Have you ever seen a snakefly? Not a snake. Not a fly. A snakefly! They're predators but rarely seen. They eat insects such as aphids and mites. They have a long neck, or technically, an elongated prothorax, their most distinguishing characteristic.

Photo: Sun Blotch Branch Sun-blotch, a viroid disease affecting the avocado, was observed as early as 1914 in Southern California. Sun-blotch is widespread in California, and likely to be found in all districts where avocados are being grown.

A little haggard, a little worn, a little ragged, a little torn. But there she was on Monday, Aug. 1, the first monarch of the season to lay eggs in our little pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif.

Do you have yellow starthistle, Italian thistle, Himalaya blackberry, white top, or other common Central Coast rangeland weeds on your ranch?