Ongoing research

A call from a small grower, surprised at the sudden decline of the avocado trees. It must be a disease was the grower's thought. Well driving up to the site, there were numerous trees with canopies indicating drought stress. In fact most of the trees looked like they had had the water turned off.

They're pretty in pink. Well, not just pink. All other colors, too. It's National Honey Bee Day on Saturday, Aug. 20. That's when we officially celebrate the honey bee, Apis mellifera, which the European colonists brought to the Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1622.

It doesn't get more real. Yolo County Farm Advisor and children's book author Rachael Freeman Long remembers telling her son stories about an adventuresome, kind-hearted, wildlife-loving boy named Jack and three of his friends--a bat named Pinta, a coyote named Sonny and a crow named Midas.

University of California Cooperative Extension Wild Pig Survey UC Cooperative Extension wants to hear from San Benito, Monterey, and Santa Cruz county ranchers and farmers about your experience with wild pigs.

At a recent meeting the question came up about the fate of nitrogen fertilizer applied through the irrigation system.

Everybody eats in the pollinator garden. That includes crab spiders that sprawl atop a flower, flatten themselves, and wait, oh, so patiently, for dinner. We've seen them nab green bottle flies, sweat bees and honey bees. They pounce, inject a killer venom, and dinner is served.

A land manager recently contacted me with questions about overseeding alfalfa. Her alfalfa stand is diminishing but not to the point of giving up on it.

A recent USDA-CDFA collaboration has documented the first establishment of a population of the water hyacinth planthopper in the western U.S.

Holistic Management International is holding a workshop on Preserving the Cowboy Side of California': Innovative Practices to Continue the Ranching Lifestyle on September 7, 2016 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.

Let's celebrate the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae).