Ongoing research

A position announcement I shared in October (http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=22336) was re-released last week. The new search ends on April 18, 2017. Job announcement for the Associate Director / Field Research Coordinator for the Western Region IR-4 Program.

A recent auction in South Africa was selling 'Maluma' variety of avocado for $92 a tree. That is more than the average price of avocado nursery trees in that country and a lot more than what is paid in California or Florida.

There's gold on them thar roses. No, not the kind of gold found during the California Gold Rush (18481855) that brought some 300,000 folks to the Golden State. These are gold eggs from the multicolored Asian beetle, Harmonia axyridis, that we found on our Sparkle-and-Shine roses last week.

The recent Huanglongbing Conference in Orlando, FL was chock full of people and ideas. Some of the ideas were still in the fermentation state and some were in practice on farm.

"How are the bees doing this year?" That was the most commonly asked question at the California State Beekeepers' Association (CSBA) booth during the California Agriculture Day on Wednesday, March 22 on the west lawn of the State Capitol.

Shark (carfentrazone) has been currently labeled for use in California avocados. It's widely used in many tree and vine crops. It's a Protoporphyrinogen oxidase (PPO) inhibitor. PPO is an enzyme in the chloroplast cell that oxidizes protoporphyrinogen IX (PPGIX) to produce protoporphyrin IX (PPIX).

We have received several recent inquiries following on our blog post from late January that discussed the potential value of a nitrogen (N) topdress at the tillering-to-jointing stages of wheat growth.

Congratulations, Louie Yang! The ecologist, an associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, has been named the faculty recipient of the 2017 Eleanor and Harry Walker Academic Advising Award from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CA&ES).

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), poisoning is the number one cause of injury-related death in the United States, and 1073 people in California were poisoned by pesticides in 2014 alone.

It was a big butterfly-and-bee day at the Bohart.