Ongoing research

What's a picnic without bugs? Bugs may be uninvited guests at your family picnic, but at the campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day, set Saturday, April 16, bugs are not only invited, but more than welcome. And so are you, your family and friends.

Capitalizing on a wet winter, many cover crops established very well in San Joaquin Valley vineyards this year it has not been uncommon to see stands of barley, mustard, and other species grow taller than 3 feet in vineyard interrows.

Clean-shaven it's not. Yet it's a cut above. For bees, syrphids and butterflies, the long-blooming Jupiter's Beard make the cut.

Our big Hopland scientific bioblitz is this weekend (9-10 April, with some events on the 8th) and I look forward to seeing many of you there. If you can't make it to HREC, there are many ways you can remotely help us and check out what is happening all weekend long. HELP US OUT. http://www.

It's a jewel of a gift. David Verity of Los Angeles has just gifted the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis, with his personal collection of buprestid jewel beetles. He is the former collection manager at the UCLA herbarium.

River Restoration and Invasives Species Program Coordinator Benton Soil and Water Conservation District Corvallis, Oregon Closing date: April 22, 2016, 4 PM See POSITION DESCRIPTION below.

The UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences has announced their field day for small grains and alfalfa. The event will take place on Wednesday, May 11, 2016 from 8:15am to 4:15pm. The small grains field day will take place in the morning, and the alfalfa field day will take place in the afternoon.

You're likely to see many species of bees at the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven open house from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 9 on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis.

I am frequently asked if I can recommend a book on Soils. And yes, I can. It is Soils: An Introduction by Michael Singer and Donald Munns. The sixth edition recently came out so there's a lot of older used copies floating around on the wed for under $10.

A crop consultant brought in some alfalfa plants and asked if I could help identify the problem. In the field, he was observing stunted plants with shortened internodes and suspected stem nematode (Ditylenchus dipsaci).