Ongoing research

It's out. The newly published edition of The Hive and the Honey Bee edited by American Bee Journal editor Joe Graham, is now a reality. This is the bible of the beekeeping world, and rightfully so.

In early September 2015, the California Department of Food & Agriculture confirmed the presence of thousand cankers disease of walnut in Napa County. Access the newsletter below for additional information on this fungal disease and the beetle that moves it from tree to tree. 

A bit late, but better late than never. Our October trip to Hopland with IGIS and 3DRobotics was great fun, and very informative. We tested the Solo UAV with three different cameras: the typical GoPro, NIR GoPro (with post-market monkeying with filters to get IR), and a high res Canon lens.

You just can't beat those Halloween costumes at the Bohart Museum of Entomology's annual membership party. By now, you've probably seen the peacock jumping spider costume created and worn by UC Davis entomology undergraduate student Wade Spencer.

The University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR), Informatics and Geographic Information Systems (IGIS) Program is seeking a Statewide Program Coordinator for both local and statewide program development and delivery.

Calling your attention to the ANR Green Blog http://ucanr.edu/blogs/Green/ There are lots of interesting things there.

An op-ed article prepared by Jeff Mitchell and Randy Southard that is in part related to California's soil health farm demonstration network that many CASI members and affiliates are involved with appeared in the Sacramento Bee newspaper on October 30. Here is a link to that article...http://www.

This past Monday, October 26th, Jesse Sanchez, the farm manager at Sano Farms out west of the small town of Firebaugh, was honored in Washington, D.C. as a White House Champion of Change.

Another impact of the drought? There have been reports of a sunken, leathery patch around the blossom end (opposite of the stem end) of citrus fruit. This has been reported on lemons, limes and mandarins, but I am sure growers are seeing it on oranges, as well as other citrus relatives.

Found by Natalie: Tuck, Sean L., Helen RP Phillips, Rogier E. Hintzen, Jrn PW Scharlemann, Andy Purvis, and Lawrence N. Hudson. "MODISToolsdownloading and processing MODIS remotely sensed data in R." Ecology and evolution 4, no. 24 (2014): 4658-4668.