Ongoing research

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Praying mantids emerging from an ootheca. (Photo by Rita LeRoy)
Bug Squad: Article

An Absolutely Amazing Photo!

August 5, 2015
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
Rita LeRoy, the self-described "Farm Keeper" at the Loma Vista Farm, Vallejo, takes amazing photos. We recently wrote about the farm, part of the Vallejo City Unified School District, when we visited it during the annual spring festival.
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UC Weed Science (weed control, management, ecology, and minutia): Article

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT :: Herbicide Calibration Workshops

August 5, 2015
By Chris J McDonald
Just got this from the UC weed scientists in southern California--looks like a good event. ******************* All, Please forward this message to any person or crew leader who will be using herbicides to treat weeds this fall.
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navels skeletonized and grafted
Topics in Subtropics: Article

Citrus Canopy Management in a Drought

August 5, 2015
By Ben A Faber
Transpiration is essentially a function of the amount of leaves present. With no leaves, there is no transpiration and no water use. The extreme case is tree removal. If canopies are pruned there is reduced water use. The more canopy reduction, the more transpiration reduction.
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A lady beetle picks up a hitchhiker, an oleander aphid. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bug Squad: Article

The Hitchhiker

August 4, 2015
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
Oleander aphids, those cartoonish-looking yellow insects with black legs and cornicles, are commonly found on oleanders. Hence their name. But they also are partial to milkweeds, the host plant of the monarch butterfly. It's a daily challenge to rid those Draculalike pests from our milkweed plants.
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A Western tiger swallowtail nectarine on a butterfly bush. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bug Squad: Article

Butterfly Ballet

August 3, 2015
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you plant it, they will come. Western tiger swallowtails (Papilio rutulus) can't get enough of our butterfly bush. For the first time ever, we saw two of them and managed to get both in the same image.
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water movement
Topics in Subtropics: Article

Optimizing Leaching of Salts

August 3, 2015
By Ben A Faber
Water moves in a wetting front. When irrigation water hits the soil it moves down with the pull of gravity and to the side according to the pull of soil particles (more lateral with more clay).
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Two guys in a corn field.
Conservation Agriculture: Article

California Farmers Host FAO Visitors

August 3, 2015
By Jeffrey P Mitchell
San Joaquin Valley farmers, Scott Schmidt of Five Points, Darrell Cordova of Denair, and Michael Crowell of Turlock, along with UCCE Stanislaus County Advisor, Marsha Campbell-Mathews hosted Eric Kueneman and Dirk Lange, both formerly international agriculture development workers with the United Nat...
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