Ongoing research

"Where'd that yellow pollen come from?" Beekeepers who watch their bees return to their hives with pollen loads like to guess the origin of the pollen. Red, yellow, blue, white... It's not unlike "What Color Is Your Parachute?" the job-hunting guide by Richard N. Bolles.

The light brown apple moth (Epiphyas postvittana)--it's not your typical invader. UC Berkeley professor Nick Mills will head to UC Davis on Wednesday, Feb. 20 to speak on just that: "The Light Brown Apple Moth--Not a Typical Invader.

Not too many years ago, most growers and pest control advisors were unaware that earwigs were a potential pest problem in citrus. Earwigs simply were not often found in large numbers in citrus orchards.

Dry root rot has been a problem in citrus orchards for many years. Although generally a problem in coastal and northern California counties it has been reported in other citrus producing areas of the state.

Butte-Glenn Almond Institute & Walnut Day Groundwater Nitrogen Dilemma Bee Careful with Pesticides Almond orchards with wild insects have higher fruit set Nickels Field Day Springtime disease control Almond Fungicide Efficacy South Sacramento Valley Winter Almond Meeting...

It's nice to remember the honey bee on Valentine's Day. You'll see many Valentine cards inscribed with "Bee My Valentine" and featuring a photo of a bee. Many of those photos depict a queen bee, the mother of all bees in the hive. To be a queen, she'll need to be fed royal jelly as a larva.

I uploaded the 2013 Rice Grower Meetings presentations to the UC Rice Project website.

Glyphosate resistant ryegrass has been a persistent problem since appearing in almond orchards in the Sacramento Valley in the late 1990s. It is a winter annual weed, but under irrigation it can germinate any time of the year.

This February there was a four day international conference in Orlando, FL that attracted 467 people from 21 countries, including about 20 from California.

Plants communicate. They do. Ecologist Richard Karban, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology, points out that one of the simplest forms of communication involves shade. When a plant is shaded, it grows away from the plant or other object that's shading it.