News & Information Outreach

By Janice Mathews, UC Master Gardener of Napa County.Healthy soil is not just dirt under our feet.  It is a living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals and humans.Healthy soil has four components.  About 25 percent is air, allowing soil organisms to return essential nutrients to the soil while…

 Who's speaking at the winter seminars hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology?Marshall McMunn, coordinator of the seminars for the 2025-26 academic year, has announced the "spring list."All seminars will take place at 12:10 p.m. on Wednesdays  in 122 Briggs Hall. They also…

 What exciting research--fitting overwintering monarch butterflies with the newly developed ULTRALIGHT solar-powered radio tags to monitor their movements.Senior conservation biologist Emma Pelton of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation today announced in a news release that “Scientists are…

Blog article by Cindy YeeAbout 5 months ago, I purchased a Taiwanese guava tree and Ningxia goji berry plant from a home grower in Fremont, California.  She has all 5-star ratings on Facebook Marketplace and was very helpful with advice on how to care for them. Happy to say that both plants are…

The new year is just around the corner, and along with it will come new Urban and Community IPM Webinars! Join us every third Thursday of each month from 12:00 to 1:00pm PST to learn about a wide range of urban pest management topics. This series is free and open to the public but advance registration is…

It’s cold outside! But that doesn’t have to stop you from gardening. Why not cheer up the dark days of winter by planting some herbs on a sunny windowsill indoors, and using them in your cold weather soups and stews?

 Science matters. Science beckons. Science fulfills.The California All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (CalATBI) is organizing a 2026 Student Insect Collection BioBlitz, a statewide community science effort to document our state's biodiversity.Organizers related:The goal: "To document California’s insect…

 Firefighters on the 2019 Kincade Fire in northern California. Photo by Faith KearnsBy Faith KearnsThe 2017 Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa, California is memorable for many reasons, including the almost unbelievable way this wildland fire pushed into neighborhoods and leapt across Highway 101. It is also the…

 Some folks wear their heart on their sleeves.Others wear a dragonfly on their chest.Newly arrived in the Bohart Museum of Entomology gift shop are dragonfly T-shirts."The dragonflies came in!" announced Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum. "They look great." …

Great opportunity to see more than 20 different cover crops in the field and learn about how to use cover crops to improve your soil health, improve yields, and improve water quality.  Please register by following the QR code in the attached flyer. Lunch ProvidedThursday December 11th, 20259am - 12 pm…

  Leaving the leaves has become the hot, fall garden topic. An appropriate topic for this time of year as leaves are falling steadily. The U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service and the National Wildlife Federation are all huge advocates for leaving the leaves. State and local fire…

 It's "Friday Fly Day" but we haven't seen a drone fly (Eristalis tenax) for at least a month.It's a member of the hover fly family, Syrphidae, but it manages to appear almost everywhere as...a... bee. A drone is a drone is a drone. A bee is a bee is a bee. (Thank you, Gertrude Stein, who penned "A…

The SJC and Delta Field Crops Meeting agenda is announced.

By David Shubin, ISA Certified Arborist and UC Master Gardener of Napa County.Fall in Napa Valley brings that familiar mix of cool air and golden light and, for many of us, the instinct to start cleaning up.  Out come the rakes, clippers and green bins. It feels good to set things right. But before you…

 Bees, wasps, flies, oh, my!Many non-insect enthusiasts often misidentify insects. A honey bee become a fly, a wasp becomes a bee, and a fly becomes a wasp or bee.So organizers of the Bohart Museum of Entomology's recent open house on  "Bees and Their Mimics" helped set the record straight…

Blog article by Michelle SchlegelLast Saturday, I was walking through a large greenhouse filled with unusual and rare plants. These greenhouse plants were protected from direct sun, extreme temperatures, and the environment was quite humid. Despite the lack of direct sunlight, the cacti and succulents were…

 Congrats to Rithica! It's so great to see young scientists excel!Rithika Senthilkumar, an undergraduate research scholar in the UC Davis Vector Genetics Laboratory (VGL), School of Veterinary Medicine, has been awarded a highly competitive 2025 Promega D.O.O.R.S. (Development of Our Research…