The very fact that avocados can be grown in hard to get to places means that the trees are also in areas that are subject to wildfire damage. Recently several hundred acres of avocado burned in the Fillmore/Santa Paula foothills. The fire was fanned by high winds and low humidity.
Calling all water resource managers and researchers! Do you have spatial data of water stocks, water infrastructure, or water usage? Do you have a story to go with it? Then you have everything you need to submit a map idea for an exciting open-source atlas project.
Every time we see a pollen-packing bumble bee take flight, we think of the 300,000-pound Spruce Goose, which was never flight-worthy (well, except for its brief flight on Nov. 2, 1947).
Thanks for the rains that leach the soils of accumulated salts and bring on new fresh growth. Or maybe not. When we apply irrigation water with salts which with few exceptions we do in irrigated agriculture, salts accumulate in the soil.
So you want to become a beekeeper... You want to do your part to help the declining bee population. You want to learn about the honey bees that pollinate the food you eat, including fruits, vegetables and nuts (especially almonds!). You'd love some honey for your table and some wax to make candles.
I recently visited a bean field in the southern part of the county with a PCA. From a distance, the beans in certain areas of the field appeared to be drying up and dying. A closer look showed that the leaf margins were drying up first before the whole plants declined.
So here's this newly eclosed male monarch trying to sip a little nectar from a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia). A female longhorned bee, probably Melissodes agilis, seeks to claim it. There's no such thing as sharing, especially when nectar is at stake and it's first-come, first-served.
First Annual Registration begins: 8:00-8:30 AM Program: 8:30 AM-4:15 PM The day will begin with an interactive tour of the Weed Science research plots at Hamilton Road. Participants will also spend time learning about weed identification for important rice weeds both at emergence and at heading.
The 1st Annual Rice Weed Course will take place: Friday, September 16, 2016 from 8:30AM to 4:15PM (Registration begins at 8:00AM) at the Hamilton Road Field (on West Hamilton Rd. between Hwy. 99 & Riceton Hwy.
If you're a beekeeper or plan to become a beekeeper, you need to read the UC Davis Apiculture Newsletter, the work of Extension apiculturist Elina Nio and her associates at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, aka the UC Davis Bee Biology Facility.
