Test PB Collection: FTE

There has been more than the usual number of questions about what I am calling "bio-based" herbicides recently. Arguably, this is coming from news that some school districts and cities specifically calling out the use of glyphosate on the properties they manage.

It's time to add an eighth wonder to the Seven Wonders of the (Ancient) World: a feral honey bee colony. One with exposed comb.

Bay area R users were lucky to have to have the annual useR! conference in their back yard this week. Stanford hosted this year's conference, which is the largest R meeting in the country featuring four days of workshops, keynotes, and presentations.

Day 3 of the ESRI User Conference, new tools, new story maps, and new ways to work with data. New Tools, ESRI is supporting new tools with the python and R programming languages.

The City of San Diego, Park and Recreation Department is requesting applications for Pesticide Applicators. Two new positions are being added. One position will be working in natural habitat and open space areas and the other position in community park areas.

Three students, - led by Heidi Wipf, a graduate student working with a team of UC Berkeley researchers including Devin Coleman-Derr, Peggy Lemaux, and John Taylor, - endured the high temperatures of Five Points these past couple of days and completed an initial sampling of surface soils in the long-...

For the last several months, we've seen monarchs laying eggs on our narrow-leafed milkweed. A daily check yielded "zero" caterpillars. Zero. Nada. Zilch. One reason is apparent: two nearby nests of Western scrub jays filled with chirping babies.

Because of potential contamination of mulches from pesticides, mulch use is being called into question and testing may be required for mulches applied to organic orchards. This is a recent ruling.

What a full week! Here is my wrap-up from a great 2016 ESRI User Conference. I haven't been here in many years, and I am glad I came.

So here's this hungry male monarch butterfly sipping nectar from a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia "Torch"). He's sipping, sipping, sipping. He's minding his own business. He's tending to his own needs. It's a good day in the pollinator garden.