Test PB Collection: FTE

If you or someone in a household near you can draw a bug, then you need to head over to the Bohart Museum of Entomology on the UC Davis campus on Saturday afternoon, Dec. 15. The Bohart Museum is hosting an open house from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 Academic Surge on Crocker Lane.

It's that time of the year when I try to update the list of herbicides registered for use in California orchard and vineyard crops. The attached version has all the updates that I have been made aware of by my industry reps during the year.

A UC Cooperative Extension specialist says there isn't enough scientific evidence to warrant consumers making changes to their diets nor to their children's diets based on recent media reports about levels of arsenic in rice.

Fresno State plant science associate professor Anil Shrestha will receive the 2013 Outstanding Reviewer Award from the Weed Science Society of America. The honor will be presented at the annual meeting, Feb. 4-7 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Abstract Non-synthetic herbicides offer a potentially useful addition to the suite of weed management tools available to organic growers, but limited information is available to guide the optimal use of these products.

Ok, I'll admit that I fully intended to do something useful today but got distracted thinking about weed control research, weed science extension, and herbicide-resistant weeds (what do YOU think about on Saturday afternoon?).

Two links to recent BBC news articles on invasive weeds. The first one is about a weed that should be familiar to anyone who has traveled in much of the intermountain west - cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum).

Glow-in-the-dark organisms? Art made of fungus? Tales about insects? That will all take place at Organism, an art show fusing art, science and technology, including insect art by young entomologists on the University of California, Davis campus The date: Tuesday night, Dec. 11.

What a great line-up of speakers! The new year hasn't begun, but already assistant professors Joanna Chiu and Brian Johnson are gearing up for the UC Davis Department of Entomology's winter seminar series, set Jan. 9-March 13. All seminars will take place on Wednesdays from 12:10 to 1 p.m.

Those of us addicted to photographing honey bees hate it when the cold, rainy California weather settles in. December and January are the worst for capturing images of bees outside their hives.