Test PB Collection: FTE

Winter is a good time to catch up on scientific reading.

Just call it going for the roses. Or a hot spot. In between the showers and the sunshine, the bees at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis, emerge from their hives to forage.

Novaluron (Rimon 0.83 EC, Chemtura USA Corp, Middlebury, CT) is a popular insecticide used by the strawberry growers for managing nymphal stages of the lygus bug.

It's the Big 4-0 for the Almond Board of California's annual almond industry conference this week. Some 1000 convention-goers are gathering in the Sacramento Convention Center. The 40th annual conference opened Tuesday, Dec. 11 and runs through Thursday, Dec. 13.

When chemical ecologist Walter Leal, professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, was elected to the prestigious Brazilian Academy of Sciences, his lab members donned matching t-shirts--t-shirts with a touch of humor and a dose of humility. On the front: "I did the work.

Over the past few years, herbicides with the active ingredient glufosinate (Rely, Rely 200, Rely 280) have become very important in California tree nut orchards and grape vineyards.

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.