Save the date for UC ANR statewide conference on April 24–27

The 2023 UC ANR statewide conference will be held on April 24–27 at the Fresno DoubleTree and Fresno Convention Center in Fresno. Please mark your calendars and plan to join your UC ANR colleagues. 

For the first time since 2018, ANR academics and staff from across the state will gather to share best practices on how to elevate and amplify their research, extension and education efforts.

The conference is also the official kickoff to UC ANR's 2025-2040 visioning process. We will begin identifying the challenges facing California and set a course detailing how we can more effectively address them over 15 years. 

For more information, please visit the conference website at https://ucanr.edu/sites/statewideconference2023.

If you would like to propose a presentation, fill out the request form at https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=38880. All suggestions will be evaluated by the Learning & Poster Session Committee.  

For more information, visit https://ucanr.edu/sites/statewideconference2023.

UC ANR celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month Sept. 15-Oct. 15

Hispanic Heritage Month is Sept. 15 through Oct.15 and Ricardo Vela, manager of UC ANR News & Information Outreach in Spanish, has planned educational activities for colleagues and friends to attend throughout the month.

Each year, UC ANR celebrates the culture and contributions of people whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. Latinos comprise 40% of California's population and a growing portion of UC ANR's clientele. Our Latinx colleagues help to customize UC ANR's outreach for the Latino community, from immigrants to native-born citizens.

To start the celebration, the newly formed Latinx & Friends Affinity Group will meet for the first time on Sept. 21. To register, visit https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=38886.

“UC ANR is giving us this fantastic opportunity to share our stories of struggle, success and dreams within a safe space,” Vela said. “This space is open to all of us who are Latinx/Hispanic or of Latinx/Hispanic descent, allies and friends to discuss the many cultural identities.”

The September events will be held via Zoom for UC ANR colleagues:

Wednesday, Sept. 21, 12-1:30 p.m. First meeting of Latinx & Friends Affinity Group (45 minutes) and screening of the short film “First Time Home” about four cousins who travel from their Triqui immigrant community in California to their ancestral village in Mexico for the first time. (45 minutes)

Wednesday, Sept. 28, 12-1 p.m. Jose Pablo Ortiz-Partida will discuss the results of an environmental justice study he conducted in the San Joaquin Valley. Ortiz-Partida is a senior water and climate scientist for the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

Register for the Hispanic Heritage Month employee events at https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=39023.

Events scheduled for October will be conducted in Spanish and open to the public on Facebook Live:

Wednesday, Oct. 5, 1-2 p.m. – Susana Matias, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology at Berkeley, will discuss healthy living, obesity and breastfeeding.

Wednesday, Oct. 12, 1-2 p.m. – Magda Argueta, UC ANR's Global Food Initiative Fellow and UC Riverside doctoral candidate, will discuss ancient Mayan pollinating practices with stingless bees.

Thursday, Oct. 13, 1-2 p.m. – Samuel Sandoval Solis, UC Davis assistant professor and Cooperative Extension specialist in water resources, will discuss climate change effects. What can we do? What is UC ANR already doing?

 

 

Electric tractors reduce carbon emissions at research and extension centers

 

Zero-emission tractors perform many tasks of diesel tractors, without noise or exhaust

The University of California, a national leader in sustainability, has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2025. To reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources has replaced several of its diesel-powered tractors with electric tractors at its research and extension centers.

Seven of the nine UC research and extension centers – Intermountain located in Siskiyou County, Hopland in Mendocino County, Kearney and West Side in Fresno County, Lindcove in Tulare County, Desert in Imperial County and Hansen in Ventura County – started using the  Solectrac e25 in July. The researchers plan to share what they learn from using the electric tractors. 

“Charging is easy, we are using a standard 110V connection, no charging station needed,” said John Bailey, director of the University of California Hopland Research and Extension Center. “For faster charging, you can use a 220V connection – again, no charging station needed, just a regular receptacle – but we haven't gone there yet.” 

The electric tractor runs for about five hours, depending on the type of use and the speed, on a charge. 

“We will use the electric tractor to mix the soil for planting trees in the greenhouse,” said Ashraf El-kereamy, director of UC Lindcove Research and Extension Center in Exeter, which focuses on citrus research. “Also, for pulling the trailer with the fruit bins during harvest, it will be good as it does not emit any gases.”

The electric tractor is being used to move materials in the loader at UC Hopland REC. “It has worked well for this, functioning similarly to a standard diesel tractor,” said Bailey.

“We have also used it to clean our sheep barn, scraping the pens to get ready for lambing season,” Bailey said. “This involves pushing or dragging straw bedding and manure. The tractor functions well in tight spaces due to its compact size.” 

Bailey learned one downside is that the front end is a little too light, making it difficult to generate enough downward pressure with the loader to effectively scrape the floor without reducing the front wheel traction.

“We are planning to add some weight to the front, a standard practice with tractors to increase traction. The tractor has the mounting to enable this so it should not be a big deal,” Bailey said. “Our operators really appreciate the lack of noise and exhaust, especially when working in the barn or in tight spaces.”

The small electric tractor is also being used in tight places at the UC Intermountain Research and Extension Center in Tulelake.

“The tractor that we obtained from the company is too small for the majority of our farm needs,” said Rob Wilson, Intermountain REC director. “We purchased a small box scraper and rototiller for the tractor and we are using it around our facility grounds. We also use it out in the field in tight spaces that are too small for our larger tractors to operate.”  

“The tractor is quiet, powerful for its size and operates very similar to the diesel-powered tractors with regard to the controls, hydraulics and three-point assembly. The tractor also has a lot of torque and speed.”

Annemiek Schilder, director of UC Hansen Agricultural REC, added, “I think another advantage is that the tractors can go very slowly, which is helpful for some uses such as harvesting.”

Kearney, or KARE, will be using its electric tractor to mow and rototill in smaller, narrow blocks and will use the front loader to move and apply mulch and soil mixtures.

“We will use it around buildings because it's quiet and doesn't emit any gas,” said Vincent Silva, Kearney's superintendent of agriculture. “The main issue I have with the electric tractor is with it being so quiet, it may not allow us to hear any problems."

The researchers will continue to evaluate the electric tractors throughout the year.

“Our main usage will come in the spring, mowing around our headquarters and on roadsides,” Bailey said. “We are purchasing a 4-foot flail mower that can mount to the rear PTO, but won't really put it into use until April.” The power take-off, or PTO, is the shaft that transfers power from the tractor to the attachment.

Other benefits of electric tractors include no engine oil to change and no diesel fuel.

“If the farmer already has solar, they will see close to zero fuel charges,” Bailey added. “Even without solar, their fuel costs should be reduced depending on local electrical cost. Also, the engine only has one moving part compared to dozens in a diesel tractor so maintenance costs should be reduced significantly, something that is proving true in electric cars.”

The Solectrac e25 tractors each cost $27,999 and the optional loader was about $4,000. 

The California Air Resources Board is offering incentives to buy zero-emission equipment through its Funding Agricultural Replacement Measures for Emission Reductions Program. FARMER provides funding through local air districts for agricultural harvesting equipment, heavy-duty trucks, agricultural pump engines, tractors and other equipment used in agricultural operations.

 

See demonstration of Natural Climate Solutions Toolbox Sept. 29

The Center for Ecosystem Climate Solutions is launching its Natural Climate Solutions Toolbox.  The comprehensive suite of data and decision support tools are designed to aid UC Cooperative Extension academics, land managers, policymakers and scientists in adapting California wildland management for a changing climate. 

On Sept. 29, Safeeq Khan, UC Cooperative Extension specialist and adjunct professor at UC Merced, Toby O'Geen, professor and UC Cooperative Extension specialist at UC Davis, and Mike Goulden, professor at UC Irvine, will demonstrate the Natural Climate Solutions Toolbox for UC ANR and other UC academics who are interested in climate change, wildfire and land management in range and forest lands. They will explain how the toolbox can be used to address clientele needs.

The demonstration and product launch will be held via Zoom from 9:30 to 11 a.m. on Sept. 29. To register, visit https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=37843.

All UC ANR and UC academics, nongovernmental organization representatives and related colleagues interested in climate change, wildfire and land management in range and forestlands are invited. 

The NCS Toolbox is useful for a variety of goals, including habitat restoration, reducing wildfire severity, projecting impacts of disturbance or management on water and carbon, and valuing benefits of management. This one-stop-shop data hub includes metrics of management history, vegetation, carbon balance, water, fire, fuels and more. 

In the demonstration, the CECS team will walk through the decision support tools and extensive data available in the toolbox and discuss how they may be used in exploring impacts of historical and future disturbance and management on a range of metrics, or planning and assessment of new fuel reduction and restoration projects.

L&D - Clientele relationship, R for data science, stats resources, foreign engagement

ANR LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT  
Landing page | Webinar Recordings| Learning Resources

Do you have a webinar to present in any of these four learning strategies?
Let us know by filling out this interest form!

Extension Methods & Delivery
Building Support
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
Office, Team, & Personal Management

Cocreating Value through Customer Relationship Management: A Basic Overview of Social CRM. (Extension Skills – Connect Extension)
Sept. 8, 2022
12–1 p.m. PDT 

Click here to read more and register.
Are you tired of using spreadsheets to keep track of your clients? Do you wish that you could find an easier way to manage your contacts, send targeted communications, create social media content, integrate event registration, and better understand the lifecycle of engagement with your audience? Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems afford the opportunity to easily integrate this critical infrastructure under one roof. In this Extension Skills session, we will go over the key features of CRM systems and look at real-world applications of how these systems can play a role in helping Cooperative Extension professionals cocreate value between their programs and their clients and improve customer service experiences.

Gateway to Innovation (Impact Collaborative Extension Foundation - Virtual)
Sept. 13 & 20, 2022
11 a.m.-1 p.m. PDT 

Click here to read more and register.
This two-session series will focus on increasing innovative practices in your life and work. The first session is unleashing the innovator within you through examples, self-reflection, tools, techniques and discussion. The second session expands your learning into ways to innovate in the "real world” with additional tools, reflection and examples.

Dynamic Discussions 
Sept. 22, 2022
11 a.m.-12 p.m. PDT

Click here to read more and register. 
Each fourth Thursday of the month, the Impact Collaborative will host professionals from across Cooperative Extension and beyond to address hot topics of interest to Cooperative Extension. Each month, we will update the information below for what the Dynamic Discussion for the month will be! 

Program Center Stage  
Sept. 26, 2022
12-1 p.m. PDT

Click here to read more and register. 
The Program Center Stage will highlight programs from across the system including current and past new technologies from ag extension projects, Impact Collaborative projects, national programs like EXCITE, and more on the fourth Monday of each month at 11 a.m. PT. We will update the information for which program we will be putting center stage each month!

Learning R (LinkedIn Learning) 

Click here to read more.  
If you want to participate in the data revolution, you need the right tools and skills. R is a free, open-source language for data science that is among the most popular platforms for professional analysts. Learn the basics of R and get started finding insights from your own data in this course with professor and data scientist Barton Poulson. For your LinkedIn Learning account, contact ANR IT at help@ucanr.edu. 

Spring ANR Stats Workshop – recordings and tools available

The public version (Canvas) of our Spring 2022 Stats Workshop. This read-only Canvas page houses recordings from our course as well as other resources which provided a refresh and update statistical skills for CE Advisors and other UC ANR researchers. Topics include:

• The theory and application of basic statistical tests, including ANOVA, GLMs, mixed models,and regression 
• What to do when the normal assumptions for statistical tests have not been met 
• Newish methods like mixed models and bootstrapping that take advantage of modern computing power, which may not have been available when you took that undergraduate statistics class 25 years ago 
• What you need to know when designing experiments and planning data collection 
• How to use the extremely popular and powerful statistical programming language R
  

In Case You Missed IT  (ICYMI)
Qualitative Research and Data Analysis in Program Evaluation

August 11 focused on “Qualitative Research and Data Analysis in Program Evaluation” led by Paulina Velez. We learned about misconceptions in qualitative research and even had an introduction to coding on qualitative data! Here is a list of tools/resources that were discussed, as well as future workshops to register for today!

Tools/Resources:

• The Essential Guide to Coding Qualitative Data; 
• Coding Conversation Template; 
• Paulina's email: paulinavelez@extension.org;  
• A link to the recording is available here; 
• A link to the slide deck is available here

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Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

 

 

Foreign Engagement: Disclosures to ANR and Research Sponsors 
Sept. 28, 2022 
9:30 -10:30 a.m.

Information and guidance on how to comply with UC, ANR, and federal grant policies in areas related to foreign engagement. Presenter is Kathleen Nolan.

Zoom webinar: https://ucanr.zoom.us/j/751701428?pwd=Q1ZrbUtoQVJwMXJVRkQydUlwNytJQT0 
Password: 4Learning |?+1 669 900 6833 | Webinar ID: 751 701 428

Open Forum/Questions for Office of Contracts and Grants 
Oct. 26, 2022 
9:30-10:30 a.m.

The world of contracts and grants can sometimes seem complicated. Let us help you alleviate your concerns. Please join our team for an open forum to answer your most compelling questions. If possible, please send us questions in advance (not required) for an informative discussion. Presenters are Kathleen Nolan, Kim Lamar and Office of Contracts and Grants Team. Email questions to kdlamar@ucanr.edu 

Zoom webinar: https://ucanr.zoom.us/j/751701428?pwd=Q1ZrbUtoQVJwMXJVRkQydUlwNytJQT0
Password: 4Learning | +1 669 900 6833 | Webinar ID: 751 701 428

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Hispanic Heritage Month 2022
Sept. 21, 2022
Noon-1:30 p.m.

We start Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with a kick!

Click here to register.
On Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022, from 12 to 1:30 p.m.. The UC ANR Latinx & Friends Affinity Group will have its first meeting, and everyone is invited. What is an affinity group? Click here to learn about it.

From 12 to 12:45 p.m., come and learn about our plans, goals and dreams. Our one safe space to share our cultural identities. Whether it is a discussion in Spanish of the book of the month or showcasing the most important and unique places of your country of origin, we will start creating solid bonds. Be part of the committees and share your ideas with all of us. This is our stage to showcase and educate our peers about who we are and what makes us unique.

Then, from 12:45 to 1:30 PM, we will show "First Time Home," a short film created by American children of Triqui farmworkers. It offers an unscripted, authentic glimpse into life for farmworker families and why people choose to sacrifice their lives in Mexico for opportunity up North. A Q&A will follow the short film with the film creators.

Culturally Inclusive Language (UC Davis, Virtual)
Nov. 17, 2022 
8:30 a.m.-noon

Click here to read more and register. 
Language plays an important role in determining how well members of our community feel respected and included. It is important to choose what we say, whether that be verbally, non-verbally, or over e-mail, to ensure that we are communicating mutual respect and understanding for the diverse perspectives and backgrounds in our community.?This session includes an exploration of how the pandemic has impacted this area of DEI.

Becoming an Inclusive Leader: Cultural Intelligence - Because Not Everyone Sees the World Through the Same Cultural Lens (UC Davis Organizational Excellence, Virtual)
Sept. 14, 2022 
1–2 p.m.

Click here to register
Inclusive leaders are confident and effective in cross-cultural interactions. They see the benefit of learning about different cultures, seek relevant knowledge to operate cross culturally, and embrace any necessary adaptations. In this session, you will examine what cultural intelligence means in your environment and how you can gain both the knowledge and adaptability to lead effectively. Please join us virtually for the sessions your schedule allows as your participation is valued. To learn more about the series, view previous slides and recordings, and sign up for other sessions click on this link. If you have any questions, email the Organizational Excellence team at oeconnect@ucdavis.edu.

UC Managing Implicit Bias Series (UC Learning Center – click on links below to access each module)

The UC Managing Implicit Bias Series is a six-course eLearning series designed to increase awareness of implicit bias and reduce its impact at the university. The series reinforces the UC diversity, equity and inclusion values that enable the university to attract and retain a top talent workforce, and it further supports the UC commitment to developing effective leaders and managers of people. It is intended to supplement existing location programs and resources.

• Common Forms of Bias
• The Impact of Implicit Bias
• Managing Implicit Bias in the Hiring Process
• Managing the Influence of Implicit Bias: Awareness 
• Managing the Influence of Implicit Bias: Mindfulness and Conscious De-biasing
• What is Implicit Bias?

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 Skills Development Certificate Series (UC Davis - Virtual) 
Check out the Fall 2022 schedule!  
Click here to read more and register.

Through a combination of lecture and skill-building exercises, each session in the series focuses on a key component of analytical skill development. Develop core analytical abilities and learn how to manage analytical work assignments using the techniques covered in the Analytical Skills Development series. Note: Participants are expected to attend all five sessions in the series.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness: Do's, Updates and an October 31 Deadline (Connect Extension) 
Sept. 8 
10–11 a.m. PDT

Click here to read more and click here to register. 
This webinar is to provide reliable information to Extension personnel to use for themselves or to take back for their communities on the criteria to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Most, if not all Extension personnel are government employees and therefore could themselves qualify for student loan forgiveness and could take advantage of the benefits.

Navigating Your ANR LinkedIn Learning Account
Sept. 15, 2022 
Noon-12:30 PM

Join our LinkedIn Learning relations team, which will guide you on content and navigation including:

• Home page overview – how to get the most out of the home page user interface and how it relates to LinkedIn 
• Finding and accessing content – course player overview and demonstration of course functionality 
• Learning history – how to access your personal learning history 
• Q&A
  

Zoom Meeting: https://linkedin.zoom.us/j/93883814323?pwd=aHo5Zzc1SWpNb3ExbjBPWlIrUmFKUT09&from=addon | Meeting ID: 938 8381 4323 | Password: 010970 

PowerPoint: Eight Easy Ways to Make Your Presentation Stand Out (LinkedIn Learning) 
Click here to read more. 
Making your PowerPoint slides more polished and engaging is easier than you think. In this short course, presentation guru Jole Simmons shares some helpful tricks to take your PowerPoint game to a new level. First, Jole teaches how to take both the presenter and the audience into account in your design approach. Next, learn to identify the main points of the story you're trying to tell in PowerPoint. Find out how to go the extra mile in making design calls. Explore some ways to convey your information without forcing everybody to read what's on the slide. For your LinkedIn Learning account, contact ANR IT at help@ucanr.edu

Welcome to Connect Extension - A resource for Cooperative Extension Professionals

As a UC ANR employee, you are a member of the Extension Foundation, whose mission is to help Cooperative Extension generate a more visible, measurable, local impact. They achieve this through nationally funded programs made possible by member dollars (yes, UC ANR dollars, too) and cooperative agreements with federal agencies, and through partnering on state, regional and national initiatives with Cooperative Extension and the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP). 
 
You can explore your member benefits including professional development through the Impact Collaborative, Leadership Development and Member Solutions on their website under "Member Services." You can also join Connect Extension to stay up-to-date with the foundation and its member offerings and connect with other Cooperative Extension professionals nationally. Learn more about all Extension Foundation programs, tools and services at extension.org/start. 

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Everyone can learn something new.

ANR Learning & Development
Find webinar announcements and recordings here.

 

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