The Yolo County Board of Supervisors this week adopted a Climate Action Plan, however, UC Davis Cooperative Extension alfalfa specialist Dan Putnam questioned the part of the plan that deals with reducing fertilizer use, the Davis Enterprise reported.
Yolo County strives to be at the forefront of the "green movement," according to its website. The county's 2030 General Plan included the requirement to develop a Climate Action Plan.
On Page 29 of the 124-page document, the plan says that cutting alfalfa nitrogen fertilizer 25 percent will result in a .35 percent increase in alfalfa yield (see chart below).
“The alfalfa part of that is just wrong — dead wrong,” Putnam was quoted. ”That’s just nonsense. I don’t agree with that at all.”
Putnam said some of the conclusions in the plan could be explained by "the vagaries of nature."
“It’s one thing if the model spits out (a number), and it’s another if it’s something we can measure in the field. It’s another thing to ‘ground truth’ it," according to Putnam.
Supervisor Duane Chamberlain represents the county’s rural areas, farms alfalfa and is one of Putnam's research collaborators. He voted to approve the Climate Action Plan, but was vocal about his concerns over the underlying science, the Enterprise reported.
"I’d like to see some science in here,” Chamberlain was quoted. “The science is terrible. We don’t have any science. We have modeling. This is people who’ve drawn pictures."
The Woodland Daily Democrat also covered the passage of Yolo County's Climate Action Plan.
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