Safe, healthy and happy Thanksgiving
Grass is always greener
Americans love their lawns. The ubiquitous mowed and edged turfgrass is beautiful, functional and, unfortunately, thirsty. Creating an esthetically pleasing, lush, but drought-tolerant lawn is the goal of a UC Riverside research program that was the center of a Los Angeles Times feature story this week.Turfgrass specialist Jim Baird told reporter Karen Kaplen he hopes grass from his patchwork of experimental turf plots at UC Riverside will grace the lawns, parks, golf courses and athletic fields of the future.
"My colleagues say I'm crazy," Baird is quoted. "But it doesn't hurt to dream."
Research by another UC Riverside scientist, cytogeneticist Adam Lukaszewski, cited in the article seems to be bringing Baird's dream closer to reality.
Lukaszewski crossed ryegrass with a variety of meadow fescue. When scientists stopped irrigating to simulate drought, the control grasses quickly started to yellow.
"The others stayed green and stayed green and stayed green," Lukaszewski told the Times reporter.
The scientists determined that the most vibrant grasses all shared the same stretch of DNA on the short arm of chromosome 3 that came from fescue.
"If they had it, they made it," Lukaszewski said. "If they didn't, they croaked."
NASA has determined that lawns, golf courses and parks cover 50,000 square miles of the United States. The promising turfgrasses under study at UC Riverside and other universities around the country have a tremendous potential to reduce water, fertilizer and pest control inputs on this huge swath of American land.
Beautiful golf course turf.
Students return to the farm
A capacity class of Marin College students returned to the Indian Valley Farm for the fall session of the school's new organic farm and environmental landscaping program, according to a post yesterday in the San Francisco Examiner's Sustainable Food blog by Jeri Lynn Chandler.
The program is a collaboration between the College of Marin, the Marin Conservation Corps and UC Cooperative Extension's Marin Master Gardeners. It is funded with a $374,254 College of Marin chancellor's grant and matching resources totaling $1,114,210 from more than 26 industry partners, the blog said.
“This is a welcome ray of light in an otherwise gloomy and dark economic climate,” said the College of Marin's Superintendent/President Frances White in an August news release. “These funds couldn’t have arrived at a better time and will ensure that our organic garden educational program continues to thrive.”
The four sustainable farm-related classes being held during the fall semester are Principles and Practices of Organic Farm and Gardening, Integrated Pest Management, Environmental Landscape Design and Introduction to Sustainable Horticulture.
A tractor demonstration at the Indian Valley Farm.
Article floats ideas about the future of ag
Farmers used to shade their eyes and look to the horizon for a view of their crops. Today, a whole new perspective is available - photographs taken by satellite, airplane and even remote-controlled drone.
Aerial imagery can tell farmers exactly where their fields need more water or fertilizer to achieve uniform productivity and yield, according to an article in the Hanford Sentinel.
One vision of the future has computers analyzing the crops' water needs from the sky and transmitting data directly to irrigation systems, which adjust automatically for optimum plant growth, wrote reporter Seth Nidever.
Another dream is operation of remote-controlled aircraft that can fly slow and low to take more accurate pictures. Could farms one day be managed from a gaming console at a remote location?
University of California Cooperative Extension irrigation specialist Larry Schwankl told the reporter the aerial imagery is "one more tool" as water becomes more valuable.
He said farmers are doing a better job of understanding exactly what the aerial image is saying about field conditions, a process he referred to in the article as "ground truthing."
Farm fields from the sky.
Parenthetical phrase hits the nail on the head
Sometimes it’s the little side comments people make that are most telling. This could certainly be true in a brief Chico Enterprise-Record story published over the weekend about artisan olive growers. In the lead sentence, business editor Laura Urseny called UC Cooperative Extension “food and farm information central.” That’s a label I think we could get used to. For the brief, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Paul Vossen told the writer that about 25 percent of California's olive oil comes from small artisan producers and nearly all California olive oil is fresher and better tasting than imported oil.
Antioxidants a key to brain fitness
A long, slightly irreverent diatribe on brain fitness in the independent online local news conduit the Sacramento News & Review does two things: it offers a UC expert the opportunity to present scientific information and it makes the old-school reader wonder, "Is this really the future of news?"
The article, by Matt Perry, annihilates the rules of conventional journalism:
- Written for the infinite scope of cyberspace, the harangue rambles on for more than 1,500 words.
- Science writing about aging is peppered with teenage slang. Who will read it?
- The writer inserts himself into the piece. To wit: "My eyes shift to (fitness trainer Scott) Estrada, who represents to me the future of health: fit, active, engaged, holistic … and completely responsible for his own health. Welcome to the future of fitness: not just a just a buffer body, but a healthier brain."
To its credit, the article provides UC Davis nutrition professor Liz Applegate a forum for research-based information. She told the writer she likens brain-damaging free radicals to small fires in cubicles around an office. Putting out these free radical fires requires a diet rich in fire extinguishers - antioxidants.
Perry said she recommended:
- A diet of varied colorful foods
- A Mediterranean diet
- Omega-3 fatty acids, folate and choline
In related news, a bastion of traditional journalism, the Associated Press today ran a story about what could be another sign of the traditional news industry's struggles. According to the story, San Francisco investment banker Warren Hellman is teaming up with the UC Berkeley's journalism school and public broadcaster KQED to create a nonprofit news organization to report local news. Bay Area News Project will use a combination of paid reporter/editors and (presumably unpaid) journalism students to produce stories for a Web site, KQED's radio and television outlets, and a print edition.