Safe, healthy and happy Thanksgiving
Olive oil to be the focus of three-day event at UC Davis
The Sacramento Bee ran a story yesterday about an international olive oil conference, "Beyond Extra Virgin," to be held at UC Davis this week. Also on the SacBee site is a six-minute video in which the reporter and Alexandra Kicenik Devarenne, an olive consultant and member of the UC Davis Olive Center advisory board, go over the basics of olive oil sampling.
(The article, sans video, also appeared on individual.com, flanked by an advertisement for "Sciabica's Extra Virgin Oil of the Olive." Food ads have always appeared in the newspaper food section; garden ads adjoin garden stories. But this is the first time I've seen such a specific connection between a product and a story from a newspaper like the Sacramento Bee.)
The article gave credit to the grape harvester for boosting olive oil production in California, which grew by 50 percent this year. Currently, 99 percent of olive oil consumed in America is imported.
CDFA secretary A.G. Kawamura told reporter Gina Kim that olive oil production has a place in California.
"Any time we can compete with imports, when we can become domestic producers, that's a good thing because that keeps the dollars in this country," Kawamura was quoted.
Kim also spoke to Paul Vossen, a UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor who has researched and promoted California olive oil production. He said the primary obstacle to the growth of the California olive oil industry is a lack of consumer awareness about the superiority of the local product.
"A good analogy is wine," Vossen was quoted. "When you first started drinking wine, you had to educate your palate. People just need to go out and try and buy and use olive oil over a period of 10 years. It's not going to happen overnight."
For more on the California olive oil industry, plus videos about olive oil tasting and the environmental benefits of California olive oil, see California olive oil is worth the splurge on the UC ANR Web site.
Paul Vossen in an olive orchard.
Farmers see piles of potatoes at Kern County park
A potato rainbow appeared on the grass at Hart Park in Bakersfield this week, offering farmers the opportunity to see a wide array of potato varieties developed by breeders across the United States and Canada.
The potatoes are the product of the UC Cooperative Extension and California Potato Research Advisory Board's Kern County Potato Variety Trial, which has been collecting potato variety data since the 1970s, according to an article about the annual field day in yesterday's Bakersfield Californian.
"The piles at the park contained every kind of potato imaginable. Big ones. Small ones. Lumpy ones. Round ones. In hues ranging from yellow to purple," wrote reporter Courtenay Edelhart.
She spoke to the event coordinator, Kern County vegetable crops farm advisor Joe Nunez.
"Most of the country hasn't even planted yet and we're harvesting already, so we get a lot of out-of-state interest," he was quoted.
Eldelhart listed the most-sought-after potato attributes:
- Red and purple varieties - because they are higher in antioxidants
- Small - because they don't take as long to cook
- Disease resistant
- High yielding
Texas A & M potato breeder J. Creighton Miller Jr. offered an analogy about finding potatoes with all the right characteristics:
"If I were breeding humans, it would be a little like crossing a National Merit Scholar with an All American football player to get kids that were both scholars and athletes," Miller was quoted. "You can imagine how difficult that is."
Potatoes of a different color.
Elkus Ranch adds enabling garden
The Elkus Ranch, an environmental education and conference facility in Half Moon Bay, was created to provide outdoor education opportunities for urban, disabled and inner-city youth. It sits on land donated to UC Cooperative Extension by the late Richard J. Elkus.
A milestone in realizing the Elkus Ranch mission was reached with the opening this spring of a new "enabling garden." A recent ribbon cutting was covered by the San Mateo County Times.
The garden, built by ranch foreman Augie Aguilar and groundskeeper Bruno Acosta, has raised beds of varying heights, some with cutouts for wheelchairs, so youths can have up-close access to the garden without bending or kneeling, the article said. The beds contain flowers, herbs, root crops and vegetables.
"We wanted to make sure that everyone who comes to Elkus Ranch, regardless of ability or disability, can connect with the dirt," the story quoted Leslie Jensen, Elkus program coordinator and a certified horticultural therapist. "An area has been provided for training, workshops and demonstrations of principles and techniques for horticultural therapy for special education teachers."
According to Ranch Talk, the Elkus Ranch newsletter, the project was funded by support from the Atkinson Foundation, the Strong Foundation for Environmental Values, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and the National Gardening Association.
Bill Crandall of the Atkinson Foundation attended the garden's recent ribbon cutting.
"It's nice to experience the outcome of our donation and to see it go to such a thoughtful project," he was quoted in the newsletter.
Enabling garden ribbon cutting.
UCCE farm advisor explains rangeland irony
Forage monitoring at the UC Sierra Research and Extension Center in Browns Valley shows the land produced, on average, 2,984 pounds of vegetation per acre, 93.4 percent of normal, according to an article published today in Capital Press. That may sound fantastic - 93.4 percent looks like an A to me. But UCCE farm advisor Larry Forero said that the growth came too late for most ranchers.
In fact, in nearby Tehama County, officials are seeking a federal disaster declaration because of drought damage to its rangelands. Reporter Tim Hearden wrote that neighboring counties may follow suit.
The problem may not be too little rain, but the timing of the rain. Much of the vegetation grew after April and May storms, Forero said. By that time, some ranchers - concerned about the lack of forage on the foothill land - had already moved their cattle to higher-elevation summer pastures or to irrigated pastures.
The fact that vegetation was left behind may prove helpful in the fall when cattle return to the range. But Northern California ranchers took another blow when it rained in early June.
This late rain can sometimes do more harm than good, Forero told the reporter. When the grass is dry, rain can leach it and reduce its nutritional value.
"This is an incredibly complicated business," Forero told me when we spoke this morning.
Forage was below average each month of '09 season.
UCCE's Mark Bolda says LBAM damage unprecedented
The California Farm Bureau newspaper AgAlert posted more information today about Light Brown Apple Moth in a story that included extensive quotes from UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Mark Bolda.
Bolda told AgAlert assistant editor Kate Campbell that LBAM larvae and webbing were found in a Santa Cruz County blackberry farm. About 20 percent of the crop has been lost.
"This the first time we've seen so many light brown apple moths in the field," Bolda was quoted in the article. "The damage is without precedent. As the moth is becoming more numerous in the area, we're starting to see this sort of thing."
Bolda said growers will have to be more proactive in controlling the pest. In the past, he said, growers have held off on treatments, but earlier treatment may now be necessary since the presence of a single larvae can trigger a quarantine.
The AgAlert story also quoted Claudia Reid, a former UC Agriculture and Natural Resources employee who is now policy and program director for Santa Cruz-based California Certified Organic Farmers. She said the organization is seriously concerned about LBAM.
"Insects that have the potential to threaten entire crops also threaten farmers' livelihoods," Reid was quoted. "Organic farmers, like all farmers, are committed to preventing the spread of this pest, and they have organic pest control methods at their disposal that need to be used in response."
LBAM