Agriculture

I'm humbled and honored to have received two major awards this week from the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE). It's an international association of communicators, educators and information technologists who focus on communicating research-based information.

A new study suggests that drip irrigation for sweet corn can significantly conserve water, reduce fertilizer use and boost crop yield in the low desert of California and likely in other areas of the state with similar conditions.

Community Education Specialist A Fresh Soil Health Resource https://soillife.org/ In 2015, a group of graduate students at the University of California, Davis attended a hearing on California's Healthy Soils Initiative.

A sneak peak at a couple of Solano County Fair entries...think insects! The COVID-19 pandemic derailed fairs and festivals, but now they're back on track. Take the 73rd annual Solano County Fair, themed "Bales of Fun.

Why guess how much water to apply to reduce salt damage by going to a simple graphical interface with pull down menus and get a pretty good idea of how to use that water to improve tree performance. Most mature crops are listed, soils, water qualities, and irrigation systems.

The 1000th tree okayed for growing by California's Citrus Clonal Protection Program happens to be the oldest living orange variety in the state. The program, housed at UC Riverside, is the first of its kind in the world.

Tong Zhen is a Ph.D. student in the Hanson Lab at UC Davis. Non-chemical weed control usually is based on physical methods (e.g. tillage or mowing) or thermal methods such as propane flaming or steam.

If you can sell your cowpeas, fava beans and barley, you can make money in Spain and apparently not use any more water than if just growing the mandarins. And coastal growers should look at the fresh market.

Citrus mealybug has been increasing issue in the San Joaquin Valley in last 3 years. It has been reported from Kern, Fresno, Tulare, and Madera counties in the past years. It is a hemipteran pest that feeds on plant sap, reducing tree vigor and affects yield.

Arachnid alert! A free, public open house on Eight-Legged Encounters, featuring spiders and other arachnids, promises to be one of the biggest events--if not the leggiest!--of the year on the UC Davis campus and beyond. The event, set from 1 to 4 p.m.