Agriculture

Spring is here and the Healthy Soils Demonstration Project (to read about the background of this project, click here) has been busy since the composts were applied last fall. We have observed the onset of spring, the grasses and wildflowers on the plots are actively growing.

Two UC Agriculture and Natural Resources emeritus specialists, two UC ANR advisors and a UC ANR vice provost spent a week in March working in Guatemala to help implement a USDA-funded (UC Davis-managed) project that is rebuilding the extension system in Guatemala. With a population of almost 17.

Congrats to the University of California Linnaean Games Team! They know their insects! The UC team, which swept the national championship last year, just won the regional competition Monday night at the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America (PBESA) meeting in San Diego.

There is still time to register for the April 11th SJV Weed Science Extension Day at the Westside Research and Extension Center in Five Points (17353 West Oakland Avenue, Five Points, CA 93624). The meeting at the Westside Center will focus on agronomic crops, ROWs, and tree and vine systems.

In the California agriculture industry, the climate change discussion is less about whether disruption is coming than it is about how farmers will adapt, reported John Cox in the Bakersfield Californian.

There is still time to register for the April 11th SJV Weed Science Extension Day at the Westside Research and Extension Center in Five Points (17353 West Oakland Avenue, Five Points, CA 93624). The meeting at the Westside Center will focus on agronomic crops, ROWs, and tree and vine systems.

Background Testing the soil for nitrate is critical for managing fertilizer in crop production.

Next week promises to be memorable week for entomologists at the University of California, Davis. Oh, how they wish they could clone themselves so they could be in two places at the same time: in San Diego and on the UC Davis campus.

When doctoral candidate Brendon Boudinot of the Phil Ward lab receives the prestigious John Henry Comstock Award next week at the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America (PBESA) meeting in San Diego, he will become the sixth UC Davis student to win the award.

Shannon Cappellazzi, one of six project scientists involved in an expansive Soil Health Institute (SHI) initiative, visited the UC West Side Research and Extension Center in March to take soil samples from research plots managed for 20 years with soil building practices.