Agriculture

It was the morning of Jan. 1, 2018, a year and four days ago. While strolling the grounds of the Benicia Capitol State Historic Park, we captured images of yellow-faced bumble bees, Bombus vosnesenskii, nectaring on jade, Crassula ovata. They were packing cream-colored pollen from the jade.

As anyone who has ever cared for livestock at a commercial scale will tell you, animal husbandry requires a wide range of skills. Ranchers must be animal behaviorists, veterinary technicians, bovine (or ovine, caprine, etc.

If you've been looking for that elusive first-of-the-year cabbage white butterfly in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano, you're in luck. Art Shapiro hasn't found it yet, and neither has anyone else. So you can keep looking.

Weeds compete with crops for light, water, and nutrients, which can result in yield reductions. Weeds can also interfere with crop production by serving as alternate hosts for pests and pathogens, providing habitat for rodents, and impeding harvest operations, among other impacts.

It's a question everyone wants to know.

Risk What are you waiting for? As the old saying goes, when it rains it pours. Nobody knows that better than we do right now, literally. For most farmers, rain is a good thing.

Weeds compete with crops for light, water, and nutrients, which can result in yield reductions. Weeds can also interfere with crop production by serving as alternate hosts for pests and pathogens, providing habitat for rodents, and impeding harvest operations among other impacts.

Do locusts browse computer dating sites, trying to find a match made in heaven? They do. Just check out the Bohart Museum of Entomology's newly published calendar. "Mr. January" is a locust sitting quite comfortably in a chair--a swivel chair at that--and eagerly accessing a dating site.

Looking back on 2018, Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor at the University of California, treasures the memories of the Hammock lab reunion, when 100 scientists from 10 different countries gathered to honor his work, reunite, collaborate and reminisce.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?