Rangelands

The California Institute for Water Resources has announced its 2018-19 Request for Proposals. This year, proposals are requested in the junior investigator category only, said Doug Parker, director of the California Institute for Water Resources. Funded projects will begin March 1, 2019.

Oregon Biochar Solutions Rogue Biochar I spoke with Grant Scheve of Oregon Biochar Solutions, makers of Rogue biochar (https://www.chardirect.com/) .

Meet Wendy Mather, program manager of California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMBP) Bees are her passion, and her passion is bees.

You're heard these idioms: The early bird gets the worm First come, first served. Johnny-on-the-spot. The second mouse gets the cheese. But have you ever seen a Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) eclose and then see her...well...engaged? Such was the case on Labor Day, Sept.

You may have seen her sharing information about honey bees at the annual California Agriculture Day at the State Capitol, Sacramento.

You hike it, bike it, and sight-see it. You exercise the dog (and yourself), meet up with friends...and take images. That would be at the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, and now the officials want to see your images--or up to five of your best images.

What's going on with the monarchs? Our little pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif., usually draws dozens of them in the summer as they flutter around, sip nectar from the Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) and lay their eggs on their host plant, milkweed.

Just call them the "incredible aphid-eating machines." That would be the lady beetles, commonly known as ladybugs (although they are not bugs; they're beetles belonging to the family Coccinellidae, and they're not all "ladies"--some are male!).

Most people don't bond with spiders, but Jason Bond, the newly selected Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, does.

There's an old joke circulating among entomologists about excited novices contacting them about finding a "two-headed butterfly." Sounds like National Enquirer stuff, right? Wrong. Just two butterflies mating.