Green Blog

Northwest of Los Angeles, springtime brings native wildflowers to bloom in the Santa Monica Mountains. These beauties provide food for insects, maintain healthy soil and filter water seeping into the ground in addition to offering breathtaking displays of color.

California's cattle ranchers contribute a significant amount to the region's culture, economy and food supply, but do they also inadvertently help to temper the wildfires that have been plaguing the state? And if so, is it a better alternative environmentally speaking to letting grasslands burn?

To manage johnsongrass, a noxious weed that crowds out cotton and sickens horses, farmers have tried herbicides, burning and hand-pulling.

For 40 years, the University of California Master Gardener Program of San Diego County has upheld its mission of providing research-based information about home horticulture and pest management to the public, while earning and sustaining the community's trust in doing so.

A 20-year experiment in the Sierra Nevada confirms that different forest management techniques prescribed burning, restoration thinning or a combination of both are effective at reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire in California.