Agriculture

A USDA grant will allow a group of California organic farmers to team up with researchers from the University of California, Chico State and Fresno State to determine whether tilling less soil on the farm will improve production of vegetable crops.

It's that time again! If you would like to submit seeds for herbicide resistance testing, many weed species will be maturing right about now.

This is a follow up article to a blog that my colleague, Guy Kyser wrote back in 2011 titled Purple alert: Common Pokeweed. Since that time, I probably get a dozen or so calls this time of year asking, what is that huge weed growing in my yard with dark black berries and big green leaves.

We look forward to "The Boys' Night Out." Ah, pillow fights, popcorn, and marathon movies on TV, you ask? No. "Boys' Night Out" is when the longhorned male bees in our pollinator garden in Vacaville engage in sleepovers on our Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia) and other blossoms.

Next time you're on Higuera St. in downtown SLO, look up. Cal Poly entomology professor, Dr. David Headrick, is taking biological control to new heights! Here's his story: An invasive whitefly pest is attacking our giant fig trees in downtown SLO.

UC Davis Agronomy Farm Directions: In the field across from the UC Davis Bee Biology Lab (same place as previous years). From Hwy 113 in Davis, exit on Hutchison Dr. Go west, turn north at the first roundabout, then west at the second roundabout. Continue west on Hutchison Dr for about 1 mile.

The ongoing international trade turmoil between the U.S. and other countries has prompted import tariffs on many U.S. agricultural commodities in important export markets, which could hurt U.S. farmers.

If you're like most of us, you go bananas for a banana for breakfast. It's healthy, nutritious and packed with potassium. But wait! You should probably go bananas for another fruit--that pear-shaped avocado. Did you know the avocado provides more potassium than a banana? It does.

Talk about extremes! Have you ever thought about how some insects have adapted to fire, ice, acid, hot water, salt and the desert? Have you ever seen an ambrosia beetle, a red turpentine beetle, an ice cricket, a brine fly or a sand wasp?

The UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology will emphasize "fire and insects" when it hosts an open house, Extreme Insects: Fire and Ice, on Sunday afternoon, Aug. 19. The public event, to take place from 1 to 4 p.m.