Agriculture

Mark Gaskell is best known these days for cultivating the idea of California-grown coffee that launched the emerging industry. But coffee isn't the first crop that Gaskell convinced California farmers could be locally grown.

In the late 1800s, when automobiles started replacing horses in the United States, farmers were likely pondering how the new technology could be adapted for agricultural production. Before long, tractors revolutionized the industry.

Gene Miyao was named the UCCE vegetable crops farm advisor for Yolo County in 1980. In 1990, Solano County was added to his territory and about 10 years later, he also took on responsibility for Sacramento County. Miyao had been exposed to UCCE farm advisors from a young age.

A drive around parts of the San Joaquin Valley revealed some fields with Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri) rising above the crop canopy (See image below).

A drive around the San Joaquin Valley has revealed some fields with Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri) rising above the crop canopy.

Evaluation of flowering and fruit set on almond allows for within-season assessment of orchard productivity; however, understanding the vegetative growth dynamics of almond allows growers to consider parameters affecting productivity years into the future.

When you visit the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's bee garden--named the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven after its primary donor--be sure to check out the colorful mural on the shed. The panels feature mostly native bees.

We have been scouting for Bagrada bug on wild host plants at two sites in the San Ardo area since middle of May. We selected San Ardo as our most southern scouting point for the Salinas Valley.

Newly published research by entomologist David James of Washington State University, Pullman, Wash., in the Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society yielded incredible news about the monarch population that migrates from the Pacific Northwest to California.

UC Agriculture and Natural Resources vice president Glenda Humiston welcomed a delegation of Chinese agricultural scientists to UC ANR's Intermountain Research and Extension Center in Tulelake in June, reported Danielle Jester in the Siskiyou Daily News.