Rangelands

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A honey bee stuck in milkweed pollinia. This plant is the narrowleaf milkweed,Asclepias fascicularis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bug Squad: Article

Milkweed: A Honey Bee's Floral Trap

August 17, 2020
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
It is not a "pretty sight," as Ernest Hemingway might have said, to see a honey bee stuck like glue--nature's "gorilla glue?"-in the reproductive chamber of a milkweed. It's a trap, a floral trap.
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A female Stagmomantis limbata nymph starts the day by hanging upside down: keeps the blood flowing and the heart pumping. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bug Squad: Article

How a Praying Mantis Seizes the Day

August 14, 2020
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you're a praying mantis, it's important to start the day out right by meditating, praying, and exercising. Close your eyes and slow your breathing. Be grateful for what you have, not what you want. But it's permissible to dream big, as in a Megachile pluto instead of a Perdita minima.
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This is the giant water bath created from a leftover evaporative cooler from the Michael Parrella lab.
Bug Squad: Article

Emily Bick: Salinity, the Water Hyacinth and a Weevil

August 12, 2020
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
If that heavy growth of water hyacinth in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in central California alarms you, then you'll want to read a newly published research paper that provides the most thorough look at how salinity impacts the invasive plant and its biological control agent, the weevil Neocheti...
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Green fruit beetle (Credit: Jack Kelly Clark)
Pests in the Urban Landscape: Article

Green Fruit Beetles or Japanese Beetles?

August 12, 2020
We've had many reports in the last two weeks from people asking what those big green, buzzing, beetles are. Green fruit beetles (Cotinis mutabilis) are members of the scarab beetle family and are sometimes known as fig beetles or figeater beetles. They are related to green June beetles (C.
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Black plastic tarps provide weed control
Climate Smart Agriculture: Article

Grower Profile #4: Mary Jean Russell, Pickalittle Farms

August 12, 2020
By Kristian M Salgado-Jacobo
Practices: Occultation, cover crops, compost, field borders, reduced tillage, companion planting, crop rotation Mary Jean Russell runs Pickalittle Farm, a diversified vegetable operation in Bakersfield, CA. She provides organically-grown vegetables and herbs to local restaurants and to CSA members.
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Ranching in the Sierra Foothills: Article

Summer 2020: Ranching during a Pandemic

August 12, 2020
By Daniel K Macon
Can any of us remember a summer like this?! The work of ranching continues - irrigating pasture, checking livestock, preparing for calving or breeding season. And yet the COVID-19 pandemic casts a pall over everything we're doing.
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