Rangelands

Are you ready to celebrate Moth Night at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis? Mark your calendar for 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday, July 21.

Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars trained by world-renowned entomologist and toxicologist John Casida of the University of California, Berkeley, are memorializing him for his powerful impact on science and his non-wavering impact on their careers and lives.

It was a long awaited process, but it's a girl! And she's beautiful! It all began with finding two anise swallowtail chrysalids clinging last July to the fennel stems in our pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif.

As a sheep producer and an extension educator, I'm often asked which breed of livestock guardian dog (LGD) I prefer. Some have heard that Great Pyrenees dogs are more likely to wander. Others have heard that Akbash and Anatolian Shepherd dogs can be more aggressive with humans.

A Fulbright to France... Congratulations to UC Davis entomology professor Diane Ullman who has just a received Fulbright to France to research plant virus-insect interactions. She will be studying plant viruses and the insects that transmit them.

If you're a plant and an insect is attacking you, you can communicate your stress to nearby plants as a way to alert them about potential danger--very similar to how animals communicate or respond to predators.

The University of California Desert Research and Extension Center (UC DREC) Farm Smart program recently hosted the 2nd annual USDA Food & AgScience Summer Program in June 2018.

Last month, I wrote about preparing our ranches for fire (Fire Season is Here: Is Your Ranch Ready?). Since that time, we've seen large fires in ranching country (including the County Fire in Yolo and Napa Counties, the Pawnee Fire in Lake County, and the Klamathon Fire in Siskiyou County).

Originally posted August 26, 2016; edited July 10, 2018 Have you seen big green beetles in your California yard or garden? Or beetles feeding on your roses or other plants? There are many kinds of beetles commonly found in our landscapes, but the Japanese beetle is not one of them.

As the human population on planet earth, now about 7.6 billion people, continues to grow, more will settle in areas prone to wildfire, reported Mary Beth Griggs in Popular Science magazine.