UC Blog
UCCE employee shares her personal passion for plants
Los Angeles County's UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener coordinator, Yvonne Savio, has coined a term to describe the her horticultural style: "circus gardening."
"If it's green and it grows after I've put it in, it stays," she told Pasadena Star-News reporter Michelle Mills. "You water it once or twice, and it's on its own. I tell my Master Gardeners that I've killed many more plants than they ever knew existed because I'm always playing with everything."
Mills developed a feature story about Savio, highlighting the fact that the UCCE employee, who is in charge of LA County UCCE's urban garden program, was named the 2010 Horticulturist of the Year by the Southern California Horticulture Society.
The article also ran in the Redlands Daily Facts.
Savio shared her passion for plants at her Pasadena home, which her father designed and built when Savio was 3. A backyard hillside is terraced for vegetable beds, and perennials grow on the down side of each of the terraces as a living mulch. Savio grows vegetables, fruits, annuals and drought-tolerant perennials, cactus plants, succulents, bromeliads, ground covers and roses.
At work, Savio's newest program is the Grow L.A. Victory Gardens Initiative, in which 10 Master Gardeners throughout Los Angeles County have established dozens of locations where beginning gardeners attend classes and receive a space to practice their lessons, the article said. "It isn't just a class session," Savio was quoted. "They form a neighborhood garden circle." Savio said her Horticulturist of the Year award vindicates her work to help more people grow their own food. "We're talking reality, people and food and becoming more involved with our own world," she was quoted.
Yvonne Savio
Nevada profs write the book on California ag
Two University of Nevada, Reno, professors have teamed up to produce a fact-filled, entertaining, practical guide to California agriculture, according to UNR's Nevada News. Geography professor Paul Starrs and art professor Peter Goin coauthored a Field Guide to California Agriculture, published by the University of California Press.
A paperback version of the 504-page book sells for $24.95 from UC Press; Amazon offers it for $16.47.
The authors say California has “the most dramatic modern agricultural landscape in the world."“Believe us: we, too, try to share our love for the eccentricity and possibility of California. All those miles, all those conversations (routinely in Spanish, which we both speak with some fluency), have brought agriculture to life,” Starrs wrote in the preface.
Goin said he was particularly struck by the state's crop diversity.
"California has so many specialty crops partly because of the state’s ethnic diversity and global markets," Goin noted. "Think chili peppers, pomegranates, pistachios, prickly pear and pima cotton. It’s a visual and culinary feast.”
Why did Nevada professors write about California agriculture? Both love to travel and have roots in the state. Goin’s father worked as a seasonal farmworker in lemon groves while studying at UC Berkeley. Starrs is a resident of both Nevada and California and has spent time discovering the back roads of California, the story said.
Investors tour California agriculture
A group of "big name" investors are on a tour of California's Central Valley today to introduce them to the state's $30 billion agriculture industry and to ag-related companies as potential investments. The tour started yesterday at UC Davis, where the group heard from researchers and professors about water policy and UC Davis research priorities, according to a press release published on Stock Market News. The tour ends this evening in Fresno.
Investors on the tour represent such firms as Mohr Davidow Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, US Venture Partners and J.R. Simplot Company.
"By bringing the investors to the farm, we want to show them various businesses so the two groups can better understand each other's world and requirements," said venture capitalist and tour organizer Joe Hudson.
Phil Christensen, an agricultural asset manager and another tour organizer, said a significant number of large private investors are starting to make bolder and longer-term bets that the world's need for food will continue to grow.
"As California's agricultural industries evolve and their capital requirements increase, we believe that more companies will look to new and non-traditional sources of capital for their growth," Christensen said.
Dahlberg named Kearney director
We are pleased to announce that Jeffery Dahlberg has accepted the position of Kearney director beginning Jan. 3.
Dahlberg will oversee both Kearney Agricultural Center (academic group) and Kearney Research & Extension Center. He will be based in Parlier and report to Bill Frost, the Research and Extension Center System associate director/Cooperative Extension assistant director.
Currently Dahlberg is research director for the National Sorghum Producers and the United Sorghum Checkoff Program and based in Lubbock, Texas. He conducts and publishes sorghum research and has worked to develop sorghum use in the biofuels and renewable industries and food industry.
“This newly configured position, combining leadership responsibilities for both units, requires a unique set of skills,” said Frost. “Jeff Dahlberg’s research and experience working with producers, industry and policymakers will be a tremendous asset to the division in his role as Kearney director.”
Dahlberg earned a Ph.D. in plant breeding at Texas A&M University, a master’s in agronomy & plant genetics at University of Arizona and a bachelor’s in biology at Occidental College in Los Angeles.
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This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.
Kearney endowment announcement
Following an intensive effort, involving a broad spectrum of members of ANR and our stakeholders, ANR completed a Strategic Vision for the purpose of meeting California’s challenges to ensure a high quality of life, healthy environment, and economic success. The Strategic Vision identified 9 areas of inquiry and is the compass that currently guides our strategic planning and allocation of resources. With the initiation of implementation, in order to make the most of our available resources we are focusing on the following 5 initiatives: Sustainable Food Systems, Healthy Families and Communities; Endemic and Invasive Pests and Diseases, and Sustainable Natural Ecosystems, and Water.
The ANR Program Council has worked with ANR Senior Leadership diligently to identify resources available to the Division to fund efforts which meet our highest priorities. Among the resources available are endowed funds, including the Kearney Endowment Fund.
With the proceeds of the 1948 sale of property bequeathed to the University of California by Mr. Kearney in 1906, the University established an unrestricted endowed fund, known as the Kearney Endowment Fund. In 1951, at the request of ANR, the fund was administratively allocated by The regents to create the M. Theo Kearney Foundation of Soil Science to support soil science, a priority at the time.
In undertaking an allocation review of the Kearney Fund, ANR complied with University policy and administrative guidelines. After careful consideration of the terms of Mr. Kearney’s bequest, and in consideration of the University’s practice of avoiding the assignment of restrictions on gifts where none otherwise exists, ANR recommended that this fund be released of the self-imposed restriction so that it may be used to support the urgent and pressing needs in agricultural science. Today, the most pressing needs and priorities are identified in our Strategic Vision.
The timing of this administrative change coincides with the end of the current 5-year mission of the Kearney Foundation of Soil Science. As we move forward, the Kearney funds will be available through a competitive grants program open to all members of the ANR community in an effort to meet the needs outlined in the Strategic Vision. These needs may include, but would not be limited to, soil science. The University, as a public trust, is committed to carrying out the terms set by Mr. Kearney in his magnificent bequest and we believe this change not only aligns with University practice, but honors Mr. Kearney’s interest in agriculture.
View or leave comments for the Executive Working Group
This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.