UC Blog
Baby, it's cold outside
The San Joaquin Valley is bracing for a hard freeze predicted to strike tonight and tomorrow morning, putting the Valley's $1.3 billion citrus industry on high alert. Whether farmers will have to spring into action depends on a lot of things, such as cloud cover, according to Joel Nelson of California Citrus Mutual, who was quoted in today's San Francisco Chronicle.
"But we will have the wind machines primed and many of them on from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m.," Nelson is quoted.
The Bakersfield Californian turned to UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor John Karlik for advice for homeowners worried about potential freeze damage to landscape plants. He said residents within the city limits can rest fairly easy this week, but those who live in the slightly colder, outlying areas may need to take added precautions.
According to the article, he suggested homeowners bring tropical and sub-tropical plants inside, if possible, and cover outdoor plants overnight using plastic, cloth or newspapers. Watering the plants during the day will help preserve heat at night.
For more details on protecting your garden from frost, see this article by Pam Geisel, the academic coordinator for the UC Master Gardener program.
A note about the headline: The Valley, of course, is rarely as cold as New York, where Frank Loesser wrote the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in 1944, but the music still rings in the ears of Californians when an artic air mass descends on the state. A cute version of the song by Doris Day and Bing Crosby is one of many posted on YouTube.
A citrus tree that was coated with water for frost protection.
4-H connects members with engineering careers
Yesterday I wrote a post to this blog about a 4-H article in Mechanical Engineering, the publication of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Alas, I learned later that our Web Action Team was performing an upgrade to the blog system which required some database upgrades. My post was lost.
I did want to link the story again because it illustrates the breadth of 4-H programs. According to the article, the perception that 4-H programs are limited to agriculture, nutrition and citizenship is wrong. In fact, in the 1940s, 4-H programs in electrical engineering brought awareness of circuitry and control systems to youth in rural communities.
Director and 4-H advisor for Merced County UC Cooperative Extension Richard Mahacek has fond memories of his own participation in scientific 4-H projects in the 1960s.
“What I really got out of 4-H was a better understanding about electricity by participating in electrical projects," Mahacek was quoted in the story. "We made toy buzzers and electromagnets. It was an opportunity to internalize and understand electricity, not from a textbook, but from hands-on activities that brought those concepts to life.”
The 4-H activities that Mahacek now oversees are some of the five million 4-H science, engineering, and technology projects being offered in communities across America. Because of its reach and existing science, engineering and technology curricula, 4-H considers itself well positioned to help promote science education in urban, suburban and rural settings, the story says.
Merced 4-H member learns by doing.
Another alternative crop explored by UC scientists
Alternative crops always make interesting copy. In the past, I have had the opportunity to write about the potential for growing tea tree in the San Joaquin Valley, dryland switch grass for biofuel, dragon fruit, jujube, capers, tropical papaya and, when it was still an "alternative crop" in California, blueberries. Western Farm Press published a story in the current issue about a UC Davis study, being conducted at the UC Desert Research and Extension Center in Holtville, of jatropha, a potential oil crop.
Jatropha is a tropical, drought tolerant, perennial plant grown as a tree or shrub up to 13 feet in height, the article said. The fruit has three kidney-bean sized seeds which contain about 50 percent oil. For the trial, funded by Chevron, UC Davis scientists acquired jatropha seeds from India, started them in a greenhouse, then transplanted them into a one-acre parcel in California's southeastern-most county.
“I think jatropha would be ideal for this area,” the article quotes Sham Goyal, UC Davis agronomist. “A realistic estimate is an acre of jatropha could produce from 500 to 600 gallons of biodiesel per acre per year. If you’re paying $5 per gallon for diesel, that’s about $2,500 per acre of gross return.”
Goyal, a native of India, said the crop value would not allow for labor-intensive hand harvesting.
“If we cannot harvest the crop mechanically, then jatropha has no future,” Goyal is quoted.
The primary objective for growing jatropha is producing biodiesel with the plant's oil-rich fruit, however, by products can create paper, soap, cosmetics, toothpaste, rich organic fertilizer seed cake and biomass for power plants. Parts of the plant also have purported medicinal uses - providing treatment for skin diseases, cancer, piles, snakebite, paralysis, dropsy and many more, according to the Web site BioMass Development.
UC the midwife in birth of California Farm Bureau
The California Farm Bureau Federation is marking its 90th anniversary next year with an article in the current issue of AgAlert that traces the organization's origins and provides historical anecdotes. In the article, UC Cooperative Extension gets credit for being the "midwife" when the statewide organization was born in 1919.
Extension was created by the federal government in 1914. Before academic staff would be assigned to a county, the service was required to establish a farm organization to channel information from advisors and specialists to farmers and their families.
A county Farm Bureau representing at least 20 percent of the farmers in the county had to be operating before a farm advisor could be appointed for the county, according to the AgAlert article, written by the publication's executive editor, Steve Adler.
The first California county to qualify was Humboldt, which formed its Farm Bureau in 1913. The following year, Yolo, San Joaquin and San Diego counties founded their Farm Bureaus.
The article quoted a 1917 circular written by the founder of California's Agricultural Extension Service, B.H. Crocheron. Crocheron envisioned the county Farm Bureau acting as "a sort of rural chamber of commerce and ... the guardian of rural affairs. It can take the lead in agitation for good roads, for better schools, and for cheaper methods of buying and selling."
"Perhaps the Farm Bureau can help to buy cheaper and better seeds, can help to boost the local socials, can encourage the faltering school teacher, can get out and talk for good roads--but its first and surest function is to increase the local knowledge of agricultural fact," Adler further quoted Crocheron.
In time it became clear that the Farm Bureau should pursue a broader agenda, according to the article.
"Because the university could not participate in those extra activities, organizers decided to separate the Farm Bureau from the extension service. That was accomplished with the birth of CFBF on Oct. 23, 1919, when its constitution and bylaws were officially adopted," Adler wrote.
Winemaking on a warming planet
Tomorrow at twilight, vintners will converge on campus to weigh in on winemaking on a warming planet, says a spot on the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat's wineabout blog. (I love alliteration.)
Among the speakers at the 6 to 9 p.m. UC Berkeley event are Miguel Altieri, UC Berkeley professor of agroecology, and Kent Daane, UC Berkeley Cooperative Extension specialist in biological control.
They will be joined by leaders of two California wineries in a discussion about current practices in and research on traditional, organic and biodynamic winegrape production, according to the blog post. The panel will also assess vineyard responses to scarce water, fluctuating fuel costs, pests and changing weather patterns.
It is interesting that wine tasting will take twice the time as weighty winemaking discourse. The discussion is scheduled from 6-7 p.m., and the wine tasting and reception is from 7-9 p.m.