UC Blog
UCCE's Sea Grant a source on shell fish pest
An article in the Marin Independent Journal today focuses on the merger of two oyster farms on California's north coast. For background on the state of the industry, reporter Rob Rogers turned to director of UC Cooperative Extension Sea Grant Extension Paul Olin.
The story said the industry has been plagued by a bacterium - Vibrio tubiashii - that has killed the larvae oyster growers use to replenish their supply. While a few of the county's oyster growers raise their own larvae, most depend on out-of-state hatcheries that have been decimated by the bacterium.
"The bacterial contamination of hatcheries, primarily in the Pacific Northwest, has significantly reduced the baby clams and oysters available," Olin was quoted. "Hatchery management technology has been effective in overcoming that problem, but getting out of the woods has been a real difficulty."
Paul Olin
Max Moritz speaks to KQED about fire and climate change
The Bay Area National Public Radio affiliate KQED posted "reporter's notes" on the Quest portion of its Web site yesterday featuring comments from UC Berkeley fire ecology specialist Max Moritz about recently published research that predicts changes in world wildfire patterns due to climate change. Quest is a KQED multimedia series exploring Northern California science, environment and nature.
In the written notes, reporter Craig Miller explained that Moritz and a team of researchers found that climate change won't cause a rise in wildfire everywhere in the world.
In audio interview excerpts, Moritz himself says that different climatic variables -- such as precipitation patterns and temperatures -- around the world mean climate change will have different effects on wildfire patterns. Most places, including California, will see increases in wildfire activity; other areas, like the Pacific Northwest, may see fewer, less intense fires.
"(The fact) that just in the next couple of decades we’re going to see very extensive and rapid shifts in fire activity, I think that’s a bit of a surprise," Moritz said.
Max Moritz
Associated Press runs with California Agriculture stories
Last Friday, the Associated Press picked up and ran with the climate change stories in the current issue of California Agriculture journal. Reporter Tracie Cone opened her widely published article with the prediction that rising temperatures could make pears, peaches, pistachios and other crops that need winter chill unsuitable for California farms, and others crops would suffer lower yields.
Cone went on to write that articles in California Agriculture "predict temperatures in California will increase by 7 degrees Fahrenheit by 2095." That wasn't the conclusion I reached when I looked over the Cal Ag stories, so I checked with the journal's editor, Janet Byron.
She and the journal's executive editor Janet White reviewed Cone's story and compared it to information in the new issue.
"We don't know where (Cone) got the exact '7 degrees by 2095' figure," Byron said. "But if you look at the scenarios . . . from the IPCC, it's pretty clear that 7 degrees would be the average predicted increase by 2099. Every scientist quoted in our issue says that climate change is inevitable, and they cite ranges in the IPCC report. So I don't think she was exactly correct - a range would have been more accurate - but I don't think she was wrong either."
Pulling information from a news article in the journal written by Byron, Cone noted in the AP story that about 15 percent of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. is related to food production, with livestock-produced methane and nitrous oxide leading the way, followed by the breakdown of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, transportation, heat used to operate greenhouses and the decomposition of waste.
"We are developing information so that major food suppliers, food service professionals and retailers, as well as consumers, can figure out where to focus to make the biggest impact on climate change," the Cal Ag news article and the AP story alike quoted Gail Feenstra of the UC Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis.
A diversity of media outlets shared the AP story with their readers either online or in print editions, including the San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, Modesto Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, San Diego Union-Tribune, Riverside Press-Enterprise, Merced Sun-Star, Monterey Herald, Lodi News-Sentinal, Visalia Times, Fort Mills Times, KTVU.com, KCBS.com and many other online news sites from Alabama to New Jersey.
The current issue of California Agriculture.
Risk for produce contamination by wildlife is probably low
Wildlife is not a primary source of E. coli 0157:H7, according to a press release distributed last week by the California Department of Fish and Game. The release reported preliminary results of ongoing research aimed at understanding the risk of fresh produce contamination by wildlife on the Central Coast. The research was prompted by the deadly and well-publicized 2006 E. coli contamination incident in spinach.
From 2007 through 2008, the research team collected 866 wildlife samples, including 311 black-tailed deer, 184 wild pig, 73 birds, 61 rabbits, 58 tule elk, 52 ground squirrels, 51 coyotes, 24 mice, 19 raccoons, 17 opossums and 16 striped skunks. (No animals were harmed in conducting this research; the samples are scat.) Of the 866 animals sampled, 862 tested negative. The four positive samples included: one wild pig, one coyote and two tule elk.
The study's leader, USDA-Agricultural Research Service microbiologist Robert Mandrell, said scientists are less than halfway through the study. (Mandrell was identified in the news release as team leader of the Produce Microbiology and Safety Research Unit, UC Davis. University of California scientists are working with Fish and Game and ARS on the research.)
"The small number of positive animals suggests the risk for produce contamination by wildlife is probably low, and following good agricultural practices should minimize the public health risk," Mandrell was quoted in the release.
The story also appeared on YubaNet.com.
UC generates climate change news
Coincidentally, two news releases were distributed yesterday with information from UC Ag and Natural Resources about climate change.
One news release announces the current issue of California Agriculture journal, which is devoted to news and research on climate change and how it will alter California’s environment and landscape, agriculture and food quality. The cover of the magazine says climate change is "unequivocal," a word pulled from the 2007 report the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level," the IPCC report says.
Articles in the journal -
- Summarize the predicted changes to California’s climate, weather, growing conditions, pollution, sea level and other factors
- Explain why initial increases in crop production due to “CO2 fertilization” decline rapidly, a finding with important implications for hunger and nutrition worldwide
- Predict that the numbers and kinds of invasive insect pests will increase because of rising temperatures
- Demonstrate how alternative agricultural practices such as cover cropping can have a significant impact on the amounts of greenhouse gases emitted from fields
The second climate change news release was generated by the UC Berkeley news service. It says climate change will bring about major shifts in worldwide fire patterns, and that those changes are coming fast, according to an analysis led by researchers at UC Berkeley and Texas Tech University.
"This is the first attempt to quantitatively model why we see fire where we see it across the entire planet," the news release quotes study author Max Moritz, assistant cooperative extension specialist in wildland fire at UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources and co-director of the UC Center for Fire Research & Outreach. "What is startling in these findings is the relatively rapid rate at which we're likely to see very broad-scale changes in fire activity for large parts of the planet."