UC Blogs

Colorado cantaloupe listeria outbreak affects California growers

The Colorado farm linked to a deadly listeria outbreak last fall is 1,300 miles away, but the tragedy changed a way of life in Mendota, Calif., the Central Valley farm town that proudly calls itself the Cantaloupe Center of the World, said an article in the Los Angeles Times by Diana Marcum.

This would normally be the season when farmers plan the summer crop that in good years is valued at nearly $200 million, according to the California Cantaloupe Advisory Board. Instead, they are cutting acreage and scrambling for ways to reassure a nervous public that cantaloupes are safe to eat.

This month the UC Center for Produce Safety will host a closed-door symposium in San Diego for cantaloupe growers, shippers, agricultural researchers, government regulators and others to create guidelines for best growing practices.

"The main question will be, 'What are the gaps in our knowledge?'" said Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli, executive director of the UC Davis-based center. "Do we need to do research or is it a matter of the cantaloupe industry implementing and enforcing best practices?"

UCCE director in Tulare County takes Kings County reins
Lewis Griswald, Fresno Bee News Blog

Tulare County UC Cooperative Extension Director Jim Sullins will also be director of the Kings County UCCE office. Longtime Kings County UCCE director and 4-H youth advisor Peggy Gregory retired at the end of the year. She served 37 years with the University, including 20 in Kings County.

Grape growers fend off thieves, pests
Fresno Business Journal

Pests and thieves can cost grape growers a great deal of money and headaches. That’s why the two issues were addressed along with other important topics at the UC Cooperative Extension San Joaquin Valley Grape Symposium held Wednesday in Easton.

UCCE viticulture farm advisor Stephen Vasquez gave an update on glassy-winged sharpshooters and Pierce's disease. He said that recent catches of sharpshooters are concerning since they have been found near a major riparian corridor that has had a historically low level of Pierce’s disease.

Love in the Fava Beans

It was lovely day today, in more ways than one.During the lunch hour, we stopped by the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, University...

Ladybugs in the fava beans at the Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Ladybugs in the fava beans at the Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Soon the Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven will have a new generation of ladybugs. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Soon the Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven will have a new generation of ladybugs. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Ladybugs doing what comes naturally. Fava bean blossoms are at the right. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Ladybugs doing what comes naturally. Fava bean blossoms are at the right. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A sole ladybug, aka lady beetle, crawls past a pair of the beetles. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A sole ladybug, aka lady beetle, crawls past a pair of the beetles. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

California Report features UCCE biocontrol scientist

The public radio daily magazine program The California Report this morning featured a three-minute interview with UC Cooperative Extension biological control specialist Mark Hoddle. The interview-format story comes a day before the release of Asian citrus psyllid natural enemy Tamarixia radiata in Los Angeles County neighborhoods. Hoddle and his wife Christina Hoddle, an assistant specialist in entomology, had collected colonies of the parasitoid in the Punjab region of Pakistan.

Reporter Rachael Myrow told listeners the release of natural enemies on Friday is the first major release in a major urban area, and then allowed Hoddle to explain the developments and their implications.

For more on Tamarixia radiata, see the UC ANR press release.

Myrow also posted a story on newsfix, KQED's Bay Area news blog.

On the Fly

We've been waiting with bated breath for butterfly expert Art Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis, to announce he's found the...

Two cabbage whites (Pieris rapae) on catmint in Vacaville, Calif., on Sept. 7, 2008. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Two cabbage whites (Pieris rapae) on catmint in Vacaville, Calif., on Sept. 7, 2008. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Fly Parasite in Honey Bee? A New Threat?

The news that flashed across the Internet today indicates there's a new threat to honey bees, a parasitic phorid fly. UC San Francisco researchers,...

Honey bee pollinating an almond blossom in the spring of 2011. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Honey bee pollinating an almond blossom in the spring of 2011. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Noted honey bee expert, Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of UC Davis, by an almond tree at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Noted honey bee expert, Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of UC Davis, by an almond tree in 2011 at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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