UC Blogs

Central Valley farmers battle cold nights

Farmers in California's Central Valley have been taking precautions against freezing as nighttime temperatures have dipped into the low 20s in some areas, reported Tim Hearden of Capital Press.

From Dec. 3-10, temperatures dropped as low as 31 degrees in Fresno, 26 degrees in Madera, 27 degrees in Merced, 26 degrees in Napa, 25 in Redding and 27 in Redbluff. Growers in these areas were working to avoid damages like those suffered in 2007, when a freeze caused more than $1.4 billion in damage to citrus, avocados, strawberries, vegetables, nursery stock and other crops, the article said.

In northern areas, freezes blackened the tips of some young walnut tree branches, but those are generally pruned off anyway, said Rick Buchner, a University of California Cooperative Extension farm advisor in Red Bluff, Calif.

"There's been no serious damage in the big wood that I've been called to look at yet," Buchner said.

Garden Art with Lights

With Christmas just a short 10 days away, many of us are still adding the final touches to our home.  The way things are going this year; a wreath on the front door may be the extent of my holiday flair.  Yes, I wish I had time to do more, but don’t despair, I have the privilege of living next store to an amazingly talented individual.  She has taken Christmas decorations to a new level, with what I call a form of garden art.  Every year her front yard is transformed into a beautiful winter wonderland.  Her strands of hand-painted lights have been transformed into beautiful flowers, each with their own stamen.  She does have the standard reindeer or two, the typical Christmas tree, but these pale in comparison to the rest of the show.  I can’t wait for her to put on the final touches this weekend, strands of hand painted butterflies (made from the bottoms of plastic one gallon milk containers-these are incredible) woven in-between the strands of flowers.   Her front yard is the most unique display of garden art transformed into holiday spirit, really quite a site to see!  Of course, I asked if she could move on to my front yard to add to my lonely wreath…we’ll see what happens.

UC wildlife research team looking for single socks

A University of California wildlife research team working in the Sierra Nevada near Oakhurst, Calif., is asking the public to donate clean, gently used socks for research on a rare weasel called the Pacific fisher. The team is part of the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP), which is examining the effects of forest thinning, as currently done by the U.S. Forest Service, on the health of local wildlife, the forest and water resources. The U.S. Forest Service implements these treatments out of concern for excessive fire risk. Eighty years of fire suppression, reductions in logging and drought conditions have left the forest increasingly overcrowded and excessively flammable.

But what kind of research could go through hundreds of socks a month? After years of experimentation, the research team has determined that socks are the ideal receptacle for hanging fisher bait in trees. The researchers are going through 250 pair a month, at a considerable cost, to create the “chicken in a sock” bait stations.

Besides the cost, chief scientist Dr. Rick Sweitzer is spending too much time in the Wal-Mart checkout line with a cart full of socks.

The scientists don’t need new socks; they would prefer old, unmatched, non-holey ones, something every American has cluttering up their sock drawers. You know the ones!

So, in an effort to reduce, reuse and recycle, the SNAMP wildlife research team is putting out a call for lost and lonely socks. Socks may be delivered or mailed to 40799 Elliott Dr., Oakhurst CA 93644. For more information contact Anne Lombardo at amlombardo@ucdavis.edu. To read more about the research project visit the SNAMP website.

Other wildlife are also attracted to the bait stations:

The End Is Near

The parasitic fly (family Tachinidae) never had a chance. It went from floral visitor to spider prey to spider dinner when it made a single solitary...

Two cellar spiders work together to capture a Tachinid fly in their web. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Two cellar spiders work together to capture a Tachinid fly in their web. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

While one spider wraps the fly, another bites it in the head, paralyzing it. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

While one spider wraps the fly, another bites it in the head, paralyzing it. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Close-up of the fatal bite. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Close-up of the fatal bite. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

California grown coffee is a new option for locavores

Several years ago, Jay Ruskey of Good Land Organics and UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Mark Gaskell started an experiment to see how well coffee plants would grow in Santa Barbara County's temperate coastal climate, reported Sara Cole on the website Eat Drink Explore. After harvesting and processing the beans, they were pleasantly surprised by the results. They found that coffee plants tolerate a temperate climate as long as they are protected from extreme weather like frost, wind and high heat.

"Fifteen years ago this would not be feasible because most people were satisfied with Yuban or Folgers types of coffee," Ruskey said. "Now people pay 10 to 20 times more than those old prices for . . . unique cups of coffee that have a wide range of flavors from a variety of cultivation techniques."

Ruskey sells the coffee at the local farmers market.

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