UC Blogs

This Is a 'Bio Boot Camp'

You may have heard about the "Bug Boot Camp" that ant specialist Phil Ward, professor of entomology at the UC Davis Department of Entomology,...

Flame Skimmer

CAMPERS in the Bio Boot Camp may see this dragonfly, a flame skimmer, on the UC Davis campus or at the Sagehen Creek Field Station. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Great egret

YOUTHS participating in Bio Boot Camp may see a variety of birds, including a great egret. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Yolo County approves Climate Action Plan

The Yolo County Board of Supervisors this week adopted a Climate Action Plan, however, UC Davis Cooperative Extension alfalfa specialist Dan Putnam questioned the part of the plan that deals with reducing fertilizer use, the Davis Enterprise reported.

Yolo County strives to be at the forefront of the "green movement," according to its website. The county's 2030 General Plan included the requirement to develop a Climate Action Plan.

On Page 29 of the 124-page document, the plan says that cutting alfalfa nitrogen fertilizer 25 percent will result in a .35 percent increase in alfalfa yield (see chart below).

“The alfalfa part of that is just wrong — dead wrong,” Putnam was quoted. ”That’s just nonsense. I don’t agree with that at all.”

Putnam said some of the conclusions in the plan could be explained by "the vagaries of nature."

“It’s one thing if the model spits out (a number), and it’s another if it’s something we can measure in the field. It’s another thing to ‘ground truth’ it," according to Putnam.

Supervisor Duane Chamberlain represents the county’s rural areas, farms alfalfa and is one of Putnam's research collaborators. He voted to approve the Climate Action Plan, but was vocal about his concerns over the underlying science, the Enterprise reported.

"I’d like to see some science in here,” Chamberlain was quoted. “The science is terrible. We don’t have any science. We have modeling. This is people who’ve drawn pictures."

The Woodland Daily Democrat also covered the passage of Yolo County's Climate Action Plan.

Yolo County Climate Action Plan

Tackling Spotted Wing Drosophila

Deep in the bowels of Briggs Hall on the UC Davis campus, entomology graduate student Kelly Hamby works on a pest that is giving growers fits:...

Kelly Hamby

GRADUATE STUDENT Kelly Hamby, who is studying for her doctorate in entomology at UC Davis, works in the Frank Zalom lab on the spotted wing drosophila. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Close-up of Drosophila

CLOSE-UP of the spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii). This pest pierces such fruits as cherries and berries and deposits its eggs inside. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Home Food Preservation Program Returns to LA County

Due to a renewed interest in food preservation, Cooperative Extension will bring back the Master Food Preserver (MFP) program to Los Angeles County.

Classes will begin on Monday, March 28, and meet every Monday until June 20, 2011.  Conducted at UC Cooperative Extension office in East Los Angeles, the classes will be led by UC Master Food Perserver Ernest Miller, a formally trained chef.  Miller has years of experience with home food preservation and is the chef at The Farmer's Kitchen, a project of Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles (the nonprofit organization that manages eight farmers markets in the Los Angeles area, and includes LA's largest market, the Sunday Hollywood Farmers Market).  Participants will learn how to can, ferment, pickle, cure, smoke, dehydrate and brew.

"As the sole Master Food Preserver in Los Angeles for more than a year, I know that there is a tremendous interest in traditional methods of food preservation," said Miller.  "We also teach people skills on proper emergency food preparation.  The immense tragedy taking place in Japan illustrates the need for people to learn how to prepare for natural disasters in earthquake-prone California," he added.

Once trained, the Master Food Preservers will conduct food preservation workshops for the general public.  The response to this program has been tremendous.  Many preservation enthusiasts are looking forward to MFP-led workshops and are hoping to become certified MFPs in the future.

Support for the Master Food Preserver program is provided by the Metabollic Studio, a direct charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation.

For more information, please contact Brenda Roche at (323) 260-3299, bkroche@ucdavis.edu.

Food Preserved in Jars

Rebranding UC's Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program

In order to lift stigma and to capture the essence of healthy eating, the Food Stamp program was renamed "CalFresh" in California last fall. Now UC, which operates a Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program (FSNEP) in 35 California counties, is considering how its program should be renamed to match the new brand, according to a Fast Company expert blogger.

Writer Lauren Sutton served on a panel at a CalFresh forum last month with UC FSNEP director David Ginsburg. Sutten wrote that a lot of effort went into making sure that the new program name appealed to the target audience (people who use Food Stamp benefits) and that the name was in line with other California state programs like CalPERS, CalTrain and CalJOBS.

At the forum, Ginsburg shared the results of a survey conducted to gauge acceptance of possible new names for FSNEP. The top 10 contenders are:

1. UC-CalFresh Nutrition Education
2. UC-Nutrition Education Program
3. UC-CalFresh
4. UC-CalFresh Nutrition Education Program (Logo option 1)
5. CalFresh Nutrition Education Program
6. UC-CalFresh Nutrition Education Program (Logo option 2)
7. UC-SNAP Ed.
8. UC-FIT (Food and Interactive Teachings for a Healthy Life)
9. UCCE Nutrition
10. UC-FUN (Families Understanding Nutrition)

Another option, Ginsburg said, is using "UC CalFresh" with the tag line "Growing Healthy Families."

"That would allow us to link to California’s CalFresh and also can build off of California’s agriculture," Ginsburg said.

Read more