From the UC Blogosphere...

Register Today for the Dec. 11, 2013 Turf and Landscape Institute in Rancho Cucamonga, CA

Register today for the December 11, 2013 Turf and Landscape Institute at the Etiwanda Gardens Conference Center in Rancho Cucamonga, California.  This is the largest University of California Cooperative Extension educational  event offered annually in Southern California and is open to all arborists, landscapers, irrigation professionals, and other 'green industry' personnel interested in receiving objective timely information on topics covering arboriculture, and sustainable landscaping, and we even have a session in Spanish stressing irrigation management practices and principles.

Questions?  jshartin@ucdavis.edu, 951.313.2023

 Choose from Three All-Day Educational Sessions:

 -        Sustainable Landscape Management

-         Arboriculture

-         IPM/Irrigation Fundamentals (in Spanish)

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To Register online and View the Entire Program: http://cesanbernardino.ucdavis.edu 

($75 each when 3 or more register together before or on Dec. 6 or $85 for a single registration)

To host a table-top trade show booth, contact Janet Hartin at jshartin@ucdavis.edu or 951.313.2023. Booths are $250 and includes 2 entrances into conference. 

Artisan cheese is where wine was 30 years ago

Falling milk prices and rising production costs have prompted some California family dairies to augment their income by marketing handmade, artisan cheese, reported Ben Wortham in the Wall Street Journal.

Wortham cited the UC Cooperative Extension publication Coming of Age: The Status of North Bay Artisan Cheesemaking, written by UCCE community development advisor Ellie Rilla and published earlier this year. Of the 22 artisan cheese producers in Marin and Sonoma counties in 2010, 10 were dairy farms that use their own milk, the report says. Four more artisan cheese producers are in the process of starting up, even as four dairies in the two counties went out of business last year.

These 22 producers in total made almost eight million pounds of cheese last year, covering 95 varieties, which sold at retail for as much as $30 a pound, according to the report.

"We're where wine was 30 years ago," Rilla told the reporter. "It doesn't look like there's any chance of a bubble popping in the foreseeable future."

Call of the (Alex) Wild

There are insect photographers and there are insect photographers. There are those who point and shoot, those who shoot and...

Noted insect photographer Alex Wild captured this spectacular image of sweat bees on sideoats grama. (Photo by Alex Wild and used with permission.)

Noted insect photographer Alex Wild captured this spectacular image of sweat bees on sideoats grama. (Photo by Alex Wild and used with permission.)

Oakland Hills fire prompted changes in building laws

Twenty years ago today, a brushfire spread through the Oakland Hills, fueled by strong winds and dense vegetation made extremely flammable by a dry summer, reported a team of reporters in a lengthy feature in Oakland North.

Fighting the wildfire was hampered by steep and narrow roads, houses with wood-shingle roofs, a restricted water supply, and fire hydrants that were incompatible with neighboring cities’ trucks. The wildfire, which burned for almost 72 hours, took 25 lives, devastated over a thousand acres of land, and destroyed more than 3,500 homes.

Oakland now requires all new Oakland Hills houses to have fire-resistant roofs, which include slate, clay, concrete roof tile or steel shingles, according to the Builders Wildfire Mitigation Guide, published by the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“These materials are more accessible now than in 1991,” said Steve Quarles, a researcher at the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, a Florida-based organization that conducts studies on natural disasters aimed to reduce human and financial loss. Quarles retired from UC Cooperative Extension Aug. 1 after serving for 26 years as a wood durability advisor. “Probably most of them were available at that time, but now they are less expensive and people can acquire more information about them.”

How to decipher nutrition labels
Claudia Mosby, The Redding Record-Searchlight

A heart-healthy, sugar-free or low-fat label on your favorite box of crackers at the store doesn't automatically mean it's a healthy food item. These eye-catching labels draw attention to what may be a healthier choice, but to accurately assess the item's nutritional value you need to read and understand its nutrition facts label.

According to Concepcion Mendoza, nutrition family and consumer science advisor at University of California Cooperative Extension in Shasta and Trinity counties, nutrition facts labels became mandatory in the early 1990s. These labels list the number of calories, fat grams and nutrients per serving for a food item, along with its percent of daily value recommendation.

A Flying Cucumber (Beetle)

You usually see them crawling around, but never about to fly.The Western spotted cucumber beetles (Diabrotica...

Spotted cucumber beetles crawls along a tangerine leaf. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Spotted cucumber beetles crawls along a tangerine leaf. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Antennae twitching rapidly, the spotted cucumber beetle looks around. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Antennae twitching rapidly, the spotted cucumber beetle looks around. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Spotted cucumber beetle lands, and then opens its wing covers preparing for flight. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Spotted cucumber beetle lands, and then opens its wing covers preparing for flight. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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