A USDA grant will allow a group of California organic farmers to team up with researchers from the University of California, Chico State and Fresno State to determine whether tilling less soil on the farm will improve production of vegetable crops. The aim is to duplicate the soil environment found in natural areas — typically…
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Horticulture is facing a crisis. As older plant growers, nursery managers and groundskeepers retire, there are too few people to replace them. “There’s an age gap in commercial horticulture, a drastic and obvious lack of people under the age of 40,” said Cole Mangum, vice president of production at Bell Nursery in Burtonsville, Md. “Our…
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Summary A corn variety growing in nitrogen-depleted fields derived 28–82 percent of nitrogen it needed from the atmosphere A sugar-rich, gel-like substance on the corn’s aerial roots, called mucilage, attracts bacteria and other microbes that fix nitrogen A team from UC Davis, UW–Madison, and Mars, Incorporated worked in partnership with indigenous community in Sierra Mixe…
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UC Davis Chancellor Gary May met with Plant Sciences Chair Gail Taylor and a number of faculty and researchers yesterday (July 31) to learn about the breadth and impact of the department, and what makes it the top-ranked Plant Sciences program globally. Meeting in the Plant Reproductive Biology Building on campus, faculty shared their representative…
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A sold-out crowd attended the 62nd annual Weed Day at UC Davis to learn about weed control practices; herbicide resistance and symptomology; aquatic weeds; weed management in vineyards, orchards, beans, and rice; and weed identification (including apps for weed ID). Weed Day is coordinated by the UC Weed Research and Information Center. Participants include academics…
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A device whose concept was born in the 1960s has become a key part of the water-saving toolbox for many California tree nut growers. The pressure bomb, or pressure chamber, has advanced in sophistication over the years, but its purpose is essentially the same: to tell a grower whether a tree is stressed by too…
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Photosynthesis is one of the most crucial life processes on earth. It’s how plants get their food, using energy from sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide from the air into sugars. It’s long been thought that more than 30 percent of the energy produced during photosynthesis is wasted in a process called photorespiration. A…
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“Mapping the Genome of Redwoods” is the feature story on CBS Sunday Morning this coming Sunday (July 1). Featured in the program are Distinguished Professor David Neale and his research team (Dept. of Plant Sciences, UC Davis), and the Save the Redwoods League. The news clip from the CBS television site notes, “They are among…
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Undergraduate commencement for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences students at UC Davis was held on Friday, June 15, 2018. The Department of Plant Sciences oversees five campus-wide undergraduate majors: Biotechnology Ecological management and restoration Environmental horticulture and urban forestry International agricultural development Plant sciences During a post-ceremony luncheon for these new Bachelor of…
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Russell Ranch Field Day is an annual event at UC Davis each June, at which faculty, graduate students, and postdocs present their plant, soil, and irrigation field research to growers and other researchers. This year’s field day theme, on June 11, 2018, was “Increasing Farm Resilience Through Healthy Soils and Water Management.” Included in the…
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