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Doctoral student Valentina Roel is looking at ways to use food scraps and yard waste as alternatives to nitrogen fertilizer for crops. When processed, the leftovers and garden trimmings being diverted from state landfills might be effective substitutes, because they contain both nitrogen and carbon in forms that promote soil health.

They also provide a path for slowing climate change.

Many farmers have been wary of planting cover crops, despite the proven benefits, because they worry the additional vegetation in their fields and orchards would suck up precious water. But a new video explains recent research showing that’s not true: California fields planted with cover crops over the winter have about the same level of soil moisture.

The man who pioneered the field of genetic engineering for food crops has died. Raymond Carlyle Valentine, professor in the former Department of Agronomy and Range Science at UC Davis, was a visionary scientist who found new ways to increase crop yield and link academic research with commercial potential. He died March 9 in Davis, at the age of 86.

A celebration of life is planned for 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30, at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, 27074 Patwin Road, just west of Davis.

These greenhouses may look purple: In some cases, controlled, indoor agriculture has the lettuce growing out of panels hung vertically and illuminated with red and blue LED lights, instead of stretching out on horizontal tables under sunlit glass or plastic. To share the latest findings in growing food and medicine in indoor vertical and greenhouse environments, scientists from around the United States and Canada gathered recently at UC Davis, part of a working group organized through the United States Department of Agriculture.

Peach book guides growing quality fruit from planting to postharvestTwo scientists who love peaches recently met up at an experimental orchard a few miles west of campus. Thomas Gradziel plucked a nearly ripe nectarine from one of the trees, whipped out a pocket knife, and sliced off juicy chunks for Carlos Crisosto to taste. Both are experts in orchard crops in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences.

Doctoral student Marie Klein won the competition for best elevator talk describing her research at the recent annual meeting of the Center for Bioenergy Innovation, held in June in Asheville, N.C.

Scientists in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences have landed $2.1 million in federal grants to develop varieties of green beans, chile peppers and alfalfa that can offer farmers greater quality, lower production costs and better yield amid the growing heat and drought already happening with climate change.

The grants from the United States Department of Agriculture come through the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.

Red, ripe cherries hide in small clusters amid long leaves in the UC Davis teaching orchard. They’re sweet, juicy, beautiful. In area grocery stores, such delights cost up to $8 a pound, but these would have gone to the birds. They must be harvested by hand, and at the price of labor, they’re too expensive to pick, said orchard manager Victor Serratos of the Department of Plant Sciences.

Venkatesan Sundaresan, a plant reproduction biologist who specializes in rice, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Sundaresan has a dual appointment as a professor in the Department of Plant Sciences, in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and the Department of Plant Biology, College of Biological Sciences.

Plant biologist Eduardo Blumwald was named a 2023 Innovator of the Year for his team's discovery of a way to greatly reduce the amount of nitrogen fertilizer needed to grow cereal crops such as rice. He was among several people recognized by UC Davis this week for developing innovative solutions that improve the lives of others and address important global needs.