Construction officially began on the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Center for Agricultural Innovation with a groundbreaking event on May 29, celebrating the future $64.4 million facility at the University of California, Davis.
Restoration and resilience of California forests will benefit from the research of two graduate students whose projects have received state funding. Jennifer Cribbs and Nina Venuti are graduate students studying with Andrew Latimer, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences.
As growers face continued reductions in water available to irrigate crops, and while the world needs more food produced and more protein in particular, alfalfa offers an attractive option. It yields remarkedly well under reduced irrigation, and its protein can be consumed by both animals and people.
Strawberries – luscious, beautiful and fragrant – figure in spring and summer traditions around the world. At UC Davis, the Strawberry Breeding Program is an important source for varieties that meet the needs of growers with different weather and soils, grown amid changing conditions of climate, water and market.
Graduate student Paige Kouba discussed her research with California legislators as part of a program to train scientists to better communicate with policy-makers. Kouba met with Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar Curry (D-Winters) and other legislative leaders at the state Capitol recently. Her goal is to inform science policy coming out of Sacramento.
Northwest of Los Angeles, springtime brings native wildflowers to bloom in the Santa Monica Mountains. These beauties provide food for insects, maintain healthy soil and filter water seeping into the ground – in addition to offering breathtaking displays of color.
Grey Monroe has received a CAREER Award for the Faculty Early Career Development Program from the National Science Foundation. Monroe is an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences.
Rangelands scientist Leslie Roche is helping ranchers and rangeland managers meet those challenges. Her work has gotten a boost: She recently was named the Russell L. Rustici Endowed Specialist in Cooperative Extension in Rangeland Watershed Science.
Researchers have sequenced the whitebark pine genome, presenting new opportunities to help the threatened, high-altitude tree endure environmental challenges.
California wheat farmers could maintain their yields and improve soil health by growing annual wheat without tilling the soil year after year. This strategy could encourage farmers to adopt a sustainable practice commonly called conservation tillage, no-till or minimum-till cultivation.
