Earth Day is April 22, 2008 - UC Cooperative Extension helps protect the planet
April 2008
In recent years, with increasing attention given to global climate change, thinking about environmental protection has become an American pastime. People plant trees, recycle trash, drive fuel-efficient cars, walk, bike ride or take public transportation. Efforts to preserve the environment are also taken everyday by UC scientists who are conducting research and supplying information to the California industry most closely tied to the earth - agriculture. UC is helping growers use earth-friendly farming practices, grow crops that could reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil and keep food safe while protecting water quality, among other things. UC also provides consumers with new ways to reduce their own carbon footprints. Following is a sampling of UC's planet-friendly projects in California.
- Home-grown tomatoes help reduce carbon footprint
- UC scientists look at new biofuel crop for California
- Bee-ing friendly to honey bees on Earth Day
- Food safety versus environmental protection
- Low carbon diet in California's future *
- Crop circles a sign of environmental stewardship in California
- Sustainable farming practices to enrich soils, reduce pollution *
Home-grown tomatoes help reduce carbon footprint
Many avid gardeners have read William Alexander's book, The $64.00 Tomato, in which he calculates the cost to produce 19 heirloom Brandywine tomatoes in his garden. On the contrary, UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener academic coordinator Pam Geisel believes a $1.99 plant, some time and tender, loving care can yield garden-fresh tomatoes valued at $25 or more. "Now, that may not be a fantastic return on your investment, but your neighborhood will love you and you'll help reduce your overall carbon footprint," Geisel said. "You reduce the costs of driving to the store, costs related to producing and shipping commercial tomatoes, and environmental costs contributing to global warming." Geisel offers simple tips to those who would like to try growing tomatoes. Start by finding a spot in the front or back yard that gets 6 to 8 hours of sunlight a day, is close to a source of water, and is in an area that you will walk by frequently. "If you plant your garden out of sight, it will be out of mind and that is when problems crop up," Geisel said. She suggests gardeners skip the vegetable transplant six-packs and instead purchase three or four tomato plants in four-inch pots. A few of the best producing and pest-resistant varieties are Sun Gold and Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes, and Early Girl and Ace VFN tomatoes, Geisel said. Tomato plants will need support. Larger size wire baskets surrounding the plants are the easiest. You can also encircle each plant with four-inch wire mesh or install 2-by-2 posts between each plant and string jute horizontally between the posts. Keep the plants evenly moist and fertilize every two to three weeks with an all purpose fertilizer, compost, fish meal or fish emulsion, and layer mulch around each plant to keep roots cool and evenly moist. For more information about growing tomatoes, contact the Master Gardener program in your county by visiting http://camastergardeners.ucdavis.edu. Tip by Pamela Geisel, (530) 754-6000, .
UC scientists look at new biofuel crop for California
When President Bush touted the potential of switchgrass for biofuel production in his 2006 State of the Union Address, California farmers might have felt left out. Scarcely a blade of switchgrass was growing in the state at that time. But UC Cooperative Extension scientists are now cultivating the potential biofuel crop in research plots at the Oregon border, on the UC Davis campus, in western Fresno County and in the southern desert near Mexico to study its feasibility for California. A native plant of the North American plains, the fast-growing perennial may be used to create cellulosic ethanol, a fuel derived when enzymes break down cell walls. (Corn ethanol is created with starch, rather than cellulose.) The UC research is aimed at answering basic production and economic questions about switchgrass. "There's a real basic question," said UC Davis Cooperative Extension alfalfa specialist Dan Putnam. "Does it make sense to grow biofuel crops under irrigation?" Putnam, the project's principal investigator, said growers will need to know the crop's yield potential, water needs, pest issues, variety variability and costs of production. UCCE cotton specialist Bob Hutmacher, who is assisting with the Fresno County study, said switchgrass may be an option for growers who would like to farm marginal lands with saline groundwater irrigation. "If an economic crop can be grown with those conditions, that would be a good fit," Hutmacher said. For more information contact Putnam at (530) 752-8982, dhputnam@ucdavis.edu, or Hutmacher at (559) 260-8957, . Tip by Jeannette Warnert, (559) 241-7514, .
Bee-ing friendly to honey bees on Earth Day
Celebrate Earth Day by planting a bee-friendly garden, suggests UC Davis Cooperative Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen. "Native plants that are important sources of nectar in California include the sages, wild buckwheat and the Christmas berry," Mussen says. Honey bees are especially attracted to a diverse garden, so plant 10 or more different species of plants that bees love. "Be sure that their foraging environment isn't contaminated with industrial pollutants, residues of agricultural pesticides or hydrocarbon emissions from vehicles," he adds. Also, don't select plants for your garden that are toxic to honey bees. They include the California buckeye, California corn lily, death camasand locoweeds. "Alkaloids in California buckeye pollen contaminate the nectar and cause the death or deformity of young bees, rendering them unable to walk or fly," Mussen says. For more information, contact Mussen at (530) 752-0472, . Tip by Kathy Keatley Garvey, (530) 754-6894, .
Food safety versus environmental protection
Protecting the earth is getting harder for growers on California's Central Coast, where the need to ensure food safety is in conflict with environmental rules aimed at improving water quality and wildlife habitat. In response to a number of food safety outbreaks - most recently an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak associated with bagged spinach in September 2006 that killed three people and sickened 200 others - some growers are removing conservation measures adjacent to croplands. In a survey of Central Coast growers published in the University of California's California Agriculture journal (April-June 2008), researchers found that 8 percent had crops rejected by buyers based on the presence of practices to improve water quality and wildlife habitat on the farm. Likewise, 15 percent of the growers (managing some 30,000 acres) had removed or discontinued the use of previously adopted conservation practices, including ponds and reservoirs, irrigation reuse systems, and noncrop vegetation buffers such as grassed waterways, riparian habitat, buffer strips and trees. However, authors Melanie Beretti of the Monterey County Resource Conservation District and Diana Stuart of UC Santa Cruz cite research showing that discouraging or actively removing such conservation practices could, in some cases, actually increase the risk of crop contamination. "Keeping produce as safe as possible is a critical goal," the authors write in California Agriculture. "However, the means to achieve this goal should be carefully investigated to insure that those measures actually reduce risks of crop contamination, do not increase other human health risks as a result of environmental degradation, and are cost-effective and practical to implement." For full text of the article, go to http://CaliforniaAgriculture.ucop.edu. Tip by Janet Byron, (510) 642-2431 Ext. 19, .
(ASI Initiative) Low carbon diet in California's future
This diet may not shed pounds, but it could help save the planet. Professor Tom Tomich, director of the UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute (ASI) and the statewide UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, is collaborating with other campus researchers on an analysis of a reduced carbon footprint diet - a life cycle assessment that measures energy and carbon emissions/green-house gases from farm to fork. The "food carbon footprint" team is calculating the energy and carbon emissions for specific food items, starting with rice and tomatoes, two popular Yolo County crops. Researchers know there are several sectors of the food system that use energy and create carbon emissions. The big ones are production, processing, distribution/transport, and then home preparation and waste. Tomich and other UC Davis team members, including ASI food systems analyst Gail Feenstra, are initially focusing on production to retail, but realize the rest of the system may be as much or more energy-intensive. "We want to measure the global warming potential of regional diets," Feenstra said. For more information, contact Tomich at (530) 574-2503, , or Feenstra at (530) 752-8408, . Tip by Lyra Halprin, (530) 752-8664, .
Crop circles a sign of environmental stewardship in California
It's common to see crop circles in fly-over country. Midwest farmers have used overhead center-pivot irrigation systems since they were introduced in the 1950s. But in California, the technology didn't take hold - until now. UC Davis Cooperative Extension specialist Jeff Mitchell is studying the use of the irrigation system that creates distinctive circular green fields at the UC West Side Research and Extension Center near Five Points. Center-pivot irrigation didn't prosper in California for a variety of reasons, Mitchell said. The technology wasn't able to deliver enough water for plants sweltering in the valley's summer heat and water didn't infiltrate quickly enough to prevent runoff. Enter conservation tillage, a farming practice that reduces or eliminates tilling the soil. Instead of tilling, crops are planted in the residue of a previous season crop or a cover crop. The residue keeps the soil more porous, allowing for quicker water infiltration. In addition, the dead plant material on the soil surface reduces evaporation, so farmers don't need to apply as much water. In the eight-acre West Side research plot, scientists are studying crop productivity, water use efficiency, economics and potential for reducing dust emissions. They will compare the results with crops grown under alternative practices, such as no-till production in a standard furrow-irrigated field and a furrow-irrigated plot managed with standard tillage practices. For more information, contact Mitchell at (559) 646-6565, . Tip by Jeannette Warnert, (559) 241-7514, .
(ASI Initiative) Sustainable farming practices to enrich soils, reduce pollution
California is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the United States, of which an estimated 6 percent of carbon dioxide and 59 percent of nitrous oxide emissions are from agricultural activities. The adoption of subsurface drip irrigation, which decreases water use and has the potential to cut greenhouse gas emissions, is increasing in the Central Valley but still is less than 15 percent of all irrigation, according to Will Horwath, UC Davis professor of soil biogeochemistry. Furrow irrigation, which is the most common irrigation practice in California row crop systems, wets the entire soil profile creating ideal conditions to emit nitrous oxide as the soil dries between irrigations. Subsurface drip irrigation limits the water delivery to a small area, which reduces the activity of soil microorganisms and processes related to trace gas emissions. Horwath is the coordinator of the Sustainable Agriculture Farming Systems (SAFS) project, which has looked at reduced tillage, drip irrigation and other sustainable farming practices for almost 20 years. SAFS researchers hope that fall 2007 results on the economics of drip irrigation will help growers evaluate the benefits of alternative irrigation systems. Also, a new grant will allow researchers to look at the water-cleansing effects of cover crops under reduced tillage practices. For more information, contact Horwath at (530) 754-6029, wrhorwath@ucdavis.edu. Tip by Lyra Halprin, (530) 752-8664, .
Media Contacts:
Lyra Halprin, (530) 752-8664,