california

• By Vicky Boyd, Editor • Despite delays caused by permitting and rain, Northern California rice producer and fifth-generation farmer Bill Weller finally began realizing his dream of producing farm-to-glass craft beers in his own brewery in January. The 40-barrel Farmers Brewing...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has issued an executive order that would ban the sale of new gas-powered passenger cars and light duty trucks by 2035. Any new sales after the deadline would have to be 100% zero-emission vehicles. In the...

• By Luis Espino • I have been getting quite a few questions regarding blast, mostly from Glenn and Colusa counties. It seems that 2020 will be a year with significant blast pressure. Under California conditions, blast can be observed in...

• By Bruce Linquist • The period between panicle initiation (PI) and heading is critical with respect to grain formation. During this time, cold temperatures can result in pollen sterility as the plants go through meiosis. Pollen sterility results in...

The University of California Cooperative Extension Rice Team has developed a series of fact sheets to simplify and convey information about important topics that they frequently discuss with growers and pest control advisers. Each fact sheet is two pages...

Matthew Sligar wears many hats: California rice producer, video blogger, husband and father, to name a few. Now he can add children’s book author to his growing list of job titles. About three years after Sligar came up with the...

Lost markets and lost off-farm income related to the COVID-19 pandemic have proven doubly difficult for many California farmers and ranchers, according to a survey by the California Farm Bureau Federation. More than half of the farmers responding to the...

• By Bruce Linquist • This morning, I was out with several members of our research team on the northwest side of the Sacramento Valley planting a variety trial. The grower we were working with had just finished planting all...

California researchers continue work to unravel armyworm dynamics and trapping results. • By Vicky Boyd, Editor • Dr. Luis Espino, a University of California Cooperative Extension rice systems adviser, had hoped pheromone traps could provide an early warning system for true armyworm...

International conference highlights the need to remain proactive against weedy rice. • By Luis Espino • This February, I had the opportunity to travel to Pelotas, Brazil, to attend the Seventh International Temperate Rice Conference. The meeting brings together temperate rice-producing...

Buried deep below the soil surface, groundwater may be out of sight. Increasingly, though, the natural resource is anything but out of mind. Several efforts, both voluntary and regulatory, are ongoing to try to reduce groundwater overdraft and increase recharge....

Despite storms that dumped several inches of snow on the Sierra Nevada over March, California's snowpack only remains slightly more than half of average. That's important because it supplies about 30% of California’s annual water needs as it melts...

Continue to keep eyes peeled for weedy rice in California fields. • By Vicky Boyd, Editor • The amount of California rice ground infested with weedy rice hovers around 14,000 acres, leading experts to believe that pest control advisers and growers are...

The Bureau of Reclamation recently announced the initial 2020 water supply allocation for Central Valley Project contractors within California. Allocation amounts are based on an estimate of water available for delivery to CVP water users and reflects current reservoir...

About 9,000 baby salmon have been placed into winter-flooded Sacramento Valley rice fields as part of the second year of the California Rice Salmon Pilot Project. The fish are in eight specially prepared test plots in a living scientific experiment...