http://www.water.ca.gov/news/newsreleases/2013/121713.pdf

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) has mobilized a new drought management effort to prepare for and reduce potential impacts of what is expected to be a third straight dry year in 2014.

DWR Director Mark Cowin said the department is focusing its personnel and programs “to offset potentially devastating impacts to citizen health, well-being and our economy.”

Cowin has appointed Bill Croyle to lead the effort as department drought manager. Croyle has 30 years of experience in water operations, including seven years as DWR’s flood operations chief and 23 years with the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Jeanine Jones, DWR’s interstate resources manager, was appointed deputy drought manager. A 30-year DWR veteran, Jones has directed the department’s statewide planning program and worked on climate change adaptation programs.

Among DWR’s principal concerns is the plight of farmers who must operate with markedly less water than needed for crops. Especially vulnerable to dry conditions will be farmers –and the farm communities that depend on agricultural jobs — on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. DWR will also be watching for drinking water impacts in small rural communities whose fractured rock groundwater sources will be stressed by a third dry year.

Today, Tuesday, December 17, DWR is conducting an agricultural drought-preparedness
workshop for agriculture professionals at California State University, Fresno. The workshop is being held in Alice Peters Auditorium from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Topics include statewide water conditions and preparing for a dry 2014; State Water Project (SWP) supplies; ground water conditions; water transfers for 2014; pumping efficiency preparedness for drought conditions, and getting by with less water in orchards and vineyards.

In addition, at a January 7 meeting of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture, the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) and DWR will be discussing additional actions by the state to address drought conditions and impacts.

Director Cowin noted that DWR is working with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the
SWRCB to expedite transfers of water from areas with relative abundance to locations with
critical water needs.

“Voluntary water transfers will be key to DWR’s drought response, as they hold the potential to alleviate critical shortages,” Cowin said. “We are making arrangements to bring additional resources with expertise in water transfers to advise the Drought Management Team to assure that the 2014 water transfers approval process is administered efficiently.”

DWR has released a schedule and process for streamlining water transfers in 2014, as directed by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s May 20 executive order. “We will continue to work with voluntary buyers, sellers, the State Water Resources Control Board and the Bureau of Reclamation to ensure an efficient process,” Cowin said.

California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross complimented DWR on its efforts to respond quickly. “While 2014 water allocations are not finalized until spring, farmers and ranchers make key decisions in January and February,” said Secretary Ross. “By acting now to streamline water transfers and provide clarity, the administration is helping our agricultural communities prepare for the coming water year.”

Cowin last month announced an initial water allocation of only five percent of requested
deliveries to SWP contractors in 2014. The initial allocation is a conservative estimate of what DWR expects it can deliver as a percentage of the total amount requested by the public water agencies that contract for SWP deliveries. “We hope things improve with this winter’s storms,” Cowin said in making the initial allocation, “but there is no guarantee that 2014 won’t be our third consecutive dry year.”

Supplementing the water transfer program, DWR is working with the Bureau of Reclamation and the federal and state wildlife agencies to improve Delta operations next summer to enhance water delivery capability while meeting endangered species protections.

Cowin said DWR recognizes there will be regional impacts due to dry conditions next year. “It’s still early in the water year,” he said. “The January and February snow surveys will allow us to evaluate water conditions on a statewide basis. As we monitor water conditions, we will consider actions to be included in a potential governor’s drought proclamation.”

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With the holiday season now fully upon us, I’d like to take moment to suggest a gift you may not have considered – the California Agriculture License Plate. This is an excellent way to show support for California agriculture while participating in a program that actually gives back. A portion of Ag license plate fees provides funding for agricultural education programs that are crucial to our future.

These programs are important for several reasons. The disconnect between consumers and the farming community has grown over the decades as fewer and fewer people have been involved in production agriculture.  Fortunately, there is a renewed interest by consumers to know where their food comes from, how it is produced and who produced it.  This provides an opportunity to help people understand the unique advantages we enjoy because of the bountiful diversity California agriculture provides to this state, our nation and, increasingly, the world.  Agricultural education programs introduce our young people to the wide variety of exciting career opportunities available throughout the agricultural production system in addition to environmental stewardship, leadership skills, community service and making nutritious food choices.

Just last week, I had a fabulous visit to the FFA Chapter at Pioneer High School in Woodland.  The chapter is the state’s second largest (850 students) and continues to see dramatic growth.  The officers who escorted me around campus were smart, articulate, confident and enthusiastic! The hands-on learning and leadership development they are exposed to in addition to rigorous studies have already equipped these young people with life-long traits that any employer would value.  Because of students like these, I am very optimistic about our future and our ability to double food production to feed a fast-growing world population that is expected to number nine-billion people by 2050.

Our future is in good hands if we pay attention to our food production infrastructure.  It starts with Ag education programs like 4-H, FFA, Ag in the Classroom and many other worthy programs.

So, please, take a look at the agriculture specialty license plate for the holidays. You’ll help raise agricultural awareness and help us prepare future generations to enter an honorable profession.

California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. has sent the following letter about the Farm Bill to Congressional leadership in Washington D.C.

CDFA’s Report a Pest mobile app–available on iPhone and Droid operating systems–has been nominated by the web site govfresh as the Civic App of the Year. Please help us win by casting a vote for us!

CDFA is pleased to announce the California Farm to Fork web site, a place to highlight programs and projects that focus on sourcing, marketing and increasing the use of California crops.

The web site features links to a page that shows what crops grow in certain regions at specific times of the year, and also profiles local efforts to increase access to healthy foods at various locations throughout the state. As the site evolves, it will include additional information and resources about California crops as well as other agricultural products, like grains, meats and dairy.

The web site was introduced by CDFA’s Farm-to-Fork Office, an interagency initiative with the California Department of Public Health and California Department of Education. The agencies are working together to help all Californians eat healthy, well-balanced meals.

We hope this site will connect consumers, school districts, and other groups directly with California’s farmers and ranchers, and also provide additional information about our state’s magnificent bounty. Our goal is to increase access to healthy, nutritious food for everyone in the state.

By Todd Fichette

Could the recent cold snap in California’s San Joaquin Valley have been just what the doctor ordered for citrus industry officials worried about discoveries of the Asian citrus psyllid? Only time will tell.

A study published in the Journal of Insect Science,conducted by David G. Hall, Erik J. Wenninger, and Matthew G. Hentz, sought to determine how cold is too cold for the tiny disease-vectoring pest. Hall and Hentz are with the USDA-ARS in Fort Pierce, Fla., and Wenninger from the University of Idaho, Twin Falls Research and Extension Center.

Several experiments subjected adult ACP and their nymphs to freezing temperatures for periods of time in greenhouse situations. Eggs from outdoor colonies were also tested in Petri dishes held at freezing temperatures.

Results of the studies suggest that temperatures similar to what was seen in the current freeze event in the San Joaquin Valley could have a lethal effect on the ACP. The scientific studies showed psyllid mortality after adults were subjected to temperatures of -4.5C (23.9F) or colder for several hours.

Not only did temperatures in the San Joaquin Valley reportedly reached lows as cold as 17 degrees in some locations, temperatures in some locations – particularly Sunday night (Dec. 8) into Monday morning (Dec. 9) – were below freezing for as much as 14 hours, according to some reports.

Temperatures of 17 degrees for as little as two hours in the controlled studies showed complete mortality of non-acclimated adult psyllids. It is important to note that these were targeted scientific research studies; citrus growers were doing everything in their power to increase orchard temperatures and avoid fruit damage.

According to one study done in a temperature-controlled greenhouse, few adult psyllids died when exposed to temperatures of -4.5C (23.9F) or colder for “several hours,” but more did die when exposed to these temperatures for longer periods of time. Mortality occurred slowly over three to four days, the study says.

Egg and nymph mortality studies were promising as well. One experiment subjected eggs and nymphs to temperatures ranging from the upper teens to low 20s Fahrenheit. Nymph mortality of near 95 percent was seen in as little as four hours at -8.2C (17.24F), to eight hours at -5.5C (22.1F).

While the study does indicate a hard freeze can have lethal impacts on the ACP – this is a good thing in the long-term – the resulting fruit damage in the short-term is obviously not good for growers. Still, the big question remains: have the small number of psyllids discovered in the San Joaquin Valley thus far been able to vector Huanglongbing in local commercial orchards? That answer won’t be known for several years.

Link to the article : http://westernfarmpress.com/blog/could-california-freeze-be-good-thing-acp-fight

NOTE – CDFA asks residents and growers in freeze areas to remain vigilant in their search for Asian citrus psyllids, as the studies mentioned were conducted in a greenhouse and conditions could be different than a field environment.   

By Reed Fujii

If you keep animals and they die, state animal health experts will examine the remains and report on the cause of death.

For a cow, pig or rabbit, the state laboratory charge is about $120.

For small pets, the fee is higher, nearly $195 for rodents such as hamsters and gerbils and $495 for cats and dogs.

But for a chicken or duck, the autopsy is free.

The little-known program is increasingly popular, the California Animal Health and Food Safety lab reports in the current October-December issue of California Agriculture, a University of California journal.

One or two birds may be submitted for a free necropsy (the term for a nonhuman autopsy) by owners of backyard poultry: chickens, turkeys, waterfowl or other birds raised for food.

In the six years through 2012, the program has received nearly 2,800 backyard poultry for analysis, about 14 percent of all birds from individual and commercial sources. And in each of those years, paralleling the growing popularity of keeping chickens at home, the number of birds from backyard flocks has grown, reaching 835 in 2012 compared with 173 in 2007, the researchers report.

Cherie Sintes-Glover, a 4-H poultry project leader in San Joaquin County and an expert on keeping chickens, said the state Backyard Flock program can help poultry owners quickly diagnose problems that may arise.

“It’s a great resource for the backyard chicken growers,” she said. “It provides them a report, and they can actually talk to a clinician or a doctor who performed the necropsy and get details on what they found. … They will actually help you find out what’s going on with your chickens.”

The program, which costs the state about $130,000 a year, protects both California’s multimillion-dollar poultry industry and, more importantly, public health, said Dr. Annette Jones, state veterinarian and director of Animal Health and Food Safety.

It’s really an early warning system – a canary in a coal mine, if you will – against avian-borne diseases that may emerge in backyard flocks.

“Generally what happens is these diseases come in through someone who, maybe not maliciously, smuggles in a parrot or a chicken; and it was in his backyard for a while; and then it spreads to the neighbor’s chickens; and it gets to a certain level and just explodes,” Jones said Friday.

“It’s like a forest fire. If you let that fire get to a certain size, … it’s very difficult to destroy it. It can affect millions and millions of birds.”

That most recently occurred in late 2002, when exotic Newcastle disease, a dreaded avian virus, was discovered in a Southern California backyard poultry flock. It was eventually found at thousands of sites, including commercial poultry farms. Before being eradicated, more a million birds were destroyed, and the cost was more than $160 million.

“That was horrible,” Jones said, recalling that she was in charge of the state’s response to the outbreak.

The agency is also on the lookout for signs of a bird flu or avian influenza, which many scientists warn could trigger a global flu outbreak on the scale of the 1918 pandemic.

“That, really honestly, is what our backyard bird program is aimed at – to be able to find and get rid of that virus if it comes into California,” Jones said.

While backyard flocks are generally not allowed in residential areas in Stockton or unincorporated San Joaquin County, they are legal in county areas with larger lots, such as rural residential zones. Residents of other cities should check with their local planning or code enforcement officials.

The testing labs nearest to San Joaquin County are in Davis and Turlock.

For more information about the program and instructions on how to submit poultry for testing – sorry, they do not return the remains – call the toll-free hot line, (866) 922-BIRD (922-2473).

Link to article – http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20131207/A_BIZ/312070320/-1/A_BIZ

The hyper-local food trend is really big right now. And apparently, NASA wants to make sure astronauts don’t miss out. The agency recently announced plans to grow cress, turnips and basil on the moon.

And to protect the plants from the harsh cosmic radiation and the moon’s lack of atmosphere, NASA researchers will be sending them off inside a seriously high-tech terrarium.

This could be good news for future space explorers: NASA’s Mars simulation has already proved that people can only deal with so much freeze-dried food. But while astronauts will probably appreciate the fresh veg, NASA says the real goal of this experiment is to see if humans could one day live — and farm — on the moon.

“This will be the very first life science experiment performed in deep space,” says plant scientistBob Bowman, one of the researchers behind the project. “Our goal is to show that the living organism can thrive in what really is a hostile environment,” he tells The Salt.

But growing plants on the moon won’t be easy. The moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth — and the plants that NASA sends up there will have to deal with that, as well as facing extreme temperatures and harsh radiation.

“The moon’s a weird place,” Bowman says. “On the side that’s facing the sun, the surface temperature is about 150 degrees Fahrenheit. On the other side, it’s negative 150 degrees.”

he plant habitat that Bowman and his colleagues have designed contains seeds, as well as a nutrient-rich paper and enough air and water for the seeds to germinate and grow. The canister also has features that regulate light and temperature, and cameras that the researchers will use to track the plants’ progress over five to 10 days.

The entire thing is about the size of a coffee canister, and it weights only one kilogram. It’ll be hitching a ride on the Moon Express lander, a commercial spacecraft enrolled in the Google Lunar X Prize that’s set to launch sometime in 2015.

Till then, the researchers will be putting the canister through rigorous testing. They also hope to get school kids across America involved, by encouraging them to build their own canisters.

Bowman says this is just the first step. “Someday,” he says, “what we learn from this and the follow-up experiments will enable us to live in deep space.”

More at http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/12/03/248373683/moon-turnips-nasa-takes-gardening-to-new-heights