Fresno County has ripped out more than 6,000 acres of wine grapes as part of a trend to reduce the crop’s acreage across California.

Exciting opportunity in Davis, CA for University of California Davis Health System as a Assistant...

Where Ojai Vineyard winemaker Adam Tolmach once grew grapes with household names, he planted hybrid varieties no consumer had ever heard of. Now he's making pioneering new wines.

Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For

Table grapes have high production costs partly due to laborious picking and packing practices. Mechanized harvest is not yet feasible for whole table grape clusters, but it might be suitable for “fresh cut” (destemmed) table grapes if mechanical damage could be minimized. Preharvest application of methyl jasmonate (MeJA) and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-caboxylic acid (ACC) activate the abscission zone of some grape varieties, improving harvestability and reducing harvest wounds, but effects on postharvest quality of destemmed berries are unknown. Sheegene-12 and Autumn King table grapes treated with 3 mM MeJA and 500 to 750 ppm ACC were destemmed and berry condition evaluated at harvest, and after two and four weeks of postharvest storage. Treatments improved harvestability and reduced destemming wounds of both varieties and generally improved the quality of Sheegene-12 berries at harvest, and after postharvest storage. However, treated Autumn King berries became darker, and more yellow-colored in storage, which is undesirable.

Early September lightning outbreak brings many wildfires, with some damage, but lack of NorCal drought prevents worse outcome The month of September started with a bang--or, rather, the near-constant rumble of thunder from thousands of lightning strikes amid an intense thunderstorm outbreak that affected a broad portions of interior central and much of northern California.

A significant proportion of flowers in crop plants fail to produce seeds, particularly under heat and drought stress. This outcome reflects a regulated developmental process of reproductive abortion, shaped by a complex interplay of genetic, hormonal, and environmental factors that limit crop yield. Unlike abscission, reproductive abortion can occur at multiple developmental stages. In this review, we examine how internal and external cues disrupt the development of florets, ovules, embryos, and seeds in major food crops, including cereals, legumes, and brassicas, under both optimal and stress conditions. Drawing from research in arabidopsis and extending to crop systems, we identify conserved and crop-specific mechanisms, highlight critical knowledge gaps, and propose strategies to enhance reproductive resilience and seed set under abiotic stresses.

Grape Day at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center – a time-honored learning event dating to the late 1960s.