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February 12 Annual UCCE Strawberry Production Research Meeting Announcement
Hi folks, the 2025 UCCE Annual Strawberry Production Research meeting will take place this year February 12 at the Arts Building at the Santa Cruz County Fairground. Agenda in English and Spanish is attached below, we have a really great line up of speakers so this is an event that strawberry people do not want to miss.
I'm getting a huge assist from the California Strawberry Commission to pull this off, and it's much appreciated to get this help.
Continuing education hours have been arranged for, looking at 3 hours total, with 0.5 hours of those being for laws and regs.
Translation will be available for Spanish speakers, and which will be provided by Diego Celes of Transagro.
M.E.A. McNeil, The Bees, and The Bee Club
When you read the newly published novel, Bee Club, (Nervous Ghost Press) by M.E.A....
Worker bees cleaning queen bee cells. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Journalist M.E.A. McNeil interviewing "Bug Chef" David George Gordon at a UC Davis event on Nov. 1, 2014. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Does Early Flower Removal Actually Result in Higher Fruit Yield in Strawberry?
I had a great conversation earlier today with a grower concerning the effect to strawberry fruit productivity of removing the emerging flowers in the early winter months of the season. Beautiful field by the way, good strong plants, nice and green.
Many people working in strawberries on the Central Coast believe that removal of the flowers will keep the plant vegetative since it removes the energy burden of flower and fruit production. Subsequently, the thought continues, the plant will be bigger and more productive later on. It's good logic sure, but it isn't standing up to the cold lens of purely objective scientific investigation.
In the investigation I did over two years in four fields total with two of our finest growers, I found that plant size did not vary significantly from the flower removal and fruit production beyond March and April did not vary either. What's more, since fruit production in May, June, July and August was so much larger than those two months in the day-neutral strawberry varieties in this study, it totally damped out any effect on season total yields that early removal of flowers would have had.
I've included the paper below I wrote in 2023 covering this research project about the effect of early flower removal along with a closer evaluation at the influence of crown size on total plant performance.
It was a good study, have a look.
horttech-article-p342
An Afternoon in the Lepidoptera Collection
What's his number? 2,530. That's how many specimen drawers that Jeff Smith, volunteer curator...
Jeff Smith (foreground), curator of the Bohart Museum of Entomology's global Lepidoptera, chats with guests. In back is Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Jeff Smith (foreground), curator of the Lepidoptera collection, holds the rapt attention of three retirees: Susan Knadle (left) and her husband Chuck Salocks of Davis and Carrye Cooper of Redondo Beach. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bohart Museum associate Greg Kareofelas with two UC Davis students: Emily Anne Richter (left), a chemistry major, and Lalinna Naini, majoring in environmental toxicology. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bohart Museum associate Greg Kareofelas shows butterfly specimens to UC Davis students: Emily Anne Richter (right), a chemistry major, and Lalinna Naini, majoring in environmental toxicology. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
UC Davis entomology major Oliver Smith, the greeter at the Lepidoptera collection, thanks two guests for attending. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bumble Bee Contest Is Over!
The 2025 bumble bee contest is over. Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of...
