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LinkedInPosts Tagged: Yolo County
In Search of the First Bumble Bee of the Year
What are you doing on New Year's Day? Well, weather permitting, you can begin searching for the first bumble bee of the year in the two-county area of Yolo and Solano. If you photograph it and you are judged the winner, a prize awaits you--in addition to bragging rights. The third annual Robbin...
A yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosenenskii, foraging on oxalis near the Benicia State Capitol grounds on Jan. 13, 2021. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A honey bee and a yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosenenskii, foraging on oxalis near the Benicia State Capitol grounds on Jan. 13, 2021. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus, foraging on rosemary on Jan. 25, 2020 on the grounds of the Benicia Capitol State Historic Park. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus, foraging on a rose on Jan. 25, 2020 in downtown Benicia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Davis Teen: How Those Pesky Mosquitoes Led to a Scientific Publication
Listen to ABC Channel 10 News, broadcast Dec. 22Seventeen-year-old Helena Leal doesn't like mosquitoes, but they like her. “I always get bitten by mosquitoes more often than my family and friends,” says the Davis High School senior. “I get fairly bad reactions to mosquito bites,...
Researcher and lead author Helena Leal, 17, a scholar at Davis High School, injects a sample of odorants trapped in a solid phase micro-extraction syringe intothe gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) in the Walter Leal lab at UC Davis. In back are chemical ecologist Walter Leal (right) and UC Davis student researcher Kaiming Tan. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Working on the mosquito cage assay are (from left) researchers Kaiming Tan, a UC Davis student in the Walter Leal lab; lead author Helena Leal of Davis High School, and UC Davis chemical ecologist Walter Leal. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Looking over mosquito specimens are (from left) UC Davis chemical ecologist Walter Leal and two members of the research team: daughter Helena Leal, lead author; and UC Davis student Kaiming Tan. Not pictured is UC Davis student researcher Justin K. Hwang. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Davis High School scholar Helena Leal addresses the crowd at the Mexican-American Yolo County Concilio Scholarship Dinner. At left is keynote speaker Carlos Saucedo of ABC Channel 10.(Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
'Know beans' about a delicious Thanksgiving
Beans are one of civilization's earliest cultivated crops, dating back to the early seventh millennium BCE. Today there are more than 40,000 varieties of beans worldwide.
Beans can also have a place on the Thanksgiving table. The Maple Spice blog for vegans shares a meat-free substitute for turkey that combines mashed white canelli beans, nutritional yeast, vital wheat gluten and spices to create a loaf that slices like turkey breast. UC CalFresh, one of the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources' nutrition education programs, developed a recipe for black bean and mango salad that makes a healthful and colorful accompaniment to a traditional Thanksgiving meal. (The recipe is below.)
"Not only are beans a healthy food choice, but they are also a healthy choice for our world," said UC Cooperative Extension advisor and dry bean expert Rachael Freeman Long. "Beans fix most of their own nitrogen so require fewer inputs for production compared to other sources of protein and they're cheap! Plus some, like garbanzos, are grown during the wintertime, so they're less dependent on irrigation."
The different varieties of beans include garbanzos (chickpeas) as well as black eyes, limas, and common beans like pintos and kidneys.
You probably won't find a bigger fan of beans than Rachael Long. "I eat them at least once a week or more," she said. "I love going on our Cal Beans website and getting new recipes. Summer time, I love beans on my salad, especially garbanzos. At this time of year, I love soups with beans. My favorite is the kale white bean sausage soup. If I want to go vegetarian, I'll leave out the sausage or sometimes fry up some tofu sausage for flavor. And, it just so happens that this is the soup in the current bean blog. I got the original recipe from one of our nutrition staff at our office."
Long says that Cal Beans is an important site for bean growers and industry folks, too. "It's supported by the California Dry Bean Advisory Board, an important funding source for my work. Right now, I have a grant to look at seed moisture and quality at harvest (possibly drying down seed too much at harvest results in internal injury to planting beans (seed stock)."
What do you know about beans? Do you know that California grows the canning quality beans?
"We have the perfect weather conditions for those large, creamy beige-colored beans," Long said. "Other states like Washington grow about 100,000 acres of garbanzos for humus (but a lower quality bean and we can't compete with their free water via rainfall."
California farmers supply virtually all of our country's dry lima beans, Long notes. In 2012, California farmers grew about 23,000 acres of baby and large limas, valued at $30 million that year, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Long has authored two UC ANR manuals about beans (Lima Bean Production in California and Common Dry Bean Production Manual) and is just finishing the garbanzo production manual (it's in peer review).
"Lima beans are a major dry bean crop for California, representing a significant portion of the total dry bean acreage in 2013," she wrote in the Lima Bean Production in California. "Lima beans are primarily grown for the dried edible white bean in California, although a limited but stable acreage is also for seed production. As with all dry beans, limas are a nutritional and healthy food choice, being an excellent source of protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Lima beans are also an important rotation crop for farmers because the plants fix nitrogen, add biomass to the soil, and require relatively few pesticides."
Lima beans belong to the species Phaseolus lunatus, distinct from the common bean, P. vulgaris.
"Common dry beans include the market classes kidney, cranberry, pink, black, white, yellow, pinto, and red, all of which are different types of a single species (Phaseolus vulgaris) that was originally domesticated several thousand years ago in the areas that are now Mexico and South America," Long wrote in the Common Dry Bean Production Manual. "Natural selection and breeding programs lead eventually to the current market classes, which are mainly distinguished by seed size, color, and shape, and plant growth habit. Currently, there are no commercially available genetically modified varieties of P. vulgaris."
"Dry beans," Long points out, "are grown in California mainly for human consumption, though a limited but stable acreage is dedicated to seed production. Dry beans are nutritious: they are high in starch, protein, and dietary fiber, they have no cholesterol, and they are an excellent source of iron, potassium, selenium, molybdenum, thiamine, vitamin B6, and folic acid. The U.S. Department of Agriculture considers dry beans to be both a vegetable and a protein source."
Rosane Oliveira, director of the UC Davis Integrative Medicine Program and an adjunct assistant professor in the UC Davis School of Medicine's Department of Health Sciences, recently praised beans as one of the "Fab 4" plant foods in her "21-Day Food Challenge" blog.
Beans are brilliant, Oliveira says, because they:
Indeed, there's even a National Bean Day, observed annually on Jan. 6. Want to know more about beans? You'll find a wealth of information about dry beans from the U.S. Dry Bean Council.
Bottom line: Beans should be an important part of your diet. You can call them "nutritious," you can call them "delicious," or you can call them "brilliant." They're all three.
Ingredients:
- 1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
- 2 cups peeled, pitted and diced fresh mango (about 2 small mangos)
- 1/4 cup sliced green onions
- 1/4 cup chopped bell pepper
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 2 tablespoons 100% orange juice
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Mix together all ingredients in a large bowl. Salad may be served right away, but is best if covered and chilled for a least 1 hour for flavors to blend.
How to Attract Pollinators to Your Garden
It's a great topic. Horticulture experts at the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden will join forces with the Yolo County Master Gardeners on Sunday, Sept. 24 to present a free workshop on "Pollinator Gardening." The event takes place from 10 a.m. to noon in the Arboretum Teaching Nursery on...
A monarch sips nectar from a tropical milkweed. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A male territorial long-horned bee targets a red admiral buttefly sipping nectar from a Mexican sunfower, Tithonia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A male long-horned bee buzzes across a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Beer for a Butterfly or 'Suds for a Bug'
It's almost that time again—time for the annual “Beer for a Butterfly” contest or “Suds for a Bug.” If you're out and about on Jan. 1, start looking for that cabbage white butterfly. But you're going to have to beat the sponsor, noted butterfly expert Art Shapiro, UC...
This is a cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
