What flavors do you detect in a sip of lemon water? Are there notes of sweetness, sour, off flavors or fresh citrus taste? Scientists at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center and the USDA want to know every subtle taste sensation for a research project continuing over the next 18 months.
Participants will taste the major types of citrus to confirm that treatments used to eliminate pests in overseas shipments don't have an impact on fruit enjoyment. Lemon tasting will be followed by mandarins, navel and Valencia oranges, and grapefruit.
“This work is critical for the citrus industry,” said
Dedicated growers and research support from the University of California have made avocados a California success story. As part of the UC Global Food Initiative, which is channeling UC resources toward sustainably feeding the world's growing population, the California avocado experience can help alleviate food insecurity and poverty overseas.
Two UC Cooperative Extension specialists found a way to do that in Tanzania, Africa, where 69 percent of the population live below the poverty line and 16 percent of children under 5 are malnourished. In March 2017, UCCE biocontrol specialist Mark Hoddle and UCCE subtropical...
- Author: Iqbal Pittalwala
The lab of Mary Lu Arpaia, a Cooperative Extension subtropical horticulturalist with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) and the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences at UC Riverside, hosts an avocado tasting each month on the UCR campus. Attended typically by about 60 people, the tastings have grown in popularity over the years.
Eric Focht, a staff research associate in the Arpaia lab, helps organize the tastings; the guacamole he prepares specially for the occasion serves as an additional...
The San Joaquin Valley is the heart of California agriculture, but hasn't been a hospitable home for commercial avocado production. UC Cooperative Extension specialist Mary Lu Arpaia is conducting research to change that.
Avocados are native of semi subtropical high elevation rainforests in Mexico and Central America. A delicious and highly nutritious fruit, the cultivation of avocado has spread around the world. In California, growers are having commercial success in areas with year-round mild climates, such as San Diego and Ventura counties.
Though avocados are frost sensitive to be sure, it is not the cold winter climate that is the greatest impediment to avocado production...
- Author: Alec Rosenberg
I have limited cooking skills, so I’m lucky that my wife is a great cook and an even better baker – lemon bars, anyone?
But there’s one dish she prefers that I prepare: guacamole. I was thinking about this when I was reviewing our recent photo shoot at UC ANR’s South Coast Research and Extension Center in Irvine, which included images of strawberries, citrus and avocados.
UC’s nine research and extension centers support about 350 research projects, including avocado studies at South Coast. UC’s research is critical to keeping California’s $460 million avocado industry competitive....