California’s drought and bark-beetle infestation killed more than 129 million trees between 2012 and 2016 in the Sierra Nevada. But amid the devastation stood some survivors.

In an orange grove outside Exeter, California, workers climb aluminum ladders to pick fruit with expert speed. California produces 80 percent of the nation’s fresh oranges, tangerines and lemons, most of it in small Central California communities like these.

Postdoctoral scholar María Florencia Ercoli, a researcher in the laboratory of plant pathology professor Pamela Ronald, has been named to the 2019 class of Pew Latin American Fellows in Biomedical Sciences. Her research focuses on the strategies infectious bacteria use to invade plant hosts.

The National Academy of Sciences announced today (April 30) the election of 125 members, including UC Davis’ Pam Ronald, distinguished professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and Genome Center.

Of the 100 new national members, 40 are women — a record number and percentage in an academy election. This year’s class also includes 25 foreign associates. They join an academy that includes 190 Nobel Prize winners.

Plant pathology professor Dave Rizzo, the driving force behind a number of innovative student education programs at UC Davis, is being honored for his outstanding work in improving the undergraduate experience.

The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research has awarded more than $1.7 million to University of California, Davis, researchers to identify genes responsible for drought tolerance in rice and test a new energy-efficient food-drying process.

That’s what UC Irvine evolutionary biologist Brandon Gaut and UC Davis plant biologist Dario Cantu discovered in a study recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

10 public varieties in the pipeline

New science, education, and collaborations at the UC Davis Strawberry Breeding Program bode well for the quality and affordability of strawberry production in California. The expanding team of public breeders has launched large-scale yield and disease-resistance experiments on several farms throughout the state and will soon release a new, improved variety.