Plant Sciences

California’s San Joaquin Valley produces an enormous share of the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables. But it takes an unsustainable amount of groundwater to do it. New state rules aimed at reducing groundwater use are expected to force up to 20 percent of the valley’s irrigated fields out of production – a blow to farmers and communities.

As the school year wraps up, some students at the University of California, Davis, are celebrating more than their own accomplishments. They’re cheering on the budding scientists they’ve spent months mentoring through UC Davis EnvironMentors.

A wind-driven brush fire in Simi Valley could push east sending flames and smoke plumes into parts of Los Angeles, less than 18 months after catastrophic wildfires hit the communities of Altadena and Pacific Palisades. 

The lessons from those twin 2025 fires are still being learned as researchers from University of California, Davis, other institutions in the state and the country are working to understand the effect on air quality, human health and the environment. 

Even if you haven’t heard of Botrytis cinerea, you’ve likely seen it — slowly growing in your store-bought blueberries, tomatoes or even on your beautiful orchids. Commonly known as gray mold, the fungus attacks hundreds of plants. For years, scientists have unsuccessfully tried to breed crops that could resist the fungus. New research from the University of California, Davis, suggests decades of crop breeding strategies may have overlooked a crucial piece of the puzzle: the pathogen itself.

California’s processing tomato industry, for the first time this past harvest season, agreed to voluntary equipment cleaning and notification guidelines to prevent the spread of broomrape, a parasitic weed that attaches to roots and sucks out key nutrients. 

On a sunny day in early April, young wheat plants stood waist-high, their heads full of still-green grain. A walk along some furrows left pants and boots covered with a fine, orange dust. These plants in test fields near the UC Davis campus were bred to fight a stubborn pathogen that threatens the world’s wheat: stripe rust.

Plants have resources, and bacteria want them. Plants have gates on their leaves to keep the thieves out. But a nasty bug called Salmonella has figured out how to trick plants into opening up their safety gates so it can sneak in and live happily inside.

When people eat those contaminated leaves, they can get sick, sometimes severely. Because the bacteria are actually inside the leaves, they cannot be removed by washing.

UC Davis Global Affairs is offering a host of summer abroad options, including two new programs: Agriculture and the Environment in Colombia, and Brewing and Beer in Germany and Belgium.

When pistachio hulls split before the nuts are harvested, insects and fungi can get inside, damaging the nut, costing farmers money and contaminating the nuts. About 4% of the overall crop experiences hull split, but some cultivars can split as much as 40% under certain conditions.