Varieties include drought-resistant, more flavorful, insect-repellent strawberry breeds

UC Davis’ multimillion dollar Strawberry Breeding Program continues to innovate new breeds of strawberries to improve upon taste, quality and disease resistance.

At any given time, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and faculty members work on thousands of strawberry strains. These scholars are currently growing 68 experimental varieties at Elkhorn Berry Farms in Watsonville, CA. Nine breeds of strawberries developed through UC Davis’ program are grown commercially in Monterey.

The program uses natural breeding techniques to create new strains of strawberries targeting certain traits that the program’s scientists hope to improve, such as flavor or drought-tolerance.

“Part of our charge is to also start bringing other [molecular genetic] tools to strawberry breeding. That could mean fingerprinting and also identifying genes that affect different traits like disease resistance or food quality,” said Glen Cole, staff research associate for the Strawberry Breeding Program.

Strawberries are highly susceptible to soil-borne pathogens, and farmers previously relied on methyl bromide to protect their harvests, which has been recently outlawed. In response to the banning of the fumigant, the Strawberry Breeding Program developed a berry with improved genetic resistance to soil-borne disease. Other experiments will focus on making the berry more drought-tolerant and disease and insect repellent.  

The program also worked to improve the quality and taste of the berries.

“We’ll be conducting consumer surveys and working with sensory panels from the Robert Mondavi Institute to make sure all our varieties are full of flavor,” said postdoctoral scholar Julia Harshman. “Flavor reigns in apple breeding. I want to bring that same attention to taste to strawberries.”

Director of the program Dr. Steven Knapp recently made improvements on the Strawberry Breeding Program, including hiring additional program staff and organizing the construction of a new lab this coming fall to assist with complex DNA work. The revitalization will allow an expansion and even more research to be completed.

Some of the strawberry varieties developed specifically focused on sustainable growth, helping to put UC Davis at the forefront of the industry.

Tom AmRhein, a member of the California Strawberry Commission, noted that the strides UC Davis makes within its Strawberry Breeding Program benefit growers across the entire berry-growing industry.

“Growers are happy about the new focus and positive energy the team is bringing to the program. And because everything they develop is available to all strawberry growers, it protects the viability and sustainability of the whole industry,” AmRhein said in a press release.

Despite lawsuits in the past, the UC Davis Strawberry Breeding Program continues to produce new breeds of berries that work to improve the industry.

“California produces 80-plus percent of the strawberries that are consumed in the United States. The industry is also a world-wide industry and traditionally the UC program has provided genetics and cultivars that are used around the world,” Cole said. “It’s all about impacting and helping the strawberry industry.”

Written by: Lindsay Floyd – campus@theaggie.org

Project focuses on emphasizing the importance of the solar power plant on campus and educating students on environmental sustainability

In April, volunteers from the Sustainable Resources Operations (SRO) club and staff at the Carbon Neutrality Initiative, the UC system’s commitment to emitting net zero greenhouse gases by 2025, completed a large-scale chalk outline in a loop around campus encompassing 62 acres of land, modeling the size of the solar power plant on the south end of campus.

The chalking consisted of large yellow suns hand-drawn at regular intervals along the path. There were roughly 12 sign designs with questions and answers providing fun facts about the solar farm, which were posted along the route on trees and light poles.

The groups set up a tabling display outside the ASUCD Coffee House by the Quad and invited students to walk at least part of the drawn-out route. Anyone that came back with at least two answers to questions from the signs received a free donut.

The purpose of this display was to spread awareness of the presence and importance of the solar power plant on UC Davis’ campus.

“I don’t know how well known it is among the UC Davis students that our campus has undertaken the Carbon Initiative Program that commits the University to emitting zero-net greenhouse gases from its buildings and vehicle fleet by 2025,” said Monica Gonzales, a second-year environmental policy and planning major who is a member of SRO and helped coordinate the project.

UC Davis’ 16.3 megawatt-sunpower solar power plant has been up and running since 2015, and generates up to 14 percent of the university’s electricity. It is the largest solar installation in the UC system and the largest “behind-the-meter” solar plant on a U.S. college campus offsetting electricity demand. It is expected to reduce the campus’ carbon footprint by 9 percent.

“The solar power plant, a step towards executing this goal, had opened earlier this year but a lot people were still not aware of its existence,” Gonzales said. “So our project was a way of bringing the solar power plant to students, and making them aware of not just the solar plant itself but also how it is that our campus is getting our energy.”

Zachary Ramalingam, a first-year sustainable environmental design major and member of the SRO, believes that the aim of the project was to recognize the size and impact of the UC Davis power plant.

“Our goal was to raise awareness for the solar farm, and do our best to make people care,” Zachary said. “The solar farm deserves recognition as the largest of its kind in the whole UC system.”

Along with other purchases of solar and hydroelectric energy, the plant is part of UC Davis’ plan to obtain 60 percent of its electricity from renewable and carbon-free sources by 2017, which is ahead of a state goal of 50 percent by 2020.

According to Jordan Ramalingam, fourth-year environmental policy analysis and planning major as well as president of SRO, a project like this is necessary to not only encourage environmentally conscious people to help make a change, but also to show that everyone has the ability to take action.

“Energy conservation and water conservation, for that matter, will not have a meaningful impact if only environmentally-minded individuals are taking action,” Jordan said. “Issues of sustainability need to be made practical and inviting to people who otherwise wouldn’t care, and this project was one way to reach this population.”

Written by: Demi Caceres – campus@theaggie.org

Comparative literature and cultural studies graduate groups call for Hexter’s immediate suspension

Recently, graduate groups in the comparative literature and cultural studies departments at UC Davis sent out letters opposing the appointment of Acting Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter. The 21 total signees include graduate students, teaching assistants and doctoral students from all levels.

Both letters specify why Hexter should be immediately suspended and demand a free, democratic election of the new chancellor. The three points detailed in the letters include Hexter’s role in the privatization of UC Davis, his involvement in incidents such as the 2011 pepper spray incident and his undemocratic appointment.

The graduates not only accuse Hexter of condoning the violations that Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi is being investigated for, but also criticize him for encouraging and supporting actions toward the privatization of public universities like UC Davis.

“We call for the immediate suspension of Hexter’s appointment as chancellor and demand a free election on the basis of equal undergraduate, graduate, and faculty (both senate and temporary lecturers) participation to determine which figure (or figures) most appropriately represent our public community against the encroachment of private interests whose damage to the university’s reputation and public commitment is already so severe,” both letters stated.

Amy Riddle, a doctoral student in comparative literature and a parent of two children, said that she has been affected by the reallocation of Orchard Park to Solano Park. She believes the move is an effect of reduced availability of family student housing under the administrations of both Katehi and Hexter. She said that continually attending organized protests and meetings to keep rent from increasing and to prevent the closure of Solano Park has taken a toll on her teaching, studies and children.

“As a parent of two, my life as a graduate student at UC Davis has been extremely difficult under Katehi,” Riddle said via email. “Katehi and Hexter are responsible for the increased privatization of this university, including the planned redevelopment of family housing that will lead to a significant increase in rent for student families, and most likely more cuts for childcare support for student families.”

Anna Einarsdottir, a graduate student in comparative literature, said that she has not only been financially affected by the closure of family student housing, but also deplores the administration for the direction it is taking toward a less diverse UC Davis student body.

“UC Davis under Katehi’s control has cut down childcare support for student families and completely cancelled all support for undergraduate student families,” Einarsdottir wrote via email. “Katehi’s response to issues raised around the fairness of this has been very negative and she seems simply not to care that this will keep people with children to support away from Davis. This, in turn, will lead to [a] less diverse student population.”

Similar to their criticism of Katehi, the graduates accuse Hexter of criminalizing and suppressing resistance on campus through UC Davis’ policies and actions. Both letters cite cases, such as the infamous pepper spray incident on Nov. 18, 2011 and the prosecution of the Davis Dozen. The letters also detail the graduates’ belief that UC Davis is guilty for failing to address hate crimes and subduing pro-Palestinian speech, while defending university investments to companies that profit from infractions on Palestinian rights.

The comparative literature graduate group also undermined Hexter’s statement that he respects the Mrak Hall protesters rights. The group criticized Hexter’s patronizing and derogatory attitude, citing an email Hexter sent to the student body in which expressed his disdain for the “odors emanating from the protesters’ food and the garbage they leave behind.”

“This itself reeks of the classist language used to demonize and criminalize poverty and homelessness, products of the very structures of financial and social inequality plaguing the privatized model of the university and intensified under Katehi’s leadership,” the letter stated.

The two graduate groups heavily criticized UC Davis for appointing Hexter as acting chancellor without an open and democratic election, which therefore disregarded one of the Mrak Hall protesters’ primary demands.

“I feel that changing Katehi for Hexter is no change at all. Hexter has worked closely with Katehi and so I don’t see how him replacing her changes anything,” Einarsdottir said.

James Straub, a graduate in comparative literature, disapproved of Hexter’s support of the 2020 Initiative.

“The acting chancellor holds an appointment in our department and his support of former chancellor Katehi’s policies, especially the 2020 Initiative — which strikes me as an especially foul document for a comparatist because it shamelessly and boldly declares its intentions to exploit international students — are incompatible with the cosmopolitan and egalitarian values of our discipline,” Straub said via email.

Straub goes on to criticize the UC Davis administration’s treatment of the student body.

“I can understand the need, in an administrative position, to make difficult choices and to not have any satisfactory options. But I could never support an administration that not only accepts the conditions which make all choices bad choices, insofar as they affect the lives of students, but then even congratulates [the administration] on its ingenuity,” Straub said. “Administrative success and student success are no longer complementary goals.”

Carmine Morrow, a doctorate student in comparative literature, expressed the importance and objective of these letters.

“Students have demonstrated their power to affect change on campus,” Morrow said. “To influence broader systemic problems affecting the university system, we must create and maintain communicative infrastructure and use it to look closely at how the actions of individuals in our leadership reflect broader issues.”

Representatives from the University of California Office of the President did not provide a response regarding the graduate students’ letters.

Written by: Yvonne Leong – campus@theaggie.org