IN THIS NEWSLINE ISSUED JUNE 30, 2003:

1. REDUCING FIRE RISK AT HOME
2. WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE CONFERENCE
3. OPERATION COOL SHADE
4. WALK ACROSS ARIZONA
5. SALTGRASS ON YOUR LAWN?
6. NUTRITION COMPUTER COURSE HELPS STUDENTS COMPLETE COLLEGE
7. RESCUING MINE TAILINGS
8. A MENTORING PROGRAM FOR CHILDREN AT RISK
9. MEAT BY-PRODUCTS ADD TO CARCASS VALUE
10. GENETICALLY DECODING PEST RESISTANCE TO COTTON TREATMENTS
11. FINDING THE GENE THAT HELPS CROPS RESIST THE COLD
12. EVENTS

Fire awareness and management has become the responsibilities of entire communities, especially after the severe wildfires of recent summers. Home owners, developers, and civic leaders are learning that the decisions they make about what to plant, what to cut down, and what to build can make a difference in keeping our forests healthy and preventing fire damage.

CALS research and extension faculty are teaching strategies for reducing wildfire risk under a multi-state program called FIREWISE that recommends "Ten Steps to Being Firewise."

Such strategies include defining your defensible space. A minimum 30-foot non-combustible area around your home will reduce wildfire damage. Replace flammable landscaping with fire-resistant plants. Remove or prune trees and shrubs that overcrowd your property. Keep flammable materials away from your home, especially the chimneys, wooden decks and stairs, and rate its flammability.

Cut grass and weeds regularly. Relocate woodpiles and leftover building materials; keep them at least 30 feet from your home. Clean pine needles and leaves from your roof. Don't burn yard debris, recycle it.

Check signs, addresses and accessibility to your home. Easy-to-read signs and room for fire trucks to maneuver are essential.

Tom DeGomez, Cooperative Extension Forest Health Specialist
Alix Rogstad, Fire Education Specialist
To learn more: http://cals.arizona.edu/firewise

The Women in Agriculture Conference will be held July 18, 2003, in Mesa, Arizona. The conference is held each year for women actively involved in production agriculture and agriculture education as a means to network about issues facing Arizona agriculture.

The conference is co-sponsored by the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Arizona Farm Bureau Women's Leadership Committee.

The Hilton Mesa, located at Alma School Road and U.S. 60, is the site for the conference.

Registration information is available online at or by calling Monica Pastor (602) 470-8086, ext. 317. email mpastor@ag.arizona.edu.

To learn more: http://www.azfb.com//wiac.htm

If you plant shade trees in the right places around your home, you could reduce energy consumption by as much as 20 percent. Pima County Cooperative Extension joined with Tri-Co Electric Cooperative to distribute shade trees to 509 households.

Interested people received training from Extension to ensure that they chose the best shade trees and planted them where they would give maximum shade. Extension Master Gardeners were trained to help.

Eight Master Gardener volunteers worked with 117 program participants in 2002. Another four Master Gardeners staffed an answer booth giving tree planting and care instructions at a free tree distribution booth. Tri-Co employees conducted follow-up tree inspections.

As a result of Operation Cool Shade, 1,469 trees were distributed to 509 electric cooperative customers in 2002. Their energy savings were sizable--883,424 kWh and $70,481 for the peak three-month summer period.

John Begeman, Pima County Cooperative Extension
To learn more: http://cals.arizona.edu/impacts/5_7.html

Seniors are looking for ways to keep their remaining years healthy, active, and enjoyable. CALS Cooperative Extension has joined the Community Advancement Partnership in Pima County to help contain health care cost by developing and evaluating an effective seniors lifestyle program.

The collaborative effort with the retirement community in Green Valley, Arizona, led to developing "Walk Across America," a program already tried in Michigan and Texas. The program uses social support networks to increase physical activity levels through walking clubs.

For 16 weeks, teams have a friendly competition to see who can get their friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family to walk for fitness. The miles logged are recorded on Arizona maps so everyone can see how the program is progressing. It has expanded from Pima County to include Apache, Cochise, Maricopa, Santa Cruz, and Yuma counties.

At the end of 2002, 355 individuals reported they had walked 23,287 miles. As one walker said, "I have more energy than I did at the start of the program, and I plan on continuing. It's fun."

Linda Block, Pima County Cooperative Extension
To learn more: http://cals.arizona.edu/impacts/3_4.html

Vivid green lawns guzzle a lot of water in our water-short desert climate and harsh soils. Saltgrass may be a good substitute; CALS scientists have been testing more than 200 native Colorado saltgrass varieties since 1995 at the Karsten Turfgrass Facility at the Campus Agricultural Center in Tucson.

The researchers became interested in saltgrass because it grows in areas that only get periodic water and it tolerates dry, salty soils. Like the commonly used Bermuda grass, the saltgrass goes dormant in the winter, but it's slower growing, could be more invasive and tolerates mowing. Controlling weeds is simple--just put salt on the test plot. Weeds die; saltgrass doesn't.

After 3 years of treating the saltgrass samples just like turf, the researchers identified 7 or 8 samples that fit the bill as true lawn grass types. They had a good green color, high shoot density, were softer to the touch, and covered the soil completely when mowed. Each was an individual genetic type.

Researchers hope to have a variety available to the public in about 5 years.

David Kopec, Department of Plant Sciences
To learn more: http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/general/resrpt2001/11.html

For many students, completing college is a challenge. Many must work, raise families, or complete internships at the same time they're attending school. Distance education helps.

The CALS Nutritional Science Department and Distributed Learning Lab has created an introductory nutrition course with an interactive website and CD-ROM. The CD-ROM contains an extensive textbook outline, video clips of a semester's course lectures, and links to the Internet. The course can either be used as an elective or can fulfill a Tier 1 Biological Science General Education requirement

Between 1998 and January 2002, 2173 students enrolled in the course; another 380 signed up to take it in January 2003.

The department has evaluated the course's effectiveness by comparing the performance of online students with those enrolled in a traditional classroom. No difference was found in exam scores, final grades, or between pretest and post-test scores.

Jennifer Ricketts, Department of Nutritional Sciences
To learn more: http://cals.arizona.edu/impacts/6_11.html

Combining unsightly mine tailings and sewage sludge brings grasses and shrubs to the landscape that once looked like the surface of the moon. And, the combination is safe for the environment.

A CALS scientist says each component has what the other lacks. Mine tailings, the waste material left over from processing ore, are essentially tons of crushed ore with zero percent organic matter. Biosolids (the product of wastewater treatment of sewage) are primarily all organic materials.

As soon as the two are combined, the microbial population jumps to a level needed for plant growth. Biosolids were added at the rate of 80 dry tons per acre to a 3.75-acre site seeded with native Southwest grasses.

Another 20-acre site was also monitored for plant growth and the presence of nitrates and metals such as copper and molydenum. Researchers found that the biosolids tend to tie up these metals, making them less available. Also, nitrates didn't leach, especially during cooler winter months.

Sites were not irrigated, but today grasses and shrubs cover the once stark landscapes.

Ian Pepper, Water Quality Center, and Ed Glenn, Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science
To learn more: http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/general/resrpt2002/11.pdf

Young people who fall behind in school often drop out, abuse drugs, get involved in criminal activities, and are teen parents. Children are particularly at risk when they're poor, abuse drugs, play truant from school, or are illiterate In Arizona, Hispanics have one of the highest drop-out rates.

Mentoring programs, such as Project SOAR, have proven successful in protecting young people at risk. The Project recruits university and community college students to work with children and their parents to promote personal and academic success. Ninety-six trained volunteers worked with 147 participants. They provided 3,337 hours of mentoring, 23 parent education series, and 19 educational field trips, focusing mainly on Hispanic, African American, and Native American students.

More than 80 percent of the students said they wanted a mentor again next year and reported they had improved or maintained study skills. Parents said they had increased their involvement with their children.

The National 4-H Council, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Maricopa County Cooperative Extension co-sponsor SOAR. Partner sponsors also included the Office of Juvenile Delinquency and Prevention, Valley of the Sun United Way, and the City of Chandler.

Juanita O'Campo Waits, Maricopa County Cooperative Extension
To learn more: http://cals.arizona.edu/impacts/5_6.html

You've probably heard the old saying, "use everything but a cow's hooves." It's true, and it applies to sheep, swine, goats, ostrich and emus as well. At the request of ranchers and processors, the CALS Meat Laboratory has developed an array of meat by-products to increase the value of each animal.

For example, the pet food industry uses cooked and smoked beef bones, cooked and dried organs, and products from connective tissue. They're used primarily for pet treats. Smoked and dried ostrich, turkey and emu necks, emu and ostrich jerky and summer sausage are also used.

A new meat product developed for zoos, particularly for large cats, replaces horse meat with beef and beef by-products. Ostrich by-products are being used by pet food companies in products for overweight dogs.

Each product has label approval from the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

The products developed at the Meat Laboratory have added $45 to the value of each animal, and the amount of waste is reduced by an average of 20 percent.

John Marchello, Department of Animal Sciences
To learn more: http://cals.arizona.edu/impacts/1_7.html

Genetically modified cotton plants that produce Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) toxin are now controlling pink bollworms, the longtime scourge of cotton farmers. Unfortunately, some resistant bollworms survive.

Even though such resistance is still rare, scientists have discovered the three genetic mutations that confer resistance to Bt. This breakthrough paves the way for DNA-based screens that could be a thousand times more efficient than the bioassays currently being used.

Already, more than 500 species have evolved resistance after repeated exposure to natural and synthetic toxins. Delaying resistance has been stymied by a lack of information about the genetic basis for such resistance. Now scientists have discovered that each of 3 mutations in pink bollworms occurs in a gene encoding a protein called cadherin.

The new discovery will speed development of fast and precise DNA-based tests for resistance. Knowing about the genetic basis of resistance also opens new avenues for designing novel toxins to overcome insect defenses.

Bruce Tabashnik, Department of Plant Sciences
To learn more: http://cals.arizona.edu/media/archives/11.6.html

A firefly enzyme engineered to glow in cold weather may help farmers save some of the billions of dollars they now lose when crops are exposed to temperatures below freezing.

The bioengineering process began when scientists discovered critical cold tolerance CBF protein genes in Arabidopsis, a plant related to cabbage and broccoli. To identify the genes that act on CBF, CALS scientists inserted a modified gene containing the firefly enzyme luciferase. It generates plants that glow under cold stress.

Now if a plant is not glowing--or glowing too brightly--the researchers know a particular gene is involved. Cold-responsive plants are induced to mutate. When scientists cloned the genes responsible for the bioluminescence, they demonstrated that increased luminescence led to increased cold tolerance in the Arabidopsis plants.

The discovery may provide a new way to increase the ability of domesticated cold-sensitive crops to survive in the cold weather.

Jian-Kang Zhu, Department of Plant Sciences
To learn more: http://cals.arizona.edu/pls/zhulab

2nd Annual Arizona Weed Day, August 13, Maricopa Agricultural Center, call 520-568-2273

10th Annual Maricopa County Short Course, An Invasive Plant School, August 27-28, For topics go to http://cals.arizona.edu/crops/counties/all/meetings/2003/shortcourse082703.pdf

Santa Rita Experimental Range: 100 Years of Accomplishments and Contributions, October 30-November 1 2003. Send abstracts by October 15 to Mitchel McClaran, P.O. Box 210043, University of Arizona 85721 or call 520-621-1673

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