IN THIS NEWSLINE ISSUED NOV 20, 2002:

1. THANKSGIVING TURKEY PREPARATION TIPS
   
2. PROTECT CITRUS TREES FROM COLD
   
3. TAPED LOVE SONGS GET DESERT FROGS IN THE MOOD
   
4. CREDIT-WISE CATS
   
5. TEENS HAVE A PLAN TO REVITALIZE DOWNTOWN TUCSON
6. SALAD AT THE SOUTH POLE
   
7. ARIZONA'S RURAL RANCH CRISIS
   
8. THE WORLD OF 4-H PUBLICATIONS
   
9. SMALL GRAIN GROWERS OFFERED CHOICES FOR CROPS THAT TRAVEL
   
10. FLOWER PLANTING GUIDE FOR THE LOW DESERT
    

1 THANKSGIVING TURKEY PREPARATION TIPS

It's your turn to cook the turkey this year for Thanksgiving, but you can't remember exactly what to do. Print out a few of these handy tip sheets and you're all set:

Additional Turkey Cooking Methods (tip sheet) (1998) (2 pp.)
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/health/foodsafety/az1091.html

Buying and Storing a Turkey (tip sheet) (1998) (2 pp.)
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/health/foodsafety/az1074.html

Storing Leftover Turkey (tip sheet) (1998) (2 pp.)
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/health/foodsafety/az1072.html

Stuffing a Turkey (tip sheet) (1998) (1 pp.)
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/health/foodsafety/az1073.html

Talking Turkey: To Stuff or Not to Stuff (1999) (1 pp.)
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/health/az1061.pdf

Thawing a Turkey (tip sheet) (1998) (2 pp.)
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/health/foodsafety/az1075.html

Since citrus trees are not particularly cold-hardy, home gardeners need to help their trees survive frosts and freezes that occur even in Southern Arizona.

Most frosts happen during a temperature inversion, when the weather is calm and clear, and the air is dry. Sub-freezing temperatures rarely last more than a few hours or drop below 20 degrees F. Protecting citrus from frost usually succeeds. On the other hand, protecting citrus trees from freezing conditions in general doesn't work. Fortunately, more severe freezes are rare in Southern Arizona.

Frost protection starts before planting; choose the proper citrus tree variety and rootstock for your location. Every year, acclimate trees to the cold by applying the proper fertilizers. Don't prune in the fall.

When frost is predicted, cover small trees. Put a small heat source in the canopy of small and medium-size trees. Maintain soil moisture. If necessary, you can sprinkle trees with water as long as the frost lasts, until the air temperature is above 37-degrees F.

Glenn Wright, Yuma Agricultural Center
To learn more: http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/crops/az1222.pdf

Frogs and toads survive in the Arizona desert by staying underground most of the year. When the monsoon rains arrive, they come to the surface, breed noisily with great excitement in large numbers, scarf down all the food they can find, and dig back underground to wait till next year's convention.

Their technique works so well that nearly 30 percent of the frog and toad species in the entire continental United States live here.

However, recent publicity about a possible global decline in the amphibian population resulted in federal funding to discover which species actually were decreasing. Part of the research includes developing methods to monitor the hard-to-study frogs and toads (anurans) that disappear underground every year.

When the rains hit just right at the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona's Sonoran Desert, CALS researchers, students, and volunteers head out to the frog-breeding ponds. As many as 10,000 individual frogs representing seven different species can breed in the same pond. Their resounding mating calls can be heard a mile away in the desert.

The biologists capture as many frogs and toads as they can, measure and weigh each one, inject a persistent fluorescent dye under the skin, and release them back into the pond. To make sure the amphibians get back in the breeding mood, the scientists play pre-recorded frog-style love songs. During the day, the field teams revisit the ponds to check on tadpoles.

The species they monitored this year are not endangered, but the methods the researchers developed work for monitoring pond-breeders across the country.

Cecil Schwalbe, School of Renewable Natural Resources

To learn more: http://www.npr.org/programs/re/archivesdate/2002/sept/frogs/index.html

The Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team have built on last year's success by expanding their credit education program aimed at UA students. SIFE's Credit-Wise Cats are a group of trained student credit counselors from the Southwest Retail Center in the School of Family and Consumer Sciences.

The SIFE team applied for and received a $60,000 grant from the Credit Counselors of America that allowed the team to offer counseling services to 800 students.

Credit-Wise Cats used the "Take Charge America" computer program, workshops, and one-on-one sessions to help UA students learn the long-term benefits of wisely using credit and about financial planning.

Also, the SIFE team featured a Financial Fitness Competition during the Spring 2002 semester. Competing for three scholarships, students set financial goals, developed a budget, and monitored their spending.

The Credit-Wise Cats project will continue for the 2002-2003 academic year with continued support from the Credit Counselors of America.

Melinda Burke, Southwest Retail Center
To learn more: http://ag.arizona.edu/fcs/srcer

A group of Tucson's teens have a virtual plan to give their city's downtown Scott Avenue a facelift. Their plan, presented to the City Council, includes benches, trees, lighting, and water fountains to transform the avenue into a lush, shady pedestrian parkway--at least electronically.

The teenagers, ages 10 to 13, took part in a four-week course offered through the Tucson Community Technology Education Network (TCTEN) that uses local, real-world GIS data. Students work with global positioning satellites (GPS) geographic information systems (GIS), digital photography, and other software technology in the computer mapping and spatial reasoning course.

Robert MacArthur, Educational Communications and Technologies
To learn more: http://ag.arizona.edu/agnet/cte/tpac.html

Fresh veggies mean more than good nutrition to scientists living at the South Pole. Just watching actively growing leafy lettuce, herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers raises morale and increases the scientists' productivity. They long for the sight, smell, and feel of plant life at their temporary home in the most isolated place on earth, a frozen, dark desert of snow.

Thanks to work done at the UA Controlled Environment Agricultural Center, personnel at the new Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole will grow, harvest, and enjoy the sight of their own salad vegetables by 2004.

The self-contained unit will feature a 20- by 30-foot hydroponic food growth chamber separated by a transparent wall from a sitting room. Automated controls for air temperature, light, humidity, and for providing water and nutrients will work year-round.

The ultimate goal of the food growth chamber is to provide a better quality of life for researchers who live and work at the South Pole and to help others understand how people can adapt to living in seclusion without seeing the sun for months.

Gene Giacomelli, Controlled Environment Agricultural Center
To learn more: http://ag.arizona.edu/ceac

The current drought has cost Arizona $400 million in revenue from the range livestock industry.

Ranchers have removed cattle almost completely from public land grazing areas in a massive effort to protect rangeland resources. Unfortunately, many ranchers have had to sell their entire herd because their privately owned land won't support the cattle. They can't rent additional nearby pasture because the drought has affected so much of the Western United States.

Selling complete cattle herds has resulted in sharply lower prices. When ranchers buy replacement herds, they will have to pay twice as much as their sale price.

The Arizona ranchers' economic crisis is causing extreme stress, hurting both families and communities. "This drought reaches the very heart of the ranching family, with the potential to have long-lasting negative impacts."

Robert Kattnig, Department of Animal Sciences
To learn more: http://ag.arizona.edu/ans/alr

The Arizona 4-H Publications Catalog opens a wide world of how-to project information on raising large cattle and small rabbits, growing herbs and raising flowers, building small engines, exploring aerospace and solving computer mysteries. Other interests include beekeeping and sports fishing, nutrition, child development and home environment, citizenship and leadership. These are just a few of the topics available in this catalog that celebrates 100 years of 4-H Youth Development in the United States.

Print and audiovisual resources in the catalog are geared toward learning by doing, helping 4-H members and volunteers follow their interests to reach their goals.

The 2002-2003 Arizona 4-H Publication Catalog is available online in pdf format. You can also order publications and audiovisual material online.
To learn more: http://ag.arizona.edu/4hsales

Spaghetti, Italy's favorite pasta, may be made from durum wheat grown on 95,000 acres in Arizona. Non-durum wheat, grown on 4,000 acres of Arizona farmland, is often processed into bread at a Los Angeles mill.

Barley, another small grain grown on 38,000 acres in Arizona, is mostly used to feed local dairy cows.

Small-grain growers in La Paz, Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal Counties can choose from more than 25 grain varieties to plant those that best suit their needs. Field trials were used to compare grain yields, plant and kernel weights, plant heights, heading and maturity dates, and grain protein (for durum wheat only).

The comparisons are available in the publication "Small Grain Varieties for Arizona 2002."

Mike Ottman, Department of Plant Sciences
To learn more: http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/crops/az1265.pdf

Gardeners in Arizona's low desert have a wide choice of beautiful flowers they can successfully grow all year round. Do you want annuals for their quick bloom and riotous colors or their ability to fill bare spots? Or would you rather design your garden around perennials that live longer? They need more maintenance, and their peak blooming season may only be for 2 or 3 weeks.

Of course, to begin with, you must know which plants are annual, biennial, or perennial.

The low desert provides gardeners with two distinct growing seasons. You can plant cool season flowers in the fall for bloom through May. Plant warm season flowers from February through May for summer bloom.

Of course, you must know which plants are warm season and which are cool.

You need the answers to many more questions before you can plant confidently. How much water and fertilizer will your plants need? How much light? What kind of soil? How difficult are they to grow in the low desert? Which ones will attract hummingbirds and butterflies?

Lucy Bradley and Cathy Cromell, Maricopa County Cooperative Extension
To learn more: http://www.ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/az1100.pdf

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