Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/611901
COURTESYPHOTO Ropers at Hal Hays' Pasatiempo Branding on a cool day in November. LastSaturdayIhadthe opportunity to photograph the brandings at the 777 Ranch and the Pasatiempo Ranch owned by Tehama County Cattlemen member Hal Hays in the Red Bank area. The ropers were Lance Root, Chase Root, Walt Brown, Danny Brown, Amanda Slater, Will Staggs, Don Brown, Matt Owens, Adam Owens, Dave Tingle, Darlene Tin- gle, Lloyd Faria, JD Bry- gelson. Ground crew was eight year old cousins Brice Ow- ens and Lucas Owens, with help from the rop- ers, if it wasn't their pen of calves to rope. The two boys took some rough tumbles during the day, as they kept the calf lying still for the vaccinations, earmark, brand and cas- tration of bull calves. Heidi and Shaye Root were vaccinating with the ropers, while the fellows traded off branding, ear- marking, and castrating. The cows and calves re- ceived shots of Multimin, Ultra Choice 8, Bovi-Shield Gold One Shot, and Decto- max for parasites. Every calf received an Arrow H eartag since that is the brand on the right ribs. Hal Hays applied ev- ery ear tag. Among the onlook- ers with me were Blaine HoKoma, from Hawaii, who is a college room- mate of Chase; Susie and Zach Mustaine, Kaylee Houchins and Tylee Lucas. A delicious lunch was enjoyed at the headquar- ters with a blazing fire- place, since it was another cold day. There was grilled chicken legs, sausages, la- sagna, green salad, gar- lic French bread and for dessert, we enjoyed ap- ple, pumpkin or pecan pie with hot coffee or other beverages. Everyone received a ball cap with the Arrow H brand, and a long sleeve T- shirt as we returned to the corrals for more branding of the calves born this fall. WinterDinner The 64th annual Winter Dinner of Tehama Co. Cat- tlemen and 13th Ag Schol- arship Fundraiser will be 6 p.m., Jan. 9 at Tehama District Fairground. Vic Woolery's Prime Rib dinner will be $ 25 advance sale. Tickets available at Cottonwood -Shasta Farm & Equip- ment; Corning — Rabo- bank, and in Red Bluff: Hawes Ranch & Farm Supply, The Loft, Animal Health International, Red Bluff Bull & Gelding Sale, Farm Credit, Crossroads Feed & Supply, and Rabo- bank. Scholarship Auction chairman Cathy Tobin an- nounced the following has been donated: Patty Kelly — 2 lbs of peanut brittle; a handcrafted jewelry box by Mark Ewing; a Tehama County Commodity Basket from AG Land Investment Brokers; Carol Enos of Western Impressions do- nated a cowhide purse. Tehama County Cattle- Women member Jackie Baker has made a hand crocheted lap robe in blue yarn; Tehama County Cat- tleWomen has offered a standing rib roast gift bas- ket. Bill Borror has made a handcrafted black walnut coffee table for this year's auction, while Tehama An- gus Ranch has offered a 40 lb box of premium An- gus beef. Cottonwood Small An- imal Clinic has given a Puppy Package Gift Certif- icate, with 4 Parvo Boost- ers, 1 Rabies vaccination, 2 dewormers, 1 dose of heartworm preventative, and 1 bag of puppy food. The J P Ranch Rodeo will be Jan. 22- 23 at Pau- line Davis Pavillion, and they have given the schol- arship committee ten full passes for all perfor- mances. Tony's Custom Meats has again offered a de- licious gift basket of smoked meats and sau- sages of beef and pork. Western Impressions, Carol Enos has made a decorative gourd. Dr. Steve Loncosky, Cot- towood Vet Clinic had pro- vided Equine Dental Ser- vice in a gift certificate. Steve and Peggy Zane have donated a custom made Welcome sign. Western Crop Insurance has promised a basket or mystery item. A cash do- nation to the scholarship fund from Nor-Cal Trac- tor Club. Rolling Hills Casino has offered a Stay and Play, with Golf for four, fol- lowed by Dinner at the Timbers Steakhouse, and 2 rooms at the Lodge. For the cattle rancher, Dr. Terra of Cottonwood Vet Clinic offered a gift certificate for Bovine Preg- nancy Check for up to 50 head. There were no goose- berries in the mountains this year, therefore Cindy Stroing has donated 12 half pints of various home- made jellies, instead of the traditional wild goose- berry jelly in honor of Bar- bara Frost Kloose. JeanBartonhasbeen writing her column in the Daily News since the early 1990s. She can be reached by e-mail at jbarton2013@ gmail.com. JEANBARTON Brandings at 777 and Pasatiempo ranches For hundreds of years, the fungus Botrytis cine- rea has been key to mak- ing the world's finest des- sert wines. Now UC Davis researchers working with Dolce Winery in the Napa Valley show how the fun- gus changes plant metab- olism to produce new fla- vors and aromas in white- skinned grapes. Under moderately moist conditions, the fungus produces the benign "no- ble rot," ideal for mak- ing particular high-value dessert wines, known as "botrytized wines" or Sau- ternes. But when moist conditions prevail in the vineyard, Botrytis spawns noble rot's evil twin, the so-called "bunch rot." Bunch rot is a destructive disease that inflicts severe crop losses in all grape- growing regions world- wide. The UC Davis team found that during noble rot infection, Botrytis in- duces metabolic processes in white grape berries normally seen only dur- ing the ripening of red- skinned grapes. This was a novel observation, be- cause white berries are, in fact, developmental mutants that cannot acti- vate several ripening path- ways such as the synthe- sis of anthocyanins, the molecules that impart the red color in the skin of red grape berries. The research also con- firmed that the repro- gramming of grape me- tabolism by Botrytis re- sults in the accumulation of key aroma and flavor compounds that make sweet wines made from botrytized grapes so spe- cial. Findings from the new study appear this week in the journal Plant Physiology at http://bit. ly/1NJCJxV. "This study demon- strates how effective it is to integrate genomics and metabolomics in analyz- ing the impact of plant-mi- crobe interactions on plant metabolism under field conditions," said plant bi- ologist Dario Cantu of the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology. The work also may lead to new approaches to im- proving quality traits in grapes and other fruit, said Cantu, who led the study along with postdoc- toral researcher Barbara Blanco-Ulate. Botrytis has long history in winemaking Winemakers have made use of the beneficial im- pacts of Botrytis cinerea — in the form of noble rot — since the 1500s. For exam- ple, white-skinned grape berries, naturally infected with noble rot, have been used to produce some of the world's highest qual- ity dessert wines, referred to as botrytized wines. These wines were first pro- duced in specific regions of Hungary, Germany and France, but now are also made in Italy, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and California. Botrytized wines are valued for their natural sweetness and dis- tinctive flavor and aroma profiles, which include raisin, pineapple, apricot, pear and honey features. Systems biology explains how grape berries change during noble rot In the newly pub- lished study, the research- ers collected berries of a white-skinned grape va- riety called Sémillon over three years at the same time the grapes were be- ing harvested for wine- making. They then used state-of-the-art RNA se- quencing and metabolo- mics approaches, as well as enzymatic assays, on those grapes to demon- strate that noble rot in- duces grape stress re- sponses involved in gen- erating aroma and flavor metabolites; and triggers regulators of metabolic pathways that are typi- cally associated with red- skinned grape berry rip- ening. The researchers also profiled the metabolites of commercial botrytized wines produced from the same vineyard where the grape berries were col- lected and verified that key compounds that re- sult from noble rot are carried over to the wines. Working with Cantu and Blanco-Ulate on this study were professors Su- san Ebeler and Hilde- garde Heymann, both of the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enol- ogy; Thomas Collins, cur- rently an assistant profes- sor at Washington State University; Greg Allen, winemaker at Dolce Win- ery; and Rosa M. Rivero of CEBAS-CSIC research institute in Spain. Other members of the research team were Katherine Am- rine, Abraham Morales- Cruz, Carolyn Doyle and Zirou Ye, all of UC Da- vis; and Ariel Vicente of CONICET, the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Ar- gentina. Funding was provided by the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Envi- ronmental Sciences, and instrumentation support was provided by Agilent Technologies. UC DAVIS Fu ng us r ep ro gr am s wine grape metabolism By Ellen Knickmeyer and Scott Smith The Associated Press FRESNO In a trailer park tucked among irrigated or- chards that help make Cal- ifornia's San Joaquin Val- ley the richest farm region in the world, 16-year-old Giselle Alvarez, one of the few English-speakers in the community of farmwork- ers, puzzles over the no- tices posted on front doors: There's a danger in their drinking water. Uranium, the notices warn, tests at a level consid- ered unsafe by federal and state standards. The law re- quires the park's owner to post the warnings. But they are awkwardly worded and mostly in English, a lan- guage few of the park's dozens of Spanish-speak- ing families can read. "It says you can drink the water — but if you drink the water over a period of time, you can get cancer," said Al- varez, whose working-class family has no choice but keep drinking and cooking with the tainted tap water. "They really don't explain." Uranium, the stuff of nu- clear fuel for power plants and atom bombs, increas- ingly is showing in drink- ing water systems in major farming regions of the U.S. West — a natural though unexpected byproduct of ir- rigation, drought, and the overpumping of natural un- derground water reserves. An Associated Press in- vestigation in California's central farm valleys — along with the U.S. Cen- tral Plains, among the ar- eas most affected — found authorities are doing little to inform the public at large of the risk. That includes the one out of four families on pri- vate wells in this farm val- ley who, unknowingly, are drinking dangerous amounts of uranium. Gov- ernment authorities say long-term exposure to ura- nium can damage kidneys and raise cancer risks, and scientists say it can have other harmful effects. In this swath of farm- land, roughly 250 miles long and encompassing cities, up to one in 10 public wa- ter systems have raw drink- ing water with uranium lev- els that exceed safety stan- dards, the U.S. Geological Survey has found. SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY Fe ar a t th e ta p: U ra ni u m contaminates water in the West FACTORYMATTRESS OUTLET 3650MainSt.inCottonwood 347-3646 Open7Days(since1920) • FREE Delivery • FREE Take-Out SAVEFROM $ 100 $ 250 OFF With This Coupon TO QUALITY 2-SIDED FLIPPABLE MATTRESSES STOVEJUNCTION The TheNorthState'spremiersupplierofstoves 22825 Antelope Blvd., Red Bluff 530-528-2221 • Fax 530-528-2229 www.thestovejunction.com Over 25 years of experience Tues-Sat9am-5pm• ClosedSun&Mon Now Carrying! GreenMountainGrills & Accessories Serving Butte, Glenn & Tehama Counties Smog Check (MOST CARS & PICK-UPS) 527-9841 • 195 S. Main St. starting at $ 29 95 + $ 8 25 certificate Shop Equipped With 4SmogMachines For Fast Service No appointment Needed FARM » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, December 5, 2015 MORE ATFACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A5