High on the Desert Newsletter

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High on the Desert Newsletter Newsletter Cochise County Master Gardener High on the Desert Vol. 25, No. 7 July 2014 The University of Arizona and U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperating The Virtual Gardener—Watching Weather on the Web The monsoon in southern extends from as far west as the Arizona is one of the most Colorado River to as far east as exciting times for weather the Rio Grande. Phoenix and watchers. This month I want to Tucson are labelled and current tell you about a website that not temperatures are shown for only provides a wealth of useful reporting stations throughout and interesting information to the area. Superimposed on the keep you abreast of what’s map will be an animation of happening with the weather, Doppler radar returns. but can also provide you with the ability The radar returns are shown in shades to make short term naïve predictions of green, yellow, and red in order of Inside this issue: about what’s likely to happen at your increasing storm intensity. They usually July Reminders 2 location within the hour—sort of a represent reflections of a radar beam Cuttings “N’ Clippings 2 “heads-up” when violent weather from falling rain or snow but may also Book Review 3 approaches. be reflections off other things in the air, In a Desert Garden 4 This website, the KOLD Channel 13 including virga (rain that evaporates 4 Interactive Radar, provides a lot more before it hits the ground), dust, or even Ask a Master Gardener information than its name implies. It not clouds of flying insects. The green At a Glance Box 5 only provides current Doppler radar shades—especially the lightest shades of Desert Spoon 5 coverage for the entire United States as green—do not necessarily indicate rain Sonoran Desert Conference 6 well as Canada and Mexico, but can also that is hitting the ground. provide you with a snapshot of current A single click with the left mouse weather conditions for cities around the button on any of the temperature world. Let’s take a quick tour of the site readings pops up a callout box with the and see what it has to offer. name of the reporting station and the When you first bring up the site, you latest reported weather data for that are presented with a map of southern location. Depending upon the station, Arizona and northern Mexico that (Continued on Page 2) Cochise County Cooperative Extension www.ag.arizona.edu/cochise/mg/ 1140 N. Colombo, Sierra Vista, AZ 85635 450 S. Haskell, Willcox, AZ 85643 (520) 458-8278, Ext. 2141 (520) 384-3594 P AGE 2 (Continued from page 1) particular display is turned on, you data reported may include sky can see how to interpret the color conditions, wind, humidity, codes by clicking the “Legend” visibility, and barometric pressure button in the upper left corner of the in addition to the temperature. display. Keep the pests under control Buttons in the box allow you to Real time data on lightning strikes You can still plant something look at a five-day general weather is furnished from the World Wide Keep watering! forecast for the location as well as Lightning Location Network and graphs of hourly predicted provides another measure of storm temperatures and other weather intensity. I have not yet found parameters for the next 48 hours. another general weather reporting A standard navigation control website that shows lightning strikes, on the left side of the map allows so this may be a unique feature of Cuttings ‘N’ you to move the view east, west, this site. north, and south and a slider The storm attributes overlay places Clippings control allows you to zoom the icons on the map. By placing your CCMGA elected officers for map in or out. You can actually mouse cursor on the icon you can zoom in to street level to see see what kind of activity is occurring the new year at their June Annual Business Meeting. They are: what’s happening in your specific in a particular storm cell, the location. I have used this feature direction of movement of the cell, Pres. Jody Sharp-Webb V. Pres. Jan Groth to predict exactly when an and a scale indicating the speed of Sec. Olivia Sinks approaching storm will reach my movement. A related option is to location and how intense it will display “Storm Reports.” These Treas. Donna Blackburn CCMGA will not be meeting be. reports by people on the ground— As I have already mentioned, probably National Weather Service in July. The next meeting will be August 7—watch for details on there are many more features Storm Spotters—in the storm area the web site. available for display than Doppler give more detail on what’s happen- radar and general weather infor- ing. Saturday, July 12, Rainwa- mation. If you head over to the Other overlays can give you more ter Harvesting Open Houses. right edge of the map, you will see information about the general Has Sierra Vista been busy har- vesting water? You bet! Come a vertical menu with two items— weather situation. The “Clouds” “Layers” and “Map Type.” overlay shows infrared and visible “ooh and aah” over commercial Clicking on the item labelled satellite imagery. Other displays and residential rainwater systems during open house hours. Guaran- “Layers” will show fifteen show various warnings about displays that you can overlay on impending weather conditions, teed you will be impressed so much that you may just start col- your map, either individually or in hurricanes, and snow conditions combination. Combining several (including conditions at your favorite lecting too! Call for maps and de- of the overlays provides a great ski resort). Clicking on “Current” tails. Location: Sierra Vista (See flier on Page 6 of this newsletter.) view of the current weather will not only toggle the displays of situation. Combining “Rainfall”, temperatures on the map but even For information call (520) 458- 8278, Ext 2141, or contact Joyce “Lightning”, and “Storm Attrib- show weather reports from ships at utes” with the default Doppler sea! at: radar display gives you a very If weather-watching is your thing, [email protected] You can visit Water Wise at: comprehensive picture of a I recommend you bring up the current storm situation. KOLD Interactive Radar site and waterwise.arizona.edu The rainfall overlay can be spend some time exploring all the switched to show 1-hour or 24- things it has to offer. hour accumulations. The 1-hour Until next time, happy surfing! mode shows a color-coded display Cochise County Master Gary Gruenhagen, Master Gardener of total accumulations ranging Gardener Newsletter Editor [email protected] Carolyn Gruenhagen from a trace to 3 inches. When a P AGE 3 Book Review: The Dose Makes the Poison Ever since becoming a gardener it specifically exempted salt from toxic to rats, rabbits, or frog embry- about six years ago, I have been requiring a hazard label. os, will it be toxic to humans? Con- interested (perhaps even obsessed) Mercury, of all things, is not acute- versely, it is possible for a sub- with the “organic” versus “chemi- ly poisonous. A person can swallow stance to be toxic to humans, but cal” controversy. Is “organic” food straight mercury and it will just be not to some other species. For in- more nutritious? Are there “chemi- passed right through the digestive stance, wood alcohol (methanol) is cal” poisons on our food? If there tract with little or no adverse effect. very dangerous for humans to con- are enough residues left on our (I do not recommend this!) On the sume, yet not significantly toxic to produce to render them in some other hand, chronic exposure to mer- most other mammals. Humans can sense toxic, why do government cury is a serious health risk. Mercury take acetaminophen, but it is toxic regulatory agencies permit them? salts are both acutely and chronically to cats. Simply designing a proper Are “organic” pesticides safer than dangerous. test is far more difficult than one “chemical” ones? I’ve read enough Two common household items, might expect. In one example given now to understand that there are no aspirin and Vitamin D, are both in the book (involving the effects of simple or obvious answers to these deadly if consumed in excess. radiation) it was noted that, in order questions. Furthermore, most of Roughly 100 aspirin pills is a fatal to pinpoint the effect of a specified the content in popular magazines dose for humans, yet two or three dose of radiation exposure with a and on the Internet is questionable aspirin tablets pose no significant high degree of confidence (95%), at best and downright often incor- health risks and are quite useful in the necessary testing would have rect. controlling pain and “thinning” required eight billion (yes, with a So, the latest book I’ve read in blood. Vitamin D is essential for “b” again) mice. Factors like this my quest for truth, justice, and the health (400 IU (International Units, often result in setting dose and ex- American Way is The Dose Makes roughly 10 picograms, is the Recom- posure limits far below what would the Poison by Patricia Frank and mended Daily Allowance for adults), be a more realistic, but difficult to M. Alice Ottoboni. It is not a book yet a dose of 400,000 IU, or 10 evaluate, limit just to ensure safety. about agriculture; it is a book about nanograms, is potentially fatal. Fluo- Perhaps the book expresses its poisons, both natural and synthetic.
Recommended publications
  • Vascular Plant and Vertebrate Inventory of Chiricahua National Monument
    In Cooperation with the University of Arizona, School of Natural Resources Vascular Plant and Vertebrate Inventory of Chiricahua National Monument Open-File Report 2008-1023 U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey National Park Service This page left intentionally blank. In cooperation with the University of Arizona, School of Natural Resources Vascular Plant and Vertebrate Inventory of Chiricahua National Monument By Brian F. Powell, Cecilia A. Schmidt, William L. Halvorson, and Pamela Anning Open-File Report 2008-1023 U.S. Geological Survey Southwest Biological Science Center Sonoran Desert Research Station University of Arizona U.S. Department of the Interior School of Natural Resources U.S. Geological Survey 125 Biological Sciences East National Park Service Tucson, Arizona 85721 U.S. Department of the Interior DIRK KEMPTHORNE, Secretary U.S. Geological Survey Mark Myers, Director U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2008 For product and ordering information: World Wide Web: http://www.usgs.gov/pubprod Telephone: 1-888-ASK-USGS For more information on the USGS-the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment: World Wide Web:http://www.usgs.gov Telephone: 1-888-ASK-USGS Suggested Citation Powell, B.F., Schmidt, C.A., Halvorson, W.L., and Anning, Pamela, 2008, Vascular plant and vertebrate inventory of Chiricahua National Monument: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2008-1023, 104 p. [http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2008/1023/]. Cover photo: Chiricahua National Monument. Photograph by National Park Service. Note: This report supersedes Schmidt et al. (2005). Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S.
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  • Breakf As T Sides Drinks
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  • Chemical Profile of Sotol Analyzed by Solid Phase Microextraction-Gas Chromatography
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  • 2019 San Francisco World Spirits Competition Results by Class
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  • Phoenix Active Management Area Low-Water-Use/Drought-Tolerant Plant List
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  • To Maguey Than Tequila ARTHUR BLACK
    More to Maguey than Tequila ARTHUR BLACK I. Little lore and brief history II. Primary genres of agave based spirits and NOM status III. Noms define: Bacanora (tasting), Sotol (tasting) IV. Tequila Nom – Quickly V. Mezcal Nom – Little Background VI. Tequila vs Mezcal (briefly) VII. Agave Spirit Production Variables - Extensive VIII. Agave, Taxonomy, Inulin, Notion of Terroir VIIII. Mezcal production – Insane Breakdown – Tasting 4 mezcal Before we get Started Some particular words to keep accurately in your head • MAGUEY – From Nahuatl “Mayahuel”, Goddess of fertility • AGAVE – Greek for “noble” defined by Linnaeus in 1753 • PULQUE – No disrespect, “agave beer” • MEZCAL - From Nahuatl “ixcalli” for cooked & “metl” for agave • MEZCAL WINE– Historical name prior to “Tequila Wine”, prior to “Tequila” • TEQUILA – “a place of work” • MEZCALERO – Anyone who produces mezcal • PALENQUE – A farm with a still • PALENQUERO – Anyone who produces mezcal and owns their own still MAGUEY Mayahuel - Everyone loves breasts and drunk rabbits Zapotecs – “Cloud People” Tequila/Mezcal Brief History • Agave cultivation all over Mexico is dated by historians to 2nd century BCE. By Indian legend, much earlier • Pulque is most likely North America’s first fermented beverage. • Mezcal is most likely 1st distillate. • Spaniards brought the art of distillation in 1521, but distillation precedes Spanish conquests!!!! • Despite a national, cultural tradition of mezcal production, the actual area that became Tequila, gained its reputation out of a growing concentration of distillers, hence the name, “a place of work” *Tequila was officially established in 1656 Mezcal/Tequila Brief History • First license sanctioned by Spanish crown went to Jose Maria Guadalupe Cuervo in 1795 in Tequila • Hundreds of species of Agave have been growing & cultivated for thousands of years.
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  • Dasylirion Wheeleri 29June2014
    The Weekly Plant 29 June 2014 Common names: sotol, desert spoon, spoon lower, blue or common sotol Scientiic name: Dasylirion wheeleri1 TAV location: In front of ASA and Community Center Discussion Sotol is one of my favorite plants, but only at a distance. This Rincon Mountain native has leaves with sharp, curved spines along the edges. It is easy to catch your clothes, or your skin, on a spine. Unfortunately, freeing yourself from one spine usually means becoming attached to several others. But if you keep your distance, you’ll see that sotol has a lovely, rounded form, perfect for an accent in the landscape. Even better, it requires very little input from you. Plant it, at a distance from walkways and with enough space to let it spread, then water it for the irst two summers. It will survive with very little irrigation from then on. Sotol in the garden will grow to 6 ft wide and eventually as tall. As the trunk grows, the leaves will form a shaggy skirt around the trunk. After 7 years or so, the plant may lower. The lower stalk is thick and tall, often greater than 12 ft high. The lowers themselves are small, cream-colored, and dioecious. Dioecious lowers are only male or only female instead having both male and female parts as most lowers do. Each sotol plant is only male or only female. You don’t know if it is male or female until the plant lowers. Even then, it can be hard to determine, as the lowers are high on the plant.
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  • Classification and Phylogenetic Systematics: a Review of Concepts with Examples from the Agave Family
    Classification and Phylogenetic Systematics: A review of concepts with examples from the Agave Family David Bogler Missouri Botanical Garden • Taxonomy – the orderly classification of organisms and other objects • Systematics – scientific study of the diversity of organisms – Classification – arrangement into groups – Nomenclature – scientific names – Phylogenetics – evolutionary history • Cladistics – study of relationships of groups of organisms depicted by evolutionary trees, and the methods used to make those trees (parsimony, maximum likelihood, bayesian) “El Sotol” - Dasylirion Dasylirion wheeleri Dasylirion gentryi Agave havardii, Chisos Mountains Agavaceae Distribution Aristotle’s Scala Naturae Great Chain of Being 1579, Didacus Valades, Rhetorica Christiana hierarchical structure of all matter and life, believed to have been decreed by God Middle Ages Ruins of Rome Age of Herbalists Greek Authorities Aristotle Theophrastus Dioscorides Latin was the common language of scholars Plants and animals given Latinized names Stairway to Heaven From Llull (1304). Note that Homo is between the plant-animal steps and the sky-angel- god steps. Systematics - Three Kinds of Classification Systems Artificial - based on similarities that might put unrelated plants in the same category. - Linnaeus. Natural - categories reflect relationships as they really are in nature. - de Jussieu. Phylogenetic - categories based on evolutionary relationships. Current emphasis on monophyletic groups. - Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. Carolus Linnaeus 1707 - 1778 Tried to name and classify all organism Binomial nomenclature Genus species Species Plantarum - 1753 System of Classification “Sexual System” Classes - number of stamens Orders - number of pistils Linnaean Hierarchy Nested box-within-box hierarchy is consistent with descent from a common ancestor, used as evidence by Darwin Nomenclature – system of naming species and higher taxa.
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  • Networks in a Large-Scale Phylogenetic Analysis: Reconstructing Evolutionary History of Asparagales (Lilianae) Based on Four Plastid Genes
    Networks in a Large-Scale Phylogenetic Analysis: Reconstructing Evolutionary History of Asparagales (Lilianae) Based on Four Plastid Genes Shichao Chen1., Dong-Kap Kim2., Mark W. Chase3, Joo-Hwan Kim4* 1 College of Life Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, China, 2 Division of Forest Resource Conservation, Korea National Arboretum, Pocheon, Gyeonggi- do, Korea, 3 Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom, 4 Department of Life Science, Gachon University, Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do, Korea Abstract Phylogenetic analysis aims to produce a bifurcating tree, which disregards conflicting signals and displays only those that are present in a large proportion of the data. However, any character (or tree) conflict in a dataset allows the exploration of support for various evolutionary hypotheses. Although data-display network approaches exist, biologists cannot easily and routinely use them to compute rooted phylogenetic networks on real datasets containing hundreds of taxa. Here, we constructed an original neighbour-net for a large dataset of Asparagales to highlight the aspects of the resulting network that will be important for interpreting phylogeny. The analyses were largely conducted with new data collected for the same loci as in previous studies, but from different species accessions and greater sampling in many cases than in published analyses. The network tree summarised the majority data pattern in the characters of plastid sequences before tree building, which largely confirmed the currently recognised phylogenetic relationships. Most conflicting signals are at the base of each group along the Asparagales backbone, which helps us to establish the expectancy and advance our understanding of some difficult taxa relationships and their phylogeny.
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  • Vascular Plant and Vertebrate Inventory of Fort Bowie National Historic Site Vascular Plant and Vertebrate Inventory of Fort Bowie National Historic Site
    Powell, Schmidt, Halvorson In Cooperation with the University of Arizona, School of Natural Resources Vascular Plant and Vertebrate Inventory of Fort Bowie National Historic Site Vascular Plant and Vertebrate Inventory of Fort Bowie National Historic Site Plant and Vertebrate Vascular U.S. Geological Survey Southwest Biological Science Center 2255 N. Gemini Drive Flagstaff, AZ 86001 Open-File Report 20 Southwest Biological Science Center Open-File Report 2005-1167 February 2007 05-1 U.S. Department of the Interior 167 U.S. Geological Survey National Park Service In cooperation with the University of Arizona, School of Natural Resources Vascular Plant and Vertebrate Inventory of Fort Bowie National Historic Site By Brian F. Powell, Cecilia A. Schmidt , and William L. Halvorson Open-File Report 2005-1167 December 2006 USGS Southwest Biological Science Center Sonoran Desert Research Station University of Arizona U.S. Department of the Interior School of Natural Resources U.S. Geological Survey 125 Biological Sciences East National Park Service Tucson, Arizona 85721 U.S. Department of the Interior DIRK KEMPTHORNE, Secretary U.S. Geological Survey Mark Myers, Director U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2006 For product and ordering information: World Wide Web: http://www.usgs.gov/pubprod Telephone: 1-888-ASK-USGS For more information on the USGS-the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment: World Wide Web:http://www.usgs.gov Telephone: 1-888-ASK-USGS Suggested Citation Powell, B. F, C. A. Schmidt, and W. L. Halvorson. 2006. Vascular Plant and Vertebrate Inventory of Fort Bowie National Historic Site.
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