October 2, 2015 Subscribe to our weekly California email newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters 11 California Fair attractions teach kids, parents about agriculture By TIM HEARDEN New plant-stress sensor further aids irrigation efficiency By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press RED BLUFF, Calif. — Tammie Ryan has been doing themed attractions and enter- tainment at local fairs for 25 years, but recently she started getting requests from fairgoers. “People asked us to do an ag-related one,” said Ryan, who co-owns The Source Management Group in Powell Butte, Ore. So she and her business partner, Patrick Wood, intro- duced Barnyard Adventure, where youngsters can milk a fiberglass cow, dig for potatoes and carrots, play with toy farm equipment in a pool of corn and do commodity-related puzzles. The barnyard area was fea- tured at 12 local fairs this year, including Red Bluff’s Tehama District Fair on Sept. 24-27. The company provides attrac- tions for about 25 fairs a year overall. “So many kids don’t know where their food comes from,” Ryan said. “They just think you go to a grocery store. It is amazing how many kids ask if that’s real corn, and how many just love to play in the dirt.” More and more, agricul- ture-related games, enter- tainment and play areas are becoming popular fixtures at local fairs, operating in tandem with their livestock exhibits and student farms. Several years ago, the Cali- fornia State Fair in Sacramento moved its live birthing demon- strations and put in Ag-Ven- tureland, which includes an area for roping a “steer,” a place to try on farm clothes and other hands-on activities to teach kids about what life is like on the farm. Ag-Ventureland is the cre- ation of the Medford, Ore.- based Great American Animal Entertainment Co., which puts on pony rides, petting zoos, trail rides for children and a CapitalPress.com Capital Press Tim Hearden/Capital Press Becky Goodyear of Anaheim, Calif., is dressed up as her character, Sadie, as she prepares her anima- tronic puppet, Virgil McDonald, for a children’s show about agriculture Sept. 25 at the Tehama District Fair in Red Bluff, Calif. “cowboy boot camp” for fairs and other events around the country. “Fairs are realizing more and more the need to educate kids about agriculture,” said Becky Goodyear of Anaheim, Calif., who offers an ag-themed puppet show and balloon artist- ry at local fairs. Raised in rural Michigan, Goodyear has been perform- ing at fairs since 2000. About three years ago she created Sadie’s Farmtastic Adventure, for which she wears a costume and works with an animatronic puppet she calls Virgil McDon- ald. “So he is actually Old Mc- Donald,” said Goodyear, who was also at last weekend’s Te- hama District Fair. “It’s a fun way to learn a little bit about agriculture,” she said. “I try to use fun and silly and sneak in some education without them knowing it.” Goodyear’s routine in- cludes some music and com- edy as well as audience par- ticipation, and there’s a moral message at the end. “We sort of morph into character-building — what you sow is what you reap,” she said. “If you plant corn, you’re not going to get pumpkins.” At Ryan’s Barnyard Ad- ventures, signs give fun facts about different commodities. For instance, one cowhide can be used to make 144 baseballs, 20 footballs, 18 soccer balls, 18 volleyballs or 12 basketballs, one sign reads. Another explains that a ful- ly grown pig can consume up to 14 gallons of water a day and that insulin and 40 other medi- cines are derived from pigs. “We find that a lot of par- ents read those to their kids,” Ryan said. Often, parents learn as much as their kids at the at- tractions, their organizers say. For instance, nay parents don’t know that a brown egg and a white egg have the same nutri- tional value, Ryan said. “The best compliment I can get is when they say, ‘My kids dragged me over here to see this and I actually had fun,’” Goodyear said. DAVIS, Calif. — New tech- nology developed at the uni- versity here promises to further enhance growers’ ability to irri- gate only when and where the water is needed. A suite of sensors devel- oped by University of Califor- nia-Davis researchers delivers real-time plant-stress data to a grower’s computer or smart phone, saving him or her from having to walk through fields to look for signs of stress, the researchers say. The device, which is now being marketed by Milpitas, Calif.-based Cermetek Micro- electronics under the LeafMon brand name, has been rolled out first for vineyards and almond and walnut orchards with a goal of improving crop quality and yields. Researchers are now testing the device’s effective- ness on other crops. The technology “is giving growers a convenient way to irrigate crops the right amount in the right place at the right time,” UC-Davis spokeswom- an Diane Nelson said in an email. The new device comes as nearly 90 percent of tree nut growers in the northern Sacra- mento Valley have converted to drip irrigation and micro-sprin- klers to save water, according to Allan Fulton, a UC Cooper- ative Extension farm adviser in Red Bluff who specializes in irrigation. The extension has made ir- rigation efficiency a key focus in recent years, training farmers in irrigation scheduling, deficit irrigation and how to interpret readings from pressure bombs to determine how much water their trees need. Even before the four-year Courtesy of UCANR The LeafMon plant-stress monitoring device promises to further enhance growers’ irrigation efficiency. drought, UCCE advisers were urging growers to set up irri- gation schedules with the use of such testing equipment as pressure bombs, which are sort of like blood pressure tests for trees. UC-Davis’ Fruit and Nut Center launched a website last year to help growers interpret their readings from pressure bombs. Growers also make use of soil sensors that help them water only when their soil is dry, but those readings may be misleading, UC researchers say. Dry soil doesn’t always indicate that a plant is suffer- ing, just as moist soil doesn’t always mean a plant is getting water at its deepest roots. The LeafMon device de- signed by UC-Davis biological and agricultural engineering professor Shrinivasa Upad- hyaya and his team attaches to a single, shaded leaf and mea- sures leaf temperature, light, wind speed, relative humidity and air temperature — all of which affect a plant’s water needs, a news release explains. Luis Sanchez, a senior re- search scientist for E and J Gal- lo Winery in Modesto, Calif., believes the sensor could work well with other high-tech irriga- tion scheduling methods. “It could be a very useful tool for verifying our satel- lite-based irrigation schedules,” Sanchez said in the release. 2 nd Annual For the Month of October Call Classifieds for Details! 800-882-6789 40-4/#4N 40-4/#T2D