There’s a workshop on how to cold-press oilseeds (flax, canola, sunflower, and camelina) at CFAES’s Mellinger Farm Sept. 24. The event “should be of interest to farmers and others looking for longer rotations and diverse marketing opportunities for cooking oil, biofuel, and high omega-3 pressed meal for feed and bioproducts,” says the online announcement. Organic Valley and the Agroecosystems Management Program of our research arm, OARDC, are the sponsors. Related post here.
Month: August 2013
New path into the forest
There’s something good growing between CFAES’s Ohio Woodland Stewards Program and Ohio State’s Mansfield campus. And it stands to help Ohio’s woods, wetlands, and wildlife — by helping people learn about helping them. Details and links to article and video. (Photo: University Communications, Ohio State.)
One particular harbor … for Lake Erie science
Stone Lab, Ohio State’s freshwater biological field station at Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie, will hold a free public open house Sept. 7. (Photo: Greg Aylsworth, Ohio Sea Grant/Stone Lab.)
Little acorns, mighty oaks
Register by tomorrow (Aug. 23) for the Ohio Oak SILVAH workshop Sept. 9-12 in southeast Ohio. The program will focus on understanding and managing mixed-oak forests. (Photo: Northern red oak leaves and acorns, Northeastern Area Archive, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org.) Late update: Sold out! Sorry, registration has filled.
Nobody here but us (organic) chickens
Here’s a good chance to learn more about organic poultry. Scientists with CFAES’s Organic Food and Farming Education and Research program are holding a pasture walk and discussion on Aug. 29. Featured will be new research related to soil fertility, alternative diets, managing pastured chicks in mobile pens, and the benefits of adding broilers to organic crop rotations. It’s free. Full details here.
‘This kind of informal interaction … will allow us to gear university research to what the farmers’ needs are’
CFAES has done research on organic farming (one of many paths to sustainable agriculture) since 1998. On Sept. 5, you can tour some of the program’s fields, learn about recent findings, and talk with the scientists involved in the work.
Producing food, protecting water
CFAES experts and Ohio farmers are continuing their work together to improve Lake Erie’s water quality. Ohio State’s faculty and staff newspaper has the story.
This ‘different world’ can turn yours greener
CFAES’s Farm Science Review, Sept. 17-19, has announced the session lineup for its Gwynne Conservation Area (part of which is pictured). Woodlands, wildlife, and aquatics are the focus. The nearly 70-acre “Gwynne,” home of trees, ponds, prairie, and part of a stream, “is unique to anything else seen at the Farm Science Review,” CFAES wildlife specialist Marne Titchenell says. “It’s almost like coming over to a different world.” Tickets.
Good, clean energy from, at breakfast
“Some days, it’s a good day to have breakfast,” says Thomas Builds-the-Fire in the wonderful “Smoke Signals.” And one of those days is Sept. 11, when the Environmental Professionals Network holds its next breakfast program (which you can say has to do with smoke in that it will look at how to reduce it). Called “Achieving Clean Energy Goals: Meeting Technical and Policy Challenges,” the program features a panel discussion by experts from Ohio State and the utility industry. And, as always, breakfast. Register by Sept. 6. (In fact, according to CFAES’s science-based Chow Line nutrition column, it’s always a good day to have breakfast if you can.)
How to feed the world’s people while keeping soils healthy
Distinguished University Professor Rattan Lal of CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources (SENR) is a co-editor of the new book Principles of Sustainable Soil Management in Agroecosystems. Chapter authors include, among others, Lal, other faculty in SENR, and faculty in CFAES’s Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics. (Hat tip to OARDC Librarian Connie Britton and the OARDC Library website, where the book is currently featured. OARDC is CFAES’s research arm.)