A big, sometimes the biggest, challenge in organic farming is weed control. You can learn new ways to do battle, including by using cover crops and crop rotations, in an upcoming CFAES webinar series. Pictured is ragweed, a major thorn, but thankfully thornless, in organic farmers’ sides.
Month: February 2014
A risk not to be there
Adam Zwickle, a Ph.D student in CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources, presents “Communicating Environmental Risks: The Effects of Message Frame on Risk Mitigating Behavior” today (Thursday, Feb. 27) at 4 p.m.
Leaves in absence? Get cold clues, hot tips
“Identifying trees without leaves can be a real challenge,” says CFAES’s Kathy Smith, who will show you how to meet that challenge on March 28 in Chardon. Why bother? Telling trees apart in winter can help you plan for spring, she says. Work such as planting, pruning and thinning, for example, depends on knowing just what you’ve got growing.
Why you may want to grow crops like this one
A March 17 workshop hosted by the All Ohio Chapter of the Soil and Water Conservation Society will look at how farmers can reduce the off-site movement of soluble nutrients such as phosphorus. One way involves growing cover crops, such as the vetch shown here, which benefit the soil. Four of the speakers will be from CFAES. (Photo by James H. Miller, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org.)
Climate change, carbon storage, and the future of Great Lakes forests
Ohio State’s Peter Curtis presents “Predicting Carbon Storage of Great Lakes Forests in the Year 2050” in a free webinar from noon to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 27. Curtis is an ecology professor and directs the Forest Carbon Cycle Research Program at the University of Michigan Biological Station in Michigan’s Northern Lower Peninsula. His talk is part of a series sponsored by Ohio State’s Climate Change Outreach Team. Get details and register.
Climate change, science and moving past partisan politics
Former six-term U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis presents “Using Science to Overcome Partisanship: The Climate Change Example” March 18 at Ohio State. Inglis lost his bid for re-election in 2010 possibly because of his support for a carbon tax aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2013 Politico interview. He’s now the executive director of George Mason University’s Energy and Enterprise Initiative, which promotes conservative solutions to America’s climate and energy challenges. (Photo: E&EI.)
Myths about GMOs? Learn more Feb. 27
CFAES scientist Andy Michel presents “GMOs: Great Myths Operating about Genetically Modified Organisms” at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 27, at the First Amendment Public House, 150 W. Liberty St., in Wooster. He speaks as part of the Wooster Science Café series sponsored by the College of Wooster and CFAES’s research arm, OARDC. (Photo: USDA-ARS.)
Agroforestry and birds in the Andes (and some that come to Ohio)
Molly McDermott, Ph.D. candidate in CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources, presents “The Role of Tropical Agroforestry in the Ecology and Conservation of Flocking Andean Birds” at 4 p.m. today, Feb. 20. Details. Some birds that nest in Ohio in summer, such as the beleaguered cerulean warbler, shown here, also spend winter in the Andes. (Photo: Dendroica cerulea by Mdf licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.)
Learn of the green world (free, on iTunes U)
A big world calls for a really big class. Nearly 300,000 students — from the U.S., China, Canada and other countries, enough to fill Ohio Stadium three times over — have accessed a massive open online course (MOOC) on environmental science taught by CFAES’s Brian Lower. Full story.
Be seen for your green
Sponsorship slots are still available for Wooster’s Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair. The event will focus on ways to live green. It’s set for April 22, Earth Day, at the Wooster campus of CFAES’s research arm, OARDC. Sponsorship details (Word file).