“Issues related to energy development are often emotionally charged, with the potential for conflict.” So writes CFAES’s Eric Romich in “The Role of Extension in Energy Education,” published this month in the Journal of Extension. Romich is an OSU Extension energy development specialist. “Looking forward to the next 100 years,” he continues, “it is time for Extension to adapt and mobilize research and educational programming to address critical energy issues facing our nation.” Read the article. (Photo: Creatas.)
Month: April 2015
Martin to lead Field to Faucet, has ‘ability to bring people together’
CFAES’s Jay Martin, an ecological engineer, has been picked to lead Ohio State’s new Field to Faucet water quality program. A response to last summer’s Toledo water crisis and ongoing algal bloom problems in Lake Erie and other lakes, the $1 million program aims to ensure safe drinking water while maintaining productive, profitable farming. “Solving the water quality problem in Ohio will take many minds,” said CFAES Dean Bruce McPheron. “Jay has the ability to bring people together.” Read the story …
8 ways a city’s vacant lots can be good for the environment
In Cleveland, CFAES’s Mary Gardiner and her team are doing a large-scale, never-tried-before study. They’re evaluating eight different landscape treatments on 64 vacant lots in eight Cleveland neighborhoods. Why: To see how the treatments affect biodiversity and ecosystem function in the lots — and hopefully to come up with cheaper, greener options to just planting the lots with grass. Read more. (Find a New York Times story on the work here.)
14 billion ways honey bees let you eat
CFAES scientists work with Ohio beekeepers, farmers, gardeners and other to support healthy honey bees and the environments they need. Here’s why.
If you give a mouse a melon
Want to grow something new in your garden? CFAES Master Gardener Volunteer Pat Fuller weighs in on the cucamelon, aka mouse melon, aka Mexican sour gherkin cucumber — “They aren’t the least bit sour as the name suggests” — in a recent issue of the Youngstown Vindicator. (Buy seeds here and here, among others.)
$4 million to go to Lake Erie water quality research
The Ohio Board of Regents and a consortium of Ohio universities (including Ohio State and specifically CFAES) and state agencies are investing $4 million in 18 research and development efforts aimed at solving water quality and algal toxicity issues in western Lake Erie. Read the story. (Photo: Marblehead Lighthouse, iStock.)
April 22: Ecosystem stewardship and rapid climate change
The Climate Explorations series continues on Wednesday, April 22, with “Ecosystem Stewardship in an Era of Rapid Climate Change.” The subject: Science-based ways to help forests and other ecosystems adapt to climate change. Ohio State plant ecologist Peter Curtis is the speaker. Free at 7 p.m. in the Franklin Park Conservatory, 1777 E. Broad St. in Columbus. The program will also be streamed online; to watch, register here.
April 22: Transgene flow into rice wild relatives
Ohio State’s Xiao (Peter) Yang presents “Evolutionary Impacts Caused by Transgene Flow into Rice Wild Relatives” from 11:30 a.m. to 12:25 p.m. Wednesday, April 22, in the spring seminar series by CFAES’s Department of Horticulture and Crop Science. Learn more. Yang is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Allison Snow, Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology.
Food security needs water security
CFAES Dean Bruce McPheron spoke April 16 at OARDC’s 2015 annual research conference, whose theme was “Water Quality: Sustaining a Vital Resource.” You can watch his talk, called “CFAES’s Role in Solving Today’s Challenges for a Better Tomorrow,” above. His comments on water quality come near the end, around 22:10. “When we talk about food security,” he said, “we have to have water security first or there is no food.” OARDC is CFAES’s research arm.
Hop (tours) back, hop (growing moves) ahead
CFAES’s “First Friday” public tours of its hop research plantings are back starting in May.