Oct. 27 workshop: Statewide impacts of shale development

An energy infrastructure workshop called Statewide Impacts of Shale and Alternative Energy Development, hosted by CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension, is Tuesday, Oct. 27, on Ohio State’s Columbus campus. You’re invited to attend. Shale oil and gas development and its effects on landowners, communities and public officials (through land leasing, influxes of workers, building new pipelines and more) will be a main focus. Read more here and here. Register here (the cost is $30 and includes lunch).

Helping urban farms find their niche: Sustainable Farm Tour Series

ocfarm_panorama_hrjpg5The Ohio Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series wraps up this Saturday, Oct. 24, in Cleveland with an urban farming workshop called Finding Your Niche: Aligning Products, Markets and Your Interests for Maximum Productivity, Profitability and Satisfaction. The Refugee Response at Ohio City Farm (pictured) is the host. Continue reading

Invasive species may be junk food for predators; or, why not gobble gobies?

RoundGoby2If there’s an upshot to the appearance of invasive species, it’s that they might provide an additional food source for the native animals whose territory they are invading.

But a new analysis of scientific studies spanning more than two decades has revealed that predators benefit most from eating invasive prey only if their traditional food sources remain intact — that is, if they are able to maintain their usual diet and eat invaders only as an occasional snack. Continue reading

‘A victory for the Great Lakes’?

“Canada’s ouster of conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper will likely be seen by many as a victory for the Great Lakes,” writes Toledo Blade environmental writer Tom Henry in his Ripple Effects blog. Included are details from Jeff Reutter of Ohio State’s Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Lab programs on the changing nature of the sources of Lake Erie’s phosphorus pollution. Read the post.

Purdue prof to speak on new walnut disease

Matt Ginzel, head of Purdue University’s Forest Entomology Laboratory, presents “Thousand Cankers Disease: Enhanced Detection of the Insect Vector and Etiology of the Disease within the Native Range of Black Walnut” from 3:30-4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 21, at CFAES’s research arm, OARDC in Wooster (121 Fisher Auditorium), and by video link to Ohio State’s Columbus campus (244 Kottman Hall). Thousand cankers is a new, deadly fungal disease of walnut trees. The insect that carries the disease, the walnut twig beetle, has been found in Ohio in Butler County. Read a good CFAES backgrounder here.

CFAES prof co-edits new book on ‘Soil-Specific Farming’

Speaking of Rattan Lal, he’s also the co-editor of a recently released CRC Press reference book called Soil-Specific Farming: Precision Agriculture. “Faced with challenges of resource scarcity and environmental degradation,” the book’s description says, “it is important to adopt innovative farming systems that maximize resource efficiency while protecting the environment” — in other words, that are sustainable. Check out the book’s webpage.

Putting ‘climate on the menu before it’s too late’

A Civil Eats article called “Sam Kass Wants to Put the Climate on the Menu Before It’s Too Late” mentions CFAES scientist Rattan Lal (scroll down). Lal is a Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science in the School of Environment and Natural Resources. Kass is the former assistant White House chef and former executive director of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign. The article mentions Lal’s soil carbon sequestration work with French Minister of Agriculture Stéphane Le Foll, who spoke last spring at Ohio State. “Capturing carbon in soil,” the Center for Food Safety’s Diana Donlon says in the article, “is the ‘low hanging fruit’ in the effort to mitigate climate change.”

‘We should be able to do these things together’: CFAES alum talks about being ‘Black and Outside’

Jesse Bethea interviewed Nicole Jackson — birder, alumna of CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources, and former leader of Outdoor Afro’s Columbus chapter — for a Columbus Underground story called “Black and Outside in Columbus.” Be sure to give it a read …