Students from Ohio State and members of the broader community will screen and discuss six weekly environmental films with university and local experts in October and November.
The series is designed to raise awareness of climate change and its economic, health, political and environmental impacts, said David Hanselmann, a lecturer in CFAES and the coordinator of the Environmental Professionals Network. Continue reading ‘There really are solutions’: Environmental film series starts Oct. 20
What can you grow under electric transmission lines? Plants for butterflies, bees and other pollinators are one idea. A new multi-partner project, called A Monarch Right-of-Way: A Pollinator Demonstration Plot, is underway at Ohio State’s Mansfield campus, and CFAES’s Marne Titchenell and Denise Ellsworth are part of it. Continue reading New pollinator planting at Ohio State Mansfield
The Ohio Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series continues this Sunday, Oct. 11, with a Poultry Processing Workshop at Tea Hills Farms in Ashland County. “Take control of your food by learning to efficiently and humanely process your own chickens,” the series booklet says. “The day will begin with a hands-on training in start-to-finish poultry processing, with students directly participating in each step. … At the end of the day, each attendee will be able to take home two fresh chickens.” Also featured will be pasture tours, shelter designs and on-farm research by CFAES scientists on growing naked oats as poultry feed. Get details here on p. 25. Limited to 15 people.
A free seminar tomorrow, Oct. 7, looks at CFAES’s On-Field Ohio project. The project is using field-scale, edge-of-field monitoring to revise the Ohio Phosphorus Risk Index. Ohio farmers use the index to make management decisions about how much phosphorus they should apply to their crops. A well-tested, further-vetted index will lead to less phosphorus runoff into water, a cause of harmful algal blooms. CFAES’s Libby Dayton is the speaker. She talks about the index in the video above. Seminar details here.
Regarding next Tuesday’s Environmental Professionals Network program: “Perhaps the strengthening faith-based initiatives can … help overcome the political gridlock that so many environmental issues are challenged by.”
This has to do with sustainability in the sense of sustaining a stink bug- and stink-free household. Which is nice. CFAES’s Ohioline website has a helpful free fact sheet about brown marmorated stink bugs, where they come from, what they do and how to control them. You can download it here. And our entomology friends at Virginia Tech have a short, clear video (only 24 seconds) showing how to build your own research-tested, effective, inexpensive stink bug trap that you can watch above or here. Brown marmorated stink bugs move into homes in fall, looking for a place to spend winter. They’re a non-native invasive species in the U.S. and are a pest, too, of fruit and vegetables.
Secrest Arboretum, part of OARDC, CFAES’s research arm in Wooster, will hold a free guided bird walk, ideally featuring blue jays like this one and more, this Saturday, Oct. 10. (Photo by natidu, iStock.)
A solar installer whose headquarters has its own sun-powered system and the largest solar farm in Ohio, which covers an area equal to some 80 football fields, are two of the highlights of the 2015 Renewable Energy Workshop. The event, which CFAES is sponsoring, is Nov. 4 in Carey in northwest Ohio. Read more here. Download the flier and registration form here. (Photo: PSEG solar farm in Wyandot County by Ken Chamberlain, CFAES Marketing and Communications.)
Four religious leaders with roots in Ohio will speak in a panel discussion called “Faiths Worldwide Tackle Environmental Challenges” on Oct. 13 at Ohio State. Continue reading Can faith fight climate change? Talk on religion and environment