Month: September 2017

Sssselebrities to follow on Twitter

http://vimeo.com/182386219

Follow Skeate, Arwen, Hermione and Mr. Darcy, among others — radiotagged timber rattlesnakes living in southeast Ohio woods — on the @TimberTweets Twitter feed by CFAES’s Peterman Lab. Lab staff are tracking the secretive snakes, an Ohio endangered species, to see how forest management affects them. Venomous but shy, with a taste for eating small rodents (including ones spreading Lyme disease), timber rattlers help ecosystems and, quietly, people.

Lab head Bill Peterman, assistant professor in CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources, says, “I’ve had a passion for amphibians and reptiles since I was a kid catching frogs and snakes.” He’s in the video above.

A day on the river (two of them, actually) for a Century Farm open house

Carriage House Farm in Ohio’s far southwest corner hosts a free public open house from noon to 4 p.m. this Sunday, Sept. 17, at 10251 Miamiview Road in North Bend. The Ohio Century Farm, located near the Great Miami River, with the Ohio River just to the south, raises grains, fresh produce, herbs and honey.

Activities will include tours of the farm’s garden, high tunnel, baling machinery, processing facility and on-farm market, plus wagon rides and food tasting. Find out more.

The event is part of the Ohio Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series. CFAES’s Sustainable Agriculture Team is a co-presenter of the series.

Download the series brochure.

Indigenous activist Winona LaDuke to speak at Ohio State

Winona LaDuke, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Honor the Earth, presents “Indigenous Politics Today: A Discussion” at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 18, in Room 221 Sullivant Hall on Ohio State’s main campus in Columbus. Learn more.

LaDuke is a political activist, environmentalist and two-time Green Party vice-presidential nominee. Honor the Earth works to create awareness and support for indigenous environmental issues.

Admission to the event is free and open to the public. The sponsor is Ohio State’s Environmental Humanities program, a project of the university’s Humanities and the Arts Discovery Theme.

Turn thumbs green, both yours and others’

CFAES’s Master Gardener Volunteer program is for people who love plants and who love helping people. MGVs get deep training in horticulture, and then volunteer their time serving plant-related programs, such as community gardens, how-to workshops, and gardening with children and seniors, through their county office of OSU Extension, CFAES’s outreach arm. Learn more. (Photo: CFAES.)

Algal bloom conference is Thursday; public and media welcome

More than a dozen Ohio scientists studying harmful algal blooms — the pea-green, sometimes-toxic outbreaks plaguing Lake Erie and other waters — will discuss their latest findings at the second State of the Science: Understanding Algal Blooms Conference on Thursday in Toledo. (Photo: July 31, 2015, western Lake Erie algal bloom, NOAA.)

Registration open for Sept. 29 Stinner Summit

What are the multifunctional benefits of agriculture? What new project could help grow them?

Explore the questions, and give your concrete, specific ideas for such a project (which will be backed by up to $10,000 in funding), at the 11th annual Stinner Summit on Sept. 29 in Findlay.

Continue reading Registration open for Sept. 29 Stinner Summit →

Conference to feature ‘State of the Science’ in battling Lake Erie’s algal blooms

The 2017 Understanding Algal Blooms: State of the Science Conference is Sept. 14 in Toledo. The event, which is open to the public, features 15 presentations on the latest research on algal blooms in Lake Erie and other waters, their causes, and how to prevent them. The speakers will be from CFAES, Ohio Sea Grant, USDA, National Weather Service and Bowling Green State University, among others. Experts Chris Winslow, Jay Martin, Greg LaBarge and Kevin King, all with ties to CFAES, are co-hosting the event.

Registration is $30, or $10 for students. Register to attend.

3 ways to follow the Gwynne on social media

Want to keep up with CFAES’s Gwynne Conservation Area? Follow it on Instagram at gwynneconservation, on Twitter at @GwynneConserv and on Facebook. Also, you can send emails to gwynne@osu.edu.

The 67-acre site, part of CFAES’s Molly Caren Agricultural Center in London, Ohio, features conservation practices all year round, and during Farm Science Review, Sept. 19-21, will offer more than 50 free public conservation-related talks, displays and demonstrations. (Photo: Gwynne Conservation Area, 2016 Farm Science Review, via Flickr.)

Farm is ‘addicted to healthy soil.’ See how and why

The Ohio Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series continues with the Healthy Soil Farm Tour from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 10, at the Margraf Family Farm, 7838 state Route 587, in McCuthenville in northwest Ohio.

Continue reading Farm is ‘addicted to healthy soil.’ See how and why →

Poultry processing for small farms and homesteads

Tea Hills Farms, which raises poultry on pasture and runs its own state-inspected on-farm processing facility, hosts the Poultry Processing for the Small Farm and Homestead Workshop from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 10, at 269 Township Road 2450 in Loudonville.

Continue reading Poultry processing for small farms and homesteads →