It’s spring, and “mulch volcanos” may be erupting around some of the trees in your neighborhood. What’s wrong with that? A short answer is tree-killing stem-girdling roots, which is also a good name for a band. A longer answer is in an instructive and fun article by CFAES’s Joe Boggs on the Buckeye Yard and Garden onLine (BYGL) website, which shows you how to mulch a tree right. (Photo: Volcano (non-mulch type), iStock.)
Month: April 2018
Waiter, there’s a bee on my screen
CFAES’s 2018 Bee Lab Webinar Series kicks off when biologist-author Olivia Carril presents “Identifying Common Bees of the Great Lakes Region” from 9-10 a.m., April 18. Carril is the co-author of The Bees in Your Backyard: A Guide to North America’s Bees (Princeton University Press, 2015), which the Bookseller Buyer’s Guide calls “The ultimate bee book for bee enthusiasts and experts alike.”
Honey, we’re growing more bee-friendly plants
CFAES researchers Reed Johnson and Sharon Treaster give you four tips for helping honey bees, and why, on Ohio State’s Insights website. (Photo: iStock.)
They’re helping restore a wetland on Ohio State’s campus in Columbus (and you can, too)
Six senior students in CFAES’s Department of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering, sponsored by the Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed (FLOW), and with further support from a Coca-Cola Sustainability Grant — are helping restore a wetland in Ohio State’s Carmack Woods. It’s another good read on our new CFAES Stories website.
You can help plant trees there on Sunday, April 22 — Earth Day. Find out more.
Sunshine on the water
Click the link in the tweet below to read about the working solar energy system at CFAES’s Stone Lab. (The system? Cool. The water it heats? Hot.) The lab is on Gibraltar Island in Put-in-Bay harbor in western Lake Erie.
Of note, now’s the time to apply for introductory college courses, upper-level college courses, noncredit workshops and professional development classes for educators there this summer.
During the summer, we get much of our electricity and almost all the hot water for the dining hall from solar energy. It's a great way to become more sustainable, and the visible set-up encourages visitors to learn about clean energy. #howgreenthycampus https://t.co/nsqN6hAgY4 pic.twitter.com/ORoFYb1M7A
— Stone Laboratory (@stonelab) April 5, 2018
They’re seeing if toxins from Lake Erie algae get into food you might eat
Do toxins from Lake Erie algal blooms get into Lake Erie fish you might eat? What about vegetables that growers watered with water they pulled from the lake? Scientists with CFAES, funded by Ohio Sea Grant and the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s Harmful Algal Bloom Research Initiative, are helping find answers.
How to make sure that lady beetles, and stink bugs too, never spend winter in your home again
If you spent this past winter finding multicolored Asian lady beetles on your lampshades, brown marmorated stink bugs on your toaster, there’s bad news and good news.
Watch Rattan Lal’s interview on Indian TV: ‘Soil should never, ever be taken for granted’
While in India recently, CFAES scientist Rattan Lal sat for a fascinating interview with Rajya Sabha TV. Watch it above, and get a good idea of the deep, foundational importance of soil — to farming, climate change, biodiversity, water quality, human health and more — and a good idea, too, of the mind and passion of one of our college’s most esteemed thinkers.
The case of the disappearing bee
Elizabeth Long, assistant professor in CFAES’s Department of Entomology, presents “Death by Dust? The Case of the Disappearing Bee” at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 5, in the Wooster Science Café series. Long was a co-author of a 2017 Journal of Applied Ecology study that reported that neonicotinoid insectides, when used to protect corn seeds after planting, pose risks for honey bees.