A new app is helping farmers save money while also protecting water quality. Developed by Ohio State experts including from CFAES, the Field Application Resource Monitor, or FARM, uses advanced weather forecasting — specific to a geographic area as small as 1.5 miles wide — to advise farmers on when to apply fertilizers and pesticides so rain doesn’t wash them away.
Read the full story. Visit the app’s website.
CFAES scientist Rattan Lal, pictured, who studies the ability of soil to address such global issues as climate change, food security and water quality, has received the 2018 World Agriculture Prize from the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences (GCHERA).
The award honors Lal’s “exceptional and significant lifetime achievements” in the agricultural and life sciences, GCHERA officials said. It was presented Oct. 28 in a ceremony at China’s Nanjing Agricultural University.
Lal is Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science in the School of Environment and Natural Resources. He is the director of CFAES’s Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, is an adjunct professor with the University of Iceland, and is the president of the Vienna-based 60,000-member International Union of Soil Sciences.
Read the full story. (Photo: John Rice, CFAES.)
“Despite news reports to the contrary, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not warned people against dressing chickens in Halloween costumes.” (Photo: Getty Images.)
Julie Lesnik of Detroit’s Wayne State University will present a seminar called “Edible Insects and Human Evolution” on Ohio State’s Columbus campus on Nov. 2. An assistant professor in Wayne State’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Lesnik focuses her research on two areas: the evolution of the human diet; and, yes, bugs you can nosh on. She’s written a book with the same title as her seminar. Ohio State’s Initiative for Food and AgriCultural Transformation and Department of Anthropology are co-sponsoring the event. It’s set for 3 p.m. in Room 4012, Smith Laboratory. Contact Cheryl Fischnich, fischnich.1@osu.edu, for more information. (Photo: Getty Images.)
There are places in CFAES’s Secrest Arboretum that few people see or know about. But a free tour hopes to change that. Called “Hidden Gems of Secrest,” it’s from 9 a.m. to noon tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 26, in Wooster. Learn more.
Jill Bartolotta of the Ohio State-based Ohio Sea Grant program and Sue Bixler of CFAES’s Stone Laboratory have received a nearly $50,000 grant to educate visitors to South Bass Island about plastic trash — how it hurts water quality and wildlife and how to prevent it.
South Bass Island, located in western Lake Erie and home of the tourist town of Put-in-Bay, annually sees more than 800,000 visitors.
Learn about the importance of pollinators and about threats to them in a workshop at the Mahoning County office of OSU Extension, CFAES’s outreach arm. It’s tomorrow, Tuesday, Oct. 23, from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Registration is $10. Find out more. (Photo: Getty Images.)
The 4th Environmental Film Series, sponsored by CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources, continues at 7 p.m. tonight, Monday, Oct. 22, with “What Lies Upstream,” a look at West Virginia’s 2014 Elk River chemical spill. A PBS website about the film calls it “an unsettling expose” in which filmmaker Colin Hoback “uncovers a shocking failure of regulation” by state and federal agencies and a “damaged political system where chemical companies often write the laws that govern them.” You can watch the trailer above.
Find further details. See the full series schedule.
CFAES scientists are trying to better understand soil balancing, a soil management approach based on base cation saturation ratios, and they’re inviting you to join a call-in conversation on the topic from 1:30-3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 17. Called “Soil Balancing: From ‘Renegade’ Grassroots Past to Open Future, it’s a chance to “listen, learn and contribute,” the event’s website says. “Resource people will be on hand to provide input, but we also wish to hear from callers and learn from their experiences.” Find out more.
Two more conversations are set for Nov. 14 and Dec. 12.
The next Pollinator School workshop, presented by the Mahoning County office of CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension, runs from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 16, in Canfield in northeast Ohio. The program’s title is “Habitats.” It’s about seeing, understanding and improving where pollinators live and feed. Registration is $10. Learn more. (Photo: Getty Images.)