Author: Kurt Knebusch

Come plant a tree on Ohio State’s campus

Ohio State’s Columbus campus, in part with the help of CFAES’ Chadwick Arboretum & Learning Gardens, has earned Tree Campus USA certification for the past eight years in a row.

One of the certification requirements is a service learning project, and later this week you’re invited to join us and pitch in to help with the project: the ArboBlitz Community Tree Planting from 1–4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25, on the south side of the Ohio Union.

It’s free to participate and you don’t need to register.

The trees will be types that are native to Ohio.

Dig further details. (Photo: Getty Images.)

Secrest has secrets. Here’s a chance to see them

Discover Secrest Arboretum’s “far corners and hidden treasures”—plants and places that visitors rarely see (including the distant “back 40”)—on a tour called “Hidden Gems of Secrest” set for Wednesday, Oct. 23. Hours are 1-3 p.m. Admission is free but registration is required. The arboretum is part of our CFAES Wooster campus.

Find out more and register. (Photo: Getty Images.)

Ohio’s farm crisis: Why leaving a field unplanted can hurt it

Some 1.5 million acres of Ohio’s farm fields—an area twice the size of Rhode Island—didn’t have any corn, soybeans, or other cash crops planted on them this year. Reason: Record spring rain made the ground too wet to plant. Now those fields are at risk of problems from something called fallow syndrome, which is caused by the loss of crop-friendly microbes that live—or lived—in the fields’ soils.

Experts from CFAES explain. (Photo: Getty Images.)

Stone Lab offering solar tech curriculum

Hey, educators: Ohio State’s Stone Laboratory at Lake Erie is offering a free STEM-related curriculum on solar technology. The program teaches about how solar energy works, its uses and benefits, and ties into the lab’s own solar installation on Gibraltar Island, some of which is shown here.

You can find out more about the curriculum, which is suited to students from elementary age to adult, in the latest on our CFAES Stories website. (Photo: Ohio Sea Grant via Flickr.)

Secrets of Ohio’s mystery fruit revealed

New on our CFAES Stories site: Details on CFAES efforts to help Ohioans grow more of a little-known native fruit. Fun fact: Ohio brewers are using it lately to good effect in craft beers. Read the story. (Photo: CFAES’ Matt Davies with the fruit tree in question, John Rice, CFAES.)

Sustaining southeast Ohio’s mighty oaks

CFAES is helping sustain oak forests and the many kinds of life that need them. As a member of the Ohio Interagency Forestry Team, the college’s OSU Extension outreach arm is part of a collective effort to restore oak-dominated forests across 17 counties in southeast Ohio.

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