Recent news of horticultural interest:
- Apple Science, From American Beauty to Zestar [Science Friday 2015-11-07] – Segment features apple breeder Susan Brown.
- Making a Meal That’s Bred-to-Order [The Atlantic 2015-11-10] – Article traces the roots of an unusual partnership between vegetable breeder Michael Mazourek and chef Dan Barber to a winter squash.
- Introducing cultivated mushrooms, New York’s newest crop [syracuse.com 2015-11-22] – New law recognizes log-grown woodland mushrooms as an official crop in New York. Article profiles Steve Gabriel (Cornell Small Farms Program) and Elizabeth Gabriel (Cornell Garden-Based Learning Program) and their 10-acre Mecklenburg, N.Y.-farm.
- Don’t Squander That Squash: Like Fine Wine, It Might Improve With Age [NPR’s The Salt 2015-11-22] – “Once a squash is harvested, it’s still very much alive,” says Michael Mazourek. Some varieties are best eaten now, while others improve as winter progresses.
- What Growing Potatoes on Mars Means for Earth’s Farmers – [Smithsonian 2015-11-17] – The release of the film The Martian dovetails with the United Nation’s International Year of Soils, and it probably does as much to raise awareness that soil, like water, is a limited resource, says Harold van Es, a soil scientist at Cornell University.
And some recent videos:
- It’s All About the Genes: Wine Flavor – From VitisGen project and the Finger Lakes Grape Program. Features Bruce Reisch, grape breeder in the Horticulture Section and Gavin Saks, food science.
- Women in STEM – Nora Catlin, who works at the Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center as the Greenhouse and Floriculture Specialist is featured in this video, first in a series from the Center for Science Teaching and Learning.