From Jane Mt. Pleasant and Sonja Skelly:

Students in HORT 2350 (Food, Fiber, and Fulfillment: Plants and Human Well-Being) will have posters on display in the Dean’s Gallery on the second floor of Mann Library from 9am Tuesday April 30 until 3pm Thursday, May 2.

Students have worked in teams to research topics that address the role of plants and human well being. They include issues such as plants in prisons, use of plants for physical health, plants for at-risk youth, plants and tourism, and plants for pollution mitigation.

We hope that you can stop by and see their work.

From Marcia Eames-Sheavly:

On May 6, students in HORT/IARD 3200: Experiential Garden-Based Learning in Belize will give their final presentation to the Cornell community in Mann 102 at 3:15 p.m.

This will likely involve images, some final project presentations, and and chocolate making and drumming lessons/demonstrations from their time in the village of Barranco.

More information about their trip over spring break.

From Franziska Doerflinger, PhD candidate, Graduate Field of Horticulture:

On Saturday April 13, 2013, more than 60 graduate and professional students from the Cornell community came to the Ken Post Lab Greenhouses to get their hands dirty and play with plants at the SoHo-organized event: “Horticulture Outreach Day,” (The event was sponsored Graduate and Professional Student Assembly Finance Commission.)

In six, 30-minute workshops, Horticulture graduate students explained mushroom cultivation and the process of constructing and caring for a terrarium to interested attendees. We also demonstrated how to grow edible sprouts cheaply and easily at home; how moss graffiti is made; and how vermicompost works and how it can greatly improve the life of your houseplants.

Last but not least, SoHo members showed some easy techniques for how to propagate houseplants. Every participant went home with at least one plant for their home and will know how to care for it.

We hope this will be the first of many such outreach days and a tradition was born, enabling this to become an annual event.

Big thanks to all the Horticulture graduate students for their participation in the organization and for their time. Thanks also to the Greenhouse management and staff for letting us use their facility.

Terminal Thoughts and Parting Shots
Special Exit Seminar with Dr. Ian Merwin

Friday, May 10
1:30-3:30 p.m.
Cornell Orchards Sales Room

Featured Speakers:

• Dr. Ian Merwin
• Dr. Frank Rossi
• Dr. Gregory Peck

On the occasion of Professor Ian Merwin’s retirement, please join us for a seminar highlighting his research and teaching in viticulture and pomology.

The seminar will be followed by an orchard walk, weather-permitting.

Light refreshments will be provided.

Ian Merwin, Herman M Cohn Professor of Horticulture, will present a Crop and Soil Sciences (CSS) seminar on Long-term impacts of groundcover management systems on orchard nutrient budgets, rootstock microbial communities, and productivity, Thursday, April 11, 2013, 12:20 – 1:10 pm, 135 Emerson Hall.

He will also be presenting a Department of Horticulture seminar on May 10, A retrospective on sustainability studies in orchards & vineyards, Friday, May 10.

The content of the two seminars “will be about 50 percent similar,” he says.

His abstract for the CSS seminar:

Since 1986 we have studied the long-term effects of different orchard groundcover/soil management systems (GMSs) on apple tree health and productivity, rootstock performance and rhizosphere microbial communities, and leaching, runoff, recycling and retention of nitrogen fertilizer and other agrichemicals. The short (3-5 year) vs. long-term (5-20 year) effects of GMSs on tree health and fruit production have been substantially different. Nitrogen and water competition from grass and legume groundcovers reduced fruit production and tree biomass up to 40% during orchard establishment, but in subsequent years tree root systems adapted to groundcover competition and yields were similar. Edaphic conditions diverged over time in herbicide vs. wood-chip mulch GMSs, with greater water infiltration, macroporosity, and soil organic matter in the mulch treatments. Rhizosphere microbial communities also differentiated over time among GMSs, and among various apple rootstock genotypes, and these differences influenced tree responses to the soil-borne disease complex known as apple replant disease. Detailed studies of N and P budgets under different GMSs have suggested that tree-row herbicide treatments required N fertilizers to maintain optimal fruit production, while grass and mulch GMSs had excess N supply after 15 years of treatments, and N leaching became a potential problem under wood-chip mulch. A recent short-term study of GMSs in steep hillside avocado orchards in central Chile showed that offsite soil erosion and runoff can be reduced by several orders of magnitude when groundcovers are maintained in these orchards, but there was also a concomitant reduction in early fruit production under the groundcovers compared with weed free herbicide systems. Taken collectively, our studies have important implications for the relative sustainability of different orchard floor systems, and the different short vs. long-term trends demonstrate the need for more long-term studies in perennial fruit-crop systems.

The Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology’s Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic (PDDC) is holding an OPEN HOUSE on April 25, 2013. The PDDC staff want to provide an opportunity for Cornell Faculty and Staff to stop by and see what we do. We are hoping that those of you that already use our services will stop in to chat about what we do for you, discuss if there are ways we can improve our services and possibly learn about other services that are available. We are also hoping that those of you that don’t currently use our services will stop in to see what we have to offer.

Please join us:

Date: Thursday, April 25, 2013
Time: 1:00-3:00pm
Place: 329 Plant Science Bldg.

We are hoping this event will provide an opportunity to …

• get to know your diagnosticians,
• learn about our services,
• observe state -of -the-art equipment in use,
• see how our samples are processed,
• or just stop by to say hello!

Please contact Karen Snover-Clift at kls13@cornell.edu or 607-255-7860 if you have an questions.

Camp Mushroom – Hands-on mushroom cultivation workshop
April 12 & 13, 2013

Location: Cornell’s Arnot Teaching and Research Forest located about 20 miles south of Ithaca, NY at 611 County Route 13, Van Etten, N.Y.

Camp Mushroom is a unique beginner/intermediate level workshop for those interested in small-scale forest mushroom cultivation. Participants will be trained in two methods of mushroom cultivation (bolt and totem), laying yard considerations, and assist in a research project by inoculating bolts and/or totems. Each participant will also inoculate two shiitake bolts to take home.

Cost: $65 ($35 if not staying in cabin bunks). Includes Friday dinner and breakfast and lunch on Saturday.

Registration link at: http://blogs.cornell.edu/mushrooms/events/

Special seminar sponsored by the New World Agriculture and Ecology Group and the CU Mushroom Club:

Mushrooms in International Development:
Observations From Travel in Bangladesh and Rwanda

Speaker:
Bryan Sobel
Graduate Field of Horticulture

Thursday April 4, 1:30pm
Room 22 Plant Science Building

See also:
Grad student helps women rebuild Rwanda with mushrooms
[Cornell Chronicle 2013-03-13]

From Violet Stone, Cornell Small Farms Program vws7@cornell.edu:

Are your farm energy bills on the rise – and are you wondering what you can do to reduce them?  Are you looking for more sustainable sources of energy? Join us online for a webinar series of farmer-led virtual tours and fun, informational tips for saving energy and converting to renewables on your farm or homestead!

This four-part lunchtime webinar series will provide examples of energy conservation measures, solar arrays, wind turbines, compost heat, and a variety of other ecological production techniques and introduce you to farmers and professionals who are successfully harnessing the power of renewable resources to produce affordable, sustainable energy.  Tune in to learn if solar, wind, geothermal, and even compost power are right for you!

The series will run from noon-12:45pm every Friday from March 29th through April 19th.  All of the webinars are free and open to the public.  To sign up, please complete and submit our New Generation Energy Webinar Sign-Up form.   You will receive an email approximately one week before your chosen webinar(s) providing a link and instructions for you to access the series. [More Info]

Sponsored by NE SARE (Northeast Sustainable Ag Research and Education) and the Cornell Small Farms Program.  To learn about funding opportunities available from NE SARE, visit www.nesare.org.  To learn more about sustainable energy resources visit http://smallfarms.cornell.edu/resources/farm-energy/

From Chrislyn A. Particka, Project Manager, Northern Grapes Project:

First Results from Northern Grapes Project Detailed at Viticulture 2013 Conference in New York

The Second Annual Northern Grapes Symposium featured first-year results from viticulture, enology, and economics/marketing studies that are part of the USDA-funded Northern Grapes Project, which began in October 2011. Approximately 120 people attended three sessions of the Symposium, held on February 6, 2013 in Rochester, NY, in conjunction with the Viticulture 2013 Conference.

Read the highlights.

View PowerPoint slides from the presentations.

The Northern Grapes Project is a multi-institutional Coordinated Agricultural Project funded by the USDA’s Specialty Crops Research Initiative, with a multidisciplinary team from 12 universities in collaboration with winery and grape grower associations in ND, SD, MN, NE, IA, WI, IL, NY, VT, CT, and MA.  It focuses on production, processing, and marketing of new cold-climate wine grape cultivars that have spawned new wineries and vineyards in the upper Midwest and Northeast.   http://northerngrapesproject.org.

The project also sponsors webinars, generally on the second Tuesday of each month.  More webinar info.