A message from Kathryn J. Boor, Ph.D., The Ronald P. Lynch Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of CALS Notes, the newest publication of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) at Cornell University! You’ll note that I called this new effort a “publication,” not a “blog.” While CALS Notes will function like any Tumblr blog, we intend it to be so much more. With original stories, fun features and college news updated daily, CALS Notes will be an exciting new source of information about the nation’s leading college of agriculture and life sciences.

Browsing CALS Notes is as simple as a mouse click. On the home page you’ll find the most recent stories in the chronological order in which they were posted. Looking for something specific? Try the search bar at the top of the page. Or, click the navigation tabs to browse stories categorized under specific themes.

For example, click “Study Notes,” and you’ll find stories about our students. “Lab Notes” brings you to news of our latest research discoveries. “Notables” contains stories on special landmarks in the lives of members of the CALS community. And “Marginalia” is the home of fun and interesting tidbits that illustrate the breadth and depth of ongoings in our college.

You can become a subscriber to CALS Notes in one of three ways: Follow us on Tumblr, subscribe to our RSS feed using your RSS reader, or sign up to join our email list, and receive monthly reminders to visit the site. I hope you enjoy CALS Notes and find it as informative, helpful and fun as we intend it to be.

Nina Bassuk’s Urban Eden class featured in recent post on CALS Notes:

CALS also has a new Facebook page for students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the college at www.facebook.com/CornellCALS. We’re also on Twitter @CornellCALS

The People’s Colleges
A History of the New York State Extension Service in Cornell University and the State, 1876-1948
By Ruby Green Smith
Foreword by Helene R. Dillard
Preface by Scott J. Peters
Cornell University Press

Scott Peters, associate professor, Department of Horticulture, writes in the preface, “One of the most important lessons Smith teaches us in this book is that the satisfactions of democratic living are not experienced and achieved when experts, however well meaning, do things for people. Nor are they achieved through work that is coerced or scripted, that offers no real rewards, or is experienced as duty-bound drudgery. They’re achieved through hard work, for sure—gritty, difficult, and at times full of conflict and disagreement. But work that is also joyful, artistic, productive, improvisational, and spirited, the expression of a free people engaged in the pursuit of public and private happiness.”

The People’s Colleges, first published in 1949, records the story of Cornell University’s success in the field of extramural education. From four state colleges of the University—the New York State College of Agriculture, the New York State College of Home Economics, the New York State Veterinary College, and the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations—professors went out to the people of New York State with the best that the university had to offer. Ruby Green Smith tells the dramatic story of the growth of the Extension Service in scope, flexibility, and specialization through 1948, when it enrolled more than 200,000 students.

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

Are you interested in or currently farming in a city?  Do you wonder how to access land, how to reclaim a contaminated site, how to maximize use of a small growing space, or how to most successfully target your urban market?

The Cornell Small Farms Program is pleased to announce the release of our new Guide to URBAN Farming in New York State.  The Guide answers these and many other common questions about farming in urban environments, and can help you launch, continue, or expand your urban farm business.

The 105-page resource guide contains factsheets on a myriad of topics, including tips for:

• Advocating for urban agriculture
• Engaging communities
• Dealing with contaminated soils
• Intensive growing techniques
• Urban composting
• Site security
• Urban livestock
• Direct marking options
• Accepting food stamps
• Grant and financial opportunities
• And many more!

Also included is an appendix listing services and resources available from several urban farming organizations throughout New York State.

Whether you’re looking to grow food on your roof top, keep chickens in your backyard, learn more about hydroponics or start an urban CSA, the Guide to URBAN Farming in New York State will provide or direct you to the information you need to know.

The Guide is available as a free .pdf download or you may view individual fact sheets online (good for dial-up or bandwidth restricted users).

For more small farm news and events, visit the Cornell Small Farms Program website.  For beginning farmer assistance, visit the Northeast Beginning Farmer Project website.

Just in time for arrival of this year’s crop of seed catalogs, the 2013 edition of Selected List of Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners in New York State is now available online.

The varieties listed in this report should be well adapted for most home gardens in New York State, offer relatively high quality, be dependable, possess disease and insect resistance when
possible, and have a relatively long harvest period. Field of Horticulture MS candidate Sarah Hulick coordinated this year’s update.

There may be varieties not listed in the report that will perform satisfactorily in your garden, or even better under certain conditions. If you’d like to dive into a larger pool of varieties as you plan you garden, visit our Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners website for detailed descriptions and seed sources of more than 6,100 varieties. At the site, you can compare varieties, read ratings and reviews by fellow gardeners, and offer your own observations of which varieties perform best in your garden.

And if you’re looking for growing tips, check out our vegetable growing guides.

Enjoy the holiday season — and especially those seed catalog.

The Fall 2012 issue of periodiCALS (formerly CALS News) is available online. Some items of horticultural interest include:

Evolution of the Land Grant Mission – Feature story quotes Anu Rangarajan: “Our Northeast Beginning Farmers Project offers interactive, online courses on topics for those just beginning to think about farming—such as ‘Square One’ and ‘Markets and Profits’—to more advanced courses on marketing and financial planning that benefit even more experienced farmers. I’ve been impressed by the inspiration and enthusiasm for agriculture in the small-farms community.” Erica Frenay ’98, coordinator of the project and is pictured displaying a brood of bees on her family’s Shelter Belt Farm in Brooktondale, N.Y. The article also lauds “innovations like the compaction-resistant soil mix for street tree roots developed by horticulture professor Nina Bassuk [that] have brought science to sidewalk shade,” and features a sidebar on The Land Grant Mission and Democracy by Scott Peters.

Breeding Better Biofuels – Around the Quad blurb: “The commercialization of shrub willow as a bioenergy crop could be years closer thanks to a $1.37 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The project, led by associate professor of horticulture Larry Smart ‘87, will identify the genes that trigger vigorous growth and biomass production in willow hybrids.”

Geneva Summer Research Program Brings Science Careers into Focus – Since 2009, the Geneva Summer Research Scholars program has grown from eight students to 28, boasts three Cornell graduate students who were former scholars, and is self-sustaining thanks to participation from the Departments of Horticulture, Entomology, and Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology.

Goodness Grapeness! Student-Run Vineyard is Certified Organic – The planting of about 500 grapevines – enough to produce over 200 cases of wine – is used in the course Sustainable and Organic Grape and Wine Production taught by assistant professor of viticulture Justine Vanden Heuvel and food science lecturer Kathy Arnink.

Plantations Pilot Program Aims to Cure ‘Plant Blindness’ – “Our goal is to engage local high school students in a participation-based program that will raise ecological awareness and teach skills that will cultivate an environmental ethic for future actions,” says Donna Levy ’81, environmental education outreach coordinator at Cornell Plantations.

Outstanding Faculty Awards – Marvin Pritts and Susan Brown are recognized.

Download .pdf version or view digital magazine format.

More info: Elizabeth Lamb • eml38@cornell.edu • 607 254 8800

by Mary Woodsen

New Cornell guide gets to the root of tree and shrub problems

ITHACA, NY: Cornell University plant pathologist George Hudler began Branching Out in 1994 as a newsletter providing plant health-care professionals with “hot off the press” information about insects and diseases on woody plants in New York landscapes. Each issue included a feature article providing in-depth discussions of individual pests and pathogens.

Branching Out was written by Dailey O’Brien with contributions by colleagues Dan Gilrein, George Hudler, and other knowledgeable professionals. Now those 18 years of feature articles have been updated and compiled in Branching Out: Features from the Past for the Future, a nearly 300-page book with over 700 color photos.

For landscape, nursery, and Christmas tree professionals and other Branching Out aficionados, no more need to shuffle through old newsletters tucked into an overfull file cabinet—the vital information for coping with the most important issues readers are likely to face will be at their fingertips. Branching Out explores and explains the integrated pest management (IPM) concepts central to the range of tactics for dealing with a pest—as well as conditions that look like a pest caused it, but didn’t.

From “Hickory Hiccups” to “Thousand Cankers Disease” to “Mulch Maladies”: whether it’s diseases, arthropods, or cultural conditions like drought, herbicide injury, or soil compaction, Branching Out’s feature article compendium has it covered. First-rate color photos and a well-designed index provide both ease of use and the superlative identification guidance essential for good IPM.

Branching Out: Features from the Past for the Future is is available from Branching Out, Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, Cornell University, 334 Plant Science Building, Ithaca, NY 14853. Cost: $30; checks made out to Cornell University.

Production Guide for Storage of Organic Fruits and Vegetables

Authors:
Chris B. Watkins and Jacqueline F. Nock, Department of Horticulture, Cornell University

NYS IPM Publication No. 10

Funded through a grant from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets

67-page guide is targeted for commercial growers and available free online.

Other titles in the NYS IPM Program series include organic production guides for apples, blueberries, grapes, strawberries, beans, carrots, cole crops, cucumbers and squash, lettuce, peas, potatoes and spinach .

The Spring/Summer 2012 Department of Horticulture Alumni Newsletter is now online. Catch up on news from alumni around the world and more.

Late blight is a “community disease.” It is very destructive. (It led to the Irish Potato Famine.) It is highly contagious among plants. And the pathogen produces many spores easily dispersed by wind.

That’s why Meg McGrath, vegetable pathologist at the Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center, created a series of brochures to teach gardeners how to prevent, identify and report the disease:

• For Long Island
• For the rest of New York
• For other states

See also McGrath’s photo galleries:

• Late blight on tomato
• Late blight on potato

Northeast growers can capture more of the lucrative local market for fresh berries by growing brambles (raspberries and blackberries) in high tunnels. And the place to start is with the updated and expanded edition of High Tunnel Raspberries and Blackberries.

These relatively low-cost, usually unheated, plastic-covered hoop houses can help growers fill late-spring and late-fall gaps in the market. Instead of mid-June, high-tunnel berries can be harvested in May. The field-grown season for brambles usually ends in early October. But growers using high tunnels continue to harvest berries through November.

Other benefits of high tunnels include:

• Floricane-fruiting raspberries and blackberries can over winter in climates where they would otherwise be killed by cold temperatures.
• Primocane-fruiting blackberries ripen where the growing season is otherwise too short.
• Berry yields from tunnels can be two to three times greater than field-grown, and the berries can be significantly larger.
• Tunnel-grown berries also have longer shelf-life with reduced pesticide inputs.

The 50-page production guide is available free online and features sections on:

• Site and tunnel selection.
• Tunnel construction.
• Plant selection and planting.
• Care and management of plantings.
• Season extension and overwintering.
• Pest management.
• Harvesting.
• Crop budgets.

The 2012 edition includes a new section on multiple-bay tunnel production, additional crop budgets, and new information on varieties, pests and diseases. The authors include berry researchers from Cornell University, Penn State University and Michigan State University who have helped pioneer berry production in high tunnels.

Visit www.fruit.cornell.edu/berry to download the guide.  To order print copies ($10 each includes shipping and handling) please contact Maxine Welcome at mw45@cornell.edu or phone 607-255-5439.