This week I was able to attend the Planting Fest at Tiger Farm, the Tioga Central Schools farm. Elementary school students came up to the farm with their classes to plant corn and pumpkins and to visit the many different agricultural education booths that local farmers and organizations set up. The Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tioga County (CCE Tioga) Master Gardeners helped students make seed tapes with radish seeds so they could plant the seeds at home and eat their homegrown radishes in a few weeks. CCE Tioga Nutrition and 4-H educators also ran booths at Planting Fest. Planting Fest was a fun and meaningful event that provided me with the opportunity to observe CCE Tioga staff in action and meet educators from some of the other organizations present who make a positive impact in Tioga County.
I also continued reading literature about colocation of Agriculture and Solar (Ag-Solar) production to further inform myself on the topic. I attended a meeting with the members of the Solar and Ag Working Group who compile these Ag-Solar resources, where I learned about some of the resource needs around Ag-Solar topics. My supervisor and I also met with a member of the Tioga County Economic Development & Planning team to talk about solar projects in the county and learn about a GIS map of Tioga County solar projects. This week has been quite informative!