News and views from the Department of Horticulture
If you missed Monday’s Horticulture Section seminar, Growing the lost crops of eastern North America: Developmental plasticity in plant domestication with Natalie Mueller, post-doctoral fellow, Horticulture Section, it is available online.
More seminar videos: Horticulture | School of Integrative Plant Science
Donn Branton of Branton Farms illustrates the connection between water quality and soil health by showing two samples of water, one cloudy with sediment from the creek entering his property and the other with clear water that exits his farm.
Cornell Chronicle, CALS News [2019-07-27]:
New York government policy and nonprofit leaders, researchers, farmers and agricultural professionals from 40 organizations attended the first statewide Soil Health Summit July 18 in Albany, New York. It was organized by New York Soil Health, which is funded by the state’s Environmental Protection Fund and coordinated by Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS).
“The setting of this soil summit next to the state capital was by intention,” said David Wolfe, Cornell professor of plant and soil ecology and program lead for New York Soil Health. He said New York has been at the forefront of the global soil health movement and summit participants would discuss where to go from here.
“We were pleased to have representatives from Gov. Cuomo’s administration and agency partners as well as representatives from the state Senate and Assembly in attendance,” said Wolfe. “The summit goals were to expand collaboration among the many farmers and organizations working on soil health issues, and also to identify research, outreach and policy priorities for the future.”
Topics included economic analyses of soil health costs and benefits; the relationship between soil health and climate change; addressing challenges of reducing tillage on vegetable farms; soil health for apple orchard systems; fortifying biochar with manure wastes as marketable fertilizer; and research on cover crop interseeding and perennial grains.
1:00 to 2:30 p.m. – Student presenters:
2:30 to 3:00 p.m. – Student poster session:
3:00 to 4:30 p.m. – Student presenters:
Questions? Contact Leah Cynara Cook lcc2@cornell.edu
If you missed Monday’s Horticulture Section seminar, The rhizosphere microbiome: sources of variation and links to plant function with Bryan Emmett, Boyce Thompson Institute, it is available online.
More seminar videos: Horticulture | School of Integrative Plant Science
If you missed Monday’s Horticulture Section seminar, Mineral Nutrition of Phalaenopsis, with focus on nitrogen with Yao-Chien Alex Chang, National Taiwan University, it is available online.
More seminar videos: Horticulture | School of Integrative Plant Science
If you missed Monday’s Horticulture Section seminar, Diversified weed management in NY vegetable crops – Challenges and opportunities with John Wallace, Horticulture Section, Cornell University, it is available online.
More seminar videos: Horticulture | School of Integrative Plant Science
If you missed Monday’s Horticulture Section seminar, Malus collection in the US National Plant Germplasm System with C. Thomas Chao, USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, N.Y., it is available online.
More seminar videos: Horticulture | School of Integrative Plant Science
If you missed Monday’s Horticulture Section seminar, Arboriculture: An Italian prospective on research with Francesco Ferrini, University of Florence, it is available online.
More seminar videos: Horticulture | School of Integrative Plant Science
If you missed Monday’s Horticulture Section seminar, Anatomy of the 2016 drought in New York State: Implications for agricultural and water resources with Shannan Sweet, post-doc associate in the Wolfe Lab, it is available online.
More seminar videos: Horticulture | School of Integrative Plant Science
Students Stevanica Augustine, left, and Jonas Soe examine invertebrates along the streams that feed into Lake Trema
Cornell Chronicle/CALS News [2018-02-06]
Far above Buttermilk Falls in Ithaca sits a reservoir dam impounding Lake Treman. Hiking trails wend through the area, which for eight decades has slowly accumulated enough sediment to turn the lake into plodding marsh. Sometime in the next 30 years, it will completely fill and become a riparian marsh.
Cornell students in Tom Whitlow’s Restoration Ecology class spent the fall semester examining Lake Treman’s many components, and they worked with the New York State Department of Parks and Recreation to develop a plan for managing it.
The students presented their research to state parks officials in December. (View presentation video.) Generally, the class found no compelling reason to remove the dam, in spite of the increasing sediment, said Audrey Stanton ’19, a teaching assistant for the course.
