HAMILTON, Ohio — What can you do with your woods?
On May 24, the Ohio Woodland Stewards Program, part of Ohio State University Extension, is giving a workshop with that exact question as its title.
“The woodland you own may be something you purchased or something you ‘got with the farm,’ ” said Kathy Smith, coordinator of the program and one of the workshop’s instructors. “But now that it’s yours, what should you do with it? It’s a question we get a lot.”
OSU Extension is the outreach arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.
The workshop is from 6 to 9 p.m. in OSU Extension’s Butler County office, 1802 Princeton Road, in Hamilton in southwest Ohio.
‘...
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Green is good. Renewable rocks. But don’t forget energy efficiency, says the organizer of an upcoming event at The Ohio State University.
“Even as we pursue green, clean, renewable energy, we need to remember that end-use efficiency improvements are among the cheapest, cleanest, surest, most rapidly expandable energy improvement options we have,” says David Hanselmann, a lecturer in Ohio State’s School of Environment and Natural Resources (SENR).
Hanselmann coordinates the school’s Environmental Professionals Network, which on May 10 is hosting a breakfast program on how office buildings, factories, cities, schools and others can get a bigger bang for their energy buck.
“Energy Efficiency: How Low Can You Go?” is from 7:...
WOOSTER, Ohio — The Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center has announced the winners of the research poster competition held during the center’s 2016 annual research conference in Wooster on April 21.
The competition, which drew 106 entries, recognized outstanding research posters by OARDC-supported graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and research assistants and associates.
The center is the research arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences of The Ohio State University.
Ph.D. students
First place: Travis Calkins, Entomology, “Pharmacological and Genetic Evidence for Gap Junctions as Potential New Insecticide Targets in the Yellow Fever Mosquito, Aedes aegypti”; Peter Piermarini, adviser.
Second place:...
KIRTLAND, Ohio — Kathy Smith and Marne Titchenell want to give honeysuckle the boot. Along with garlic mustard, autumn olive, buckthorn and many others. They’ll show how in a workshop in northeast Ohio.
The event is called Forest Health: Non-Native Invasive Plants. It’s on May 20 at Kirtland’s Holden Arboretum.
Smith and Titchenell are experts in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.
The Ohio Woodland Stewards Program is the workshop’s sponsor. The college’s outreach arm, Ohio State University Extension, runs the program.
They weaken the health of a woods ...
Invasive woodland plants pack a double whammy, said Smith, who’s the coordinator of the program. The plants weaken both a...
WOOSTER, Ohio — Secrest Arboretum’s 600-plus crabapple trees will soon be seeing red. Plus scarlet, white and pink.
“The crabapples will be blooming this weekend (April 23-24) or early next week given the number of warm days we’ve had,” said Arboretum Program Assistant Paul Snyder. “Some of the early selections are already opening.”
The crabapple trees and arboretum are at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster in northeast Ohio. The trees are considered the largest collection of crabapple trees in the U.S.
The center itself is part of The Ohio State University and its College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther will present the city’s 2016 GreenSpotLight Awards at an April 12 event hosted by the Environmental Professionals Network.
The awards honor achievements in Columbus’s GreenSpot sustainability program. Among those recognized will be three businesses, the graduates of the Corporate Sustainability Initiative and the winners of the Columbus Energy Challenge.
The network is a professional group coordinated by the School of Environment and Natural Resources (SENR) at The Ohio State University. The school is in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
Spotlight on sustainability success
The event also will have:
An expo featuring projects by nine teams of students in the college’s...
WOOSTER, Ohio — Fred Michel, a Wooster-based biosystems engineer with The Ohio State University, has solar panels gleaming on his home and his car.
He’ll share his experiences with both setups in a Renewable Energy Workshop during the Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair in Wooster.
The fair is on April 19, during Earth Week, at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center.
The workshop is a “chance to learn from folks with experience in this field,” said co-organizer Mary Wicks of Ohio State’s Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering.
Michel is an associate professor in that department, based at OARDC, where he studies composting and bioenergy.
He’s also president of the Wayne County Sustainable Energy Network, which together...
WOOSTER, Ohio — Don’t know what to do with your burned-out compact fluorescent light bulbs? Old car tires? Cans of unused paint? Take them to Wooster’s Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair.
A recycling station at the April 19 fair, which is at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, will take in those and certain other residential items. A full list of the items is at u.osu.edu/sggf/recycling/. Many of them are seldom handled by normal curbside recycling.
Besides doing good for the planet, the first 200 people to recycle at the station will get a $2.50-off coupon they can redeem at the fair’s food vendors — three food trucks and a natural dairy, all four featuring local foods.
The fair and recycling station are free. Hours for both are 11 a.m. to 4...
WOOSTER, Ohio — Northeast Ohio’s Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair is back.
The free public festival, whose theme is “Green Is for Life!” is April 19 at Wooster’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center.
The Earth Week event is a celebration of ways to be sustainable, whether at home, on the farm, in the garden or in business, said co-organizer Laura Chapin, who’s a research associate at OARDC.
About 50 exhibitors and vendors will showcase their green-related products, efforts and services. Everyone’s welcome to attend.
“The exhibitors and vendors will remind people of easy, everyday ways to help the Earth,” Chapin said.
“There are small changes and big changes that we can make to protect our environment,”...
CORTLAND, Ohio — A key to handling backyard wildlife problems, from smelly skunks to ravenous raccoons, hungry deer to messy geese, is making your backyard a worse place to be.
For them, that is, not you.
“If you can identify the component of the habitat that’s attracting an animal to your yard — usually it’s food or shelter — and then can modify or eliminate it, you’ll go a long way to solving the conflict,” said Marne Titchenell of The Ohio State University. She’ll share that and other remedies in a workshop April 14.
Titchenell is a wildlife program specialist in Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
The workshop, called The Good, the Bad and the Hungry: Controlling Nuisance Wildlife in...
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Experts from three major universities will teach about the trees, bees, birds, frogs, fungi and more on one’s land at the Ohio River Valley Woodland and Wildlife Workshop. It’s on April 2 in southeast Indiana’s Clifty Falls State Park.
“The program is designed to help landowners get the most out of their property,” said co-organizer Kathy Smith. Smith is the forestry program director in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.
Ohio State is co-sponsoring the workshop along with Purdue University, the University of Kentucky, and the Indiana Forestry and Woodland Owners Association. The speakers will come from the three universities.
Included in the program, which runs from 8:30 a.m....
COLUMBUS, Ohio — This month’s breakfast presentation by the Environmental Professionals Network, which includes an optional joint meeting with the Water Management Association of Ohio, will feature three major initiatives aimed at protecting and improving water quality.
“The importance of water is increasingly on the public’s mind, which is good, but the challenges are significant,” said David Hanselmann, the network’s coordinator and a lecturer in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.
The presentation “will help us learn about new and innovative approaches, relevant in Ohio and beyond,” Hanselmann said.
The network is a statewide professional group coordinated by the college...
WOOSTER, Ohio — You can boost your business’s green cred — and reach several thousand environmentally conscious customers in the process — by being a sponsor or exhibitor at this year’s Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair in northeast Ohio.
But make plans soon. The deadline to apply is this coming Monday, Feb. 29, and only a limited number of exhibitor spaces are left.
The event, which is a free public festival focused on sustainable living, is April 19 at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster. Its theme is “Green Is for Life!” New this year is a concurrent Renewable Energy Workshop.
By being a sponsor or exhibitor at the fair, businesses, companies and agencies can “demonstrate their support of a healthier...
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The groundbreaking, award-winning Ohio River Basin Trading Project is the focus of February’s breakfast presentation by the Environmental Professionals Network.
“Electric Utilities, Farmers, Agencies and Others in the Ohio River Basin Establish the World’s Largest Water Quality Trading Program” is from 7:15 to 9:40 a.m. Feb. 23 in the Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center at The Ohio State University, 2201 Fred Taylor Drive, Columbus.
The network is a statewide professional group coordinated by the School of Environment and Natural Resources in Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
The project won the U.S. Water Alliance’s 2015 U.S. Water Prize, which recognizes...
WOOSTER, Ohio — Farmers can save money with solar energy. So can other farm-related businesses. And grants and incentives exist that can help them get started.
So say the organizers of a March 10 workshop at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster, who plan to shed light on those topics.
The Solar Energy Workshop for Agricultural Producers will cover “how farmers and businesses in rural areas can take advantage of incentives such as the federal renewable energy tax credits and the USDA renewable energy program to support their projects,” said Mary Wicks, a program coordinator at OARDC and one of the event’s organizers.
The workshop will feature seven sessions by speakers from the farming community, the solar installer community, OARDC,...
WOOSTER, Ohio — The 2016 Ohio Compost Operator Short Course, billed as a “comprehensive program on the science and art of composting,” is March 8 and 9 at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in northeast Ohio.
The annual event, which OARDC is presenting in conjunction with the Organics Recycling Association of Ohio, is for people who work at or with large-scale composting facilities, said co-organizer Mary Wicks, program coordinator of the center’s Ohio Composting and Manure Management Program.
The intended audience, she said, includes compost facility managers, public health officials, farmers, plant nursery operators, municipal solid waste managers, composting consultants, public policy consultants, environmental regulators and equipment...
WOOSTER, Ohio — Doug Doohan, professor in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University, has been named interim director of the college’s Organic Food and Farming Education and Research program.
The program conducts studies and outreach on organic farming. About 40 scientists and specialists from the college — including from its research and outreach arms, the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center and Ohio State University Extension — are affiliated with the program.
Doohan, who has been involved with the program since it started 18 years ago, is replacing former OFFER director Brian McSpadden Gardener, who left for a job in the private sector.
“Doug has an established research and outreach program...
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The key to successful, sustainable farming is found in the ground — or should be, says soil scientist Rafiq Islam of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.
“Soil organic matter is the cornerstone of soil health,” said Islam, a member of a regional research team that’s spent the past 15 years studying soil organic matter, its benefits to crops and the best ways to boost it on farms run organically.
“As with any agricultural production system, maintaining a healthy and productive soil is the foundation of sustainable organic farming,” he said.
On Feb. 12, Islam and other team members will share their findings in “The Dirt on Organic Matter.” It’s a special...
CINCINNATI, Ohio — What’s new in the business of landscaping, plant nurseries and grounds maintenance?
Soil health, turf pests, deer damage, pollinators, hydroponics, invasive species, new urban green space, new pesticide regulations, and new types of annuals and perennials will be some of the nearly three dozen topics at the 2016 Tri-State Green Industry Conference.
The annual event is from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Feb. 4 in Cincinnati.
Tom Smarr, horticulture director for 21st Century Parks, a Louisville, Kentucky-based nonprofit corporation, will give the opening keynote talk.
In his role with 21st Century Parks, Smarr helps manage The Parklands of Floyds Fork, a new urban park in Metro Louisville. He previously helped develop parks on top of Boston’s Big Dig tunnel...
WOOSTER, Ohio — Master Gardener volunteers from across Ohio helped Secrest Arboretum regrow after a 2010 tornado.
Now the 115-acre plant collection, part of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster, hopes to return the favor.
The arboretum is taking applications for its first new class of Master Gardener volunteers in at least a decade, said arboretum program assistant Paul Snyder. The deadline to apply is Jan. 29.
Participants in the class will receive 50 hours of in-depth horticulture training. Then, every year, they’ll provide at least 50 hours of volunteer service on plant and gardening matters.
That 2010 tornado tore through the middle of the arboretum. It destroyed, among other things, some 1,500 trees.
‘An incredible group of people...
COLUMBUS, Ohio — January’s public program by the Environmental Professionals Network will look at humanity’s balancing act: Producing enough food and energy, improving economies and social conditions, and protecting the environment and biodiversity — all while faced with climate change and, by 2050, possibly some 2 billion more people on the planet.
“They’re enormous challenges,” said the network’s coordinator, David Hanselmann, a lecturer in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.
The network is a statewide professional group based in the college’s School of Environment and Natural Resources.
The program, called “Adaptive, Resilient Land Management: Goals for the 21st...
WOOSTER, Ohio — New food safety laws, sap collection systems, syrup grading systems and more will be featured at this year’s Ohio Maple Days, which are Jan. 21 in Morrow County, Jan. 22 in Wayne County and Jan. 23 in Geauga County.
The annual events, which are the same at each location, offer educational sessions for commercial and hobby maple producers.
“They’re timed to help producers get ready for the coming season,” said organizer Gary Graham, maple syrup specialist with Ohio State University Extension and one of the program’s speakers.
Ohio’s maple syrup season usually starts sometime in February.
OSU Extension is the statewide outreach arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.
How...
COLUMBUS Ohio — Ohioans shouldn’t encounter any kissing bugs under the mistletoe — or anywhere else in their homes — this holiday season, say experts at The Ohio State University.
Kissing bugs — so named because they sometimes bite their victims near the mouth to suck their blood — have been in the news due to fear of them spreading Chagas disease. The tropical parasitic illness has been showing up more and more in the U.S. South and Southwest.
But Ohio has only one kissing bug species out of a dozen that live in the U.S., said Peter Piermarini, assistant professor of entomology in the university’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. Called Triatoma sanguisuga, aka the eastern bloodsucking conenose, it lives mainly in...
WOOSTER, Ohio — The Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center has finished its grant-funded research projects at the North Appalachian Experimental Watershed in Coshocton County and will end its operations there effective Dec. 31.
OARDC has been operating the facility under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which closed its own operations there in December 2011 due to federal budget cuts.
OARDC is the research arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences of The Ohio State University. Studies at the Coshocton County facility have focused on water movement from farm fields, no-tillage farming, beef cattle production and forestry. Research on those topics will continue at other locations.
OARDC’s staff at the site have either...
WOOSTER, Ohio—Hundreds of pine, fir, and spruce trees, all decked in holiday green, grow tall in northeast Ohio’s Secrest Arboretum.
See 18 examples in the photographs below—and then see those trees and more in person by taking a hopefully not too wintry walk there. Included are the 18 trees’ GPS locations.
Visiting the arboretum, which is at 1680 Madison Ave. in Wooster, is free and open to the public seven days a week, dawn to dusk.
The 110-acre facility is part of the Wooster campus of The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
Tree types grown as Christmas trees can also be grown in the landscape, said Paul Snyder, the arboretum’s program coordinator.
“As a general rule, all of the...
