Cornell Cooperative Extension Community Horticulture

You can help! - Find ‘em, photograph ‘em, and send ‘em

Cornell Waste Management Institute in the Dept Crop & Soil Sciences announces…

A new program is being initiated at CWMI in response to interest from community gardening groups in urban areas of New York State to provide more complete information about the levels of contaminants in urban soils. Typically, urban garden sites are located on abandoned properties that might have a history of contamination. At the same time, increasing interest in creating green and food-producing spaces within cities means that we need to find ways to assess contamination and minimize the exposure of gardeners to soil contaminants. We will be working with community gardening groups to test soils and provide gardeners with information on how to use test results to make decisions about best gardening practices. For information as it becomes available, visit: http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/urbangardensoils.htm

Help Cornell researchers find some of our rare native ladybug species.

Click for details.

Spring is in the air and many are still fretting over the price of gas as it continues to rise. Here’s a perfect opportunity to let our NYS lawn owners know about one more way to save on gas…

Read the full press release from the Department of Horticulture at this web page.

We encourage reprinting this for your local news outlets.

Plum pox virus, an exotic disease, threatens ornamental and fruit-bearing trees.

Check out this press release from the Department of Horticulture. It does mention to call county CCE office. Your role could be simply to provide the concerned person with the number for USDA-APHIS office in Lockport, N.Y. (716-433-6482) which is listed in the article. You might want to offer as much assistance as helping the concerned citizens determine if the plant that concerns them is one of the at risk plants but you need not feel obligated to do more than provide the USDA-APHIS.

Click here for the article web page.

Opportunities are posted on this department web page:

http://hort.cals.cornell.edu/cals/hort/news-events/index.cfm

Hello! I’m Michael Miles and I’ve been working in the Cornell Nutrient Analysis Laboratory helping upgrade our laboratory technology. Part of doing so includes updating and redesigning the lab’s website. I have redesigned it based largely on the CALS departmental website design to keep a consistent look and feel. We hope to go “live” very soon. Below is a sneak preview of that website for review:

New website: http://cnal.cals.cornell.edu

On behalf of the lab, I’m asking that you review the web pages before we go “live”. Please send me your honest and constructive feedback so we can address any issues.

Some things that would be nice to know:

* you can’t find something you’re looking for

* missing information

* something seems in the wrong place

* typos

* incorrect or old information

* broken links

* navigational issues

* weirdness

* pages not being rendered properly (please tell me what browser, version, and operating system your using)

* you don’t like the design or would changed some aspect of it

* any other concerns that you have

Please note: Since this is a “preview”, you may encounter some pages that may still be under construction. Also, our website address will still continue to be http://www.css.cornell.edu/soiltest after the new redesign launch.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please do NOT use any of the Order or Submission forms on this site. We are in the process of updating all the forms and they are not yet ready to be released or used.

I welcome your feedback!

Thanks,

Michael Miles

Cornell Nutrient Analysis Laboratory

An announcement from Paul Curtis:

Dr. Jay Boulanger joined Cornell University Cooperative Extension in early December as a new Extension Associate working with deer management programs.

Dr. Jay R. Boulanger, Extension Associate/Deer Program Coordinator Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University
Room 106, Rice Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853-3001
e-mail: jrb69@cornell.edu

Dr. Jay Boulanger conducts white-tailed deer research and management activities with the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University. He received a Ph.D. in Wildlife Science from Cornell University in 2007 and an M.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences from South Dakota State University in 2001. His research interests include human-wildlife conflicts, wildlife fertility control, wildlife disease, and human dimensions of wildlife. Dr. Boulanger served six years as a Wildlife Biologist with the New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell University and three years as a Wildlife Specialist with USDA Wildlife Services. His past research has included surveys of archery and muzzle-loader deer hunters and the development of a bait station to vaccinate suburban raccoons against rabies. Dr. Boulanger is a Certified Wildlife Biologist with The Wildlife Society.

If you are on campus some Monday you might be interested in our seminar series. Here what we are offering spring 2008:

http://hort.cals.cornell.edu/cals/hort/news-events/seminars_series.cfm

This full article is available at eCALSconnect

A new 15-page booklet by CALS researchers, Using Porous Asphalt and CU-Structural Soil®, details how combining these two technologies:

• Reduces runoff from parking lots and other hard surfaces.
• Increases groundwater recharge.
• Improves water quality in lakes, rivers and streams.
• Helps trees thrive in otherwise tough environments.

Developed 30 years ago, porous asphalt resembles regular asphalt except that the mix contains no fine particles. Water seeps through tiny holes in the asphalt into a bed of crushed gravel below. From there it slowly filters into groundwater.