Cornell Cooperative Extension Community Horticulture

By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY

Virginia farmer Rod Parker can walk into a grocery store 10 miles from his farm, 40 miles from it and even 100 miles from it and see his fresh produce marketed as “locally grown.”

Some retailers even consider “locally grown” to be something produced a day’s drive from the store, he says. Meanwhile, “I’m sure consumers think it’s grown right down the road,” says the owner of Parker Farms.

Nationwide, retailers from Wal-Mart to Whole Foods are increasingly devoting more shelf space to “locally grown” products including such things as fresh produce and Thanksgiving turkeys. Whole Foods, for one, now spends almost 22% of its produce budget on locally grown products, up from 15% four years ago, it says.

Full article from USA Today can be found here.

Agro-One
Soil and Plant Analytical Laboratory
November 11, 2008

Cornell University and Dairy One are planning to combine their strengths to provide soil and plant testing services to farmers and farm advisors.

Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Dairy One Cooperative, Inc. are collaborating through Agro One to insure that farmers and farm advisors in New York and the Northeast continue to have high-quality soil, plant tissue, and nutrient laboratory testing services available to them now and into the future.  Additionally, the collaboration will provide a mechanism for delivery of new analytical services and systems in the future.

Through this collaboration, Cornell will move its routine soil and plant tissue analysis to the Agro One laboratory housed at Dairy One’s Ithaca facility.  This allows Cornell to focus on soil and plant research and the development of innovative analytical methods, while Agro One will focus on providing routine soil and plant tissue analysis to farmers and their advisors.  Agro One will provide soil and plant tissue testing services as have been available through the Cornell Nutrient Analysis Laboratory along with additional analytical services. Key input regarding analytical methods and quality control will be provided by Cornell, and Cornell nutrient management recommendations will continue to be provided through Agro One.  Stakeholders will therefore continue to receive the same services as in the past. 

Agro One will bring together the strengths of Cornell’s knowledge and research in agronomy and horticulture with Dairy One’s industry-leading analytical capabilities and customer service.  The Dairy One sample transportation system that blankets the Northeast will become available for soil and tissue samples being submitted to the Agro One lab.  Agro One will also provide an expanded set of analytical data for use by Cornell researchers.

The move away from providing commercial laboratory services is consistent with Cornell’s focus on research and spinning off commercially-viable technologies to the private sector.  Freeing up resources previously dedicated to commercial soil and plant tissue lab services will allow Cornell to enhance its research capabilities while improving the amount of data available through Agro One.

There are many logistical issues to be worked out in the coming weeks.  Cornell and Dairy One are committed to making a smooth transition for farmers, farm advisors, extension educators, and Cornell personnel.

Dairy One Cooperative, Inc. is a 501 (c) 5 educational not-for-profit cooperative that provides dairy herd improvement services (DHIA) and software to dairy farmers in 13 northeast U.S. states and analytical services for forage, milk, water, soil, and manure to customers in the U.S. and around the world.

This 4-H club grew basil seeds that were in space and so can you…

The seeds are still available from NASA, as of this writing. Just go tothis webpage:

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/plantgrowth/joinchallenge/index.html

Here’s how they did in Oneonta:

The Oneonta Junior Scientists 4-H Club sent away (over the internet) for basil seeds that were flown by the space shuttle in the summer of 2007.  The seeds arrived in Oneonta in November and the club saved them until early spring. In March of 2008 the packet was opened at a club meeting and the number of seeds were counted. There were enough seeds to give each member 3 each, and the remaining six seeds were given to the 3rd grade science teacher at Greater Plains and a 4th grade teacher at Valleyview Elementary Schools in Oneonta.  In all, about 20-25 seeds were in our packet.

Club members planted the seeds in growth chambers configured from 3-liter soda bottles, and the growing medium was a mix of perlite and vermiculite.

Each member was given a thermometer to use inside their chamber to monitor temperature.  This was very important when the chamber was exposed to direct sunlight.

We used an organic fish and seaweed fertilizer as a nutrient. All of the seeds sprouted in the club members chambers. As time went by, some club members kept record of growth rates.

Two of the basil plant chambers were displayed at the Otsego County Fair this past summer.  In fact, these two plants are still thriving, and each of them has produced seeds.

One of the club members who had one of these plants has already planted and began growing a second generation of basil, using these seeds!

And I hope your report how well these cultivars of basil did at Cornell Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners website: http://vegvariety.cce.cornell.edu/

Gardeners engage the next generation in vegetable growing and making use of all the fruit in the vegetable garden.

Rise to the challenge and create a cool, funky piece of earth-friendly art with youth in your community.
See: Veggie Art

And you thought they improved your health when you ate them … try playing them
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpfYt7vRHuY

http://www.gemueseorchester.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

Here’s their website with more information:

http://mastergardener.umd.edu/Handbook.cfm

Hands-on Experiences Encourage Future Environmentalists

COLLEGE STATION, TX –- A new generation has come of age since the first celebration of Earth Day in 1970. For this and future generations, environmental awareness is an important and burgeoning point of reference.

Today’s urban children live in environments that offer little chance for direct contact with natural ecosystems, and often have to depend on sources such as television and educators for information about ecology and nature. Many children grow up without the valuable personal experiences in nature that are essential to developing a true understanding of environmental issues.

Educators are being challenged to create learning experiences that mold subsequent generations of environmental stewards: young people who are capable of making knowledgeable and conscientious decisions regarding the environment. But classroom teachers who make environmental education experiences a priority often lack resources, funding, time, and ideas about ways to integrate environmental education into classroom learning. Getting children involved in hands-on activities is critical, and gardening just may be the answer.

Youth gardening programs are becoming popular experiential vehicles to help children get “down to earth” and promote environmental awareness in communities and schools. Previous studies have indicated that children who participate in formal gardening programs have shown improvements in science achievement, nutritional choices, self-esteem, and patience. Recently, researchers studied the effect of gardening programs on the development of students’ environmental consciousness.

O.M. Aguilar, a graduate assistant in the Department of Horticultural Sciences at Texas A&M University and lead author of the study, explained; “The objectives of the study were to examine an interdisciplinary and experiential approach to environmental education by use of a youth gardening program for third through fifth grade students. In addition, this study evaluated the gardening program’s effectiveness on promoting positive environmental attitudes and a high environmental locus of control with children.”

More than 80% of children who participated in the study had been previously involved in gardening, either through school programs or informal experiences at home. Test results indicated that children that had any type of experience with gardening had more positive attitudes toward the environment when compared with students that had not gardened. The study showed that hands-on gardening activities are important to the development of environmentally concerned citizens, and that children’s involvement in informal gardening experiences has as much impact on their environmental outlook as involvement in formal school-based programs.

Results from the study also found that there were gender and ethnicity differences among children, with girls and Caucasians appearing to benefit more from the gardening curriculum. Researchers suggested that future research should focus on the development of gardening curricula that target the needs and interests of boys and minority children.

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The complete study and abstract are available on the ASHS HortTechnology electronic journal web site: http://horttech.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/2/243

AND CHECK out Cornell’s Garden-Based Learning resources here.

registration form (word doc)

Facilitating Meetings and Building Teams Training

Friday December 12th from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

This is a must attend training especially for your staff in Community Horticulture and Plant or Environmental Science 4-H Youth Development.

In today’s climate we must build skill to maximize our efficiency and effective engagement of volunteers.

It is estimated that 11 million meetings are held each DAY in the US and organizations spend up to 15 % of their budgets on meetings. Poor meetings and poor teams lead to loss of money, time and most importantly morale.

This training will help your staff plan and conduct meetings so you build effective teams to maximize your county programs’ impact.

This training is at the DEC Stony Kill Farm facility just south of Poughkeepsie so county associations in the Hudson Valley, Capital District and Long Island are especially encouraged to attend but it is open to CCE staff from across the state.

Participants will walk away with new strategies to immediately apply in our extension work.

Register staff today.

Consider sending a complete team from your county including a person from community horticulture, 4-H youth development, nutritional sciences.. If you’d like to also include a Master Gardener Volunteer and/or 4-H Volunteer contact Lori (bushway@cornell.edu) for space availability.

registration form (word doc)

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

Diagnostician and hort educator staff answering clients question should attend this workshop Nov 4th (8:00am-12:00pm) Carmel, NY, DEC Credits available, registration required.

details in this PDF
Jennifer J Stengle
Assistant Educator,
Environmental Horticulture & Natural Resources
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Putnam County
845-278-6738