From CFAES, ‘novel ways’ to battle blooms

Reporters JD Malone and Laura Arenschield talked to CFAES’s Warren Dick, Eugene Braig and Andy Ward for a recent Columbus Dispatch story titled “Curbing fertilizer runoff a challenge.”

Dick’s research on using gypsum to cut phosphorus runoff from crop fields and Ward’s new farm drainage ditch design that improves water quality have been featured on this blog here and here.

‘The perfect match of technology and education’

CFAES’s recent, really big (more than 700 students) Environmental Science Student Symposium showed its participants, among other things, the hows and whys of the peer review process. In doing so, it also added some new technology to make the process simpler and faster. Learn more in a new YouTube video by Ohio State’s Office of Distance Education and eLearning (2:23).

Hang a fish on your Christmas tree

picture of fish ornament on christmas treeWhat to do with old Christmas trees? Sink them in your pond, if you have one, to give fish a place to hang out — and to give you, if you fish for those fish, a better chance of finding and catching them. The trees provide structure; structure tends to concentrate fish. A free online fact sheet by CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension, shows you step by step how to do it. (Photo: iStock.)

‘The great responsibility humans have’

CFAES student Michael Sabo, a graduating senior in Environmental Policy and Decision Making, talks about his “Environmental Awakening” in a recent essay on the Environmental Professionals Network website:

“I began to understand the great responsibility humans have to decide how to best manage this global garden. Because of this, I accepted the notion that humans can be part of nature, and yet somehow different, with the weight of the world on our shoulders. What this meant to me was that my actions matter a great deal. Every day I am faced with so many choices, but in understanding my role as a steward and gardener of the Earth, I must try to make the best decisions possible.”

Read more …

Check out this new climate change website

climate website for GBYou’ve read about the “Global Change, Local Impact” webinar series by Ohio State’s Climate Change Outreach Team (most recently here and here). Now you can access recordings of all the webinars, together with helpful support information, all on a single website. Check it out.

Picking pecks of pest-free peppers

picture of peppers in greenhouse for GB2Biological control, biological pesticides and preventive cultural practices — all of them contributors to sustainable pest control — will be among the topics at CFAES’s 2015 Greenhouse Management Workshop. The event, which is for greenhouse growers, operators and pesticide applicators, is Jan. 22-23 at OARDC, CFAES’s research arm, in Wooster. Discount registration through Jan. 9 (save $25). (Photo: Red bell peppers, iStock.)