Explore Ohio’s rich diversity of salamanders (24 species, including the smallmouth salamander shown here) and you’ll discover more than the creatures themselves. You’ll find good signs — and red flags — on the quality of the state’s environment, says a CFAES wildlife specialist. Read the whole story.
Sustainability... At Home
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Silent, slippery, ‘important environmental indicators’
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on May 21st, 2013
Grow your own food in the city? 3 ways to learn how to do it
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on May 16th, 2013
Local Matters and the Godman Guild, both of Columbus, and CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension, are co-hosting three upcoming workshops for people who farm in the city or want to. The topics are backyard chickens, keeping urban honey bees, and keeping the food you grow clean and safe. The theme is “Grow Your Own.” Details.
Invasive species in your yard, woods, or garden … and what you can do about them
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on May 15th, 2013
CFAES’s Ohio Woodland Stewards Program is holding a four-part seminar series for gardeners, landscapers, homeowners, and others on invasive species, the problems they cause, and how to deal with them. Read the whole story. The stewards program is part of our statewide outreach arm, OSU Extension. (Photo: Invasive insects called hemlock woolly adelgids (the fuzzy white spots) on a hemlock branch by Nicholas A. Tonelli, Pennsylvania, USA, via Wikimedia Commons.)
Beech aphid excrement. It’s what’s for dinner. If you’re a Scorias spongiosa
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on May 9th, 2013
Fun fact No. 1: There’s something called a beech aphid poop-eater. Fun fact No. 2: It’s one of the “Weird Things in Your Woods” that make up one of the 20 expert-taught sessions (pdf; scroll down) at CFAES’s first-ever Tree School May 18. It’s for anyone interested in knowing more about and growing trees. Sign up by tomorrow (May 10) Monday, May 13, if you’d like to attend.
Fun sustainability-related fact via the linked-to Tom Volk’s Fungi website, which puts the fun in fungal: “Leaves covered in sooty molds [of which the beech aphid poop-eater is one] adsorb more polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals from air than clean leaves. Thus they may be more efficient at cleaning up polluted air.”
Keeping world’s rice safe
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on April 26th, 2013
A CFAES scientist has been honored for his work to keep rice sustainable — free of plant diseases and able to feed more than half the people on Earth. Read the story (with link to video).
May 17: These not so little invasive piggies are looming on the horizon (as are others)
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on April 25th, 2013
People who manage parks, farms, trees, wildlife, landscape plants, commercial nurseries, and more for a living can get a detailed look at Ohio’s invasive species, including the possible new threats, at a workshop May 17. There’s an early registration discount if you sign up by May 3. The Ohio Woodland Stewards Program, which is part of OSU Extension, which is the statewide outreach arm of CFAES, is the sponsor. Get the workshop brochure here (pdf). Feral pigs like the ones shown here are now in southeast Ohio.
See one? Whip out your iPhone
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on April 25th, 2013
Your Apple mobile devices can now fight invasive species (such as the Asian longhorned beetle shown here; not actual size). CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension, has released an iPhone and iPad version of its Great Lakes Early Detection Network (GLEDN) app. (Photo: USDA-APHIS.)
A 20-year-old pin oak? 237 pounds less of atmospheric carbon
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on April 19th, 2013
Speaking of trees: Calculate the sustainability benefits of your own trees — in dollars and cents plus gallons of stormwater intercepted, pounds of atmospheric carbon reduced, ozone absorbed, etc. — here.
Blue jeans, green home insulation
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on April 18th, 2013
Recycle your old jeans, including their Blake Griffin-disapproved truncated versions (video, 0:37), at CFAES’s 2013 Micki Zartman Scarlet and Gray Ag Day tomorrow, April 19. Twelve-year-old Erek Hansen, aka EcoErek, Guinness World Record-setting recycler of jeans (total: some 10,000 pairs and counting), will take them in for eventual conversion into UltraTouch denim home insulation. HGTV lists the recycled material’s benefits.
‘Green Fire’ update 2
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on April 17th, 2013
Last night’s “Green Fire” screening was cancelled due to a suspicious package report in Ohio State’s Ohio Union. Environmental Professionals Network Coordinator David Hanselmann writes:
“I was with the speaker [“Green Fire” guide Curt Meine]. We were walking toward the entrance when the evacuation began. We stood in the rain on the far side of High Street until about 8:10 and decided to pack it in, not knowing when the building would re-open and if anyone would still be around to watch it. Right now there are no plans to show it again, but we will consider that. For now, people can watch a slightly shortened version on WOSU TV Sunday [April 21] at 3 p.m.”
