News from the Media

The emerald ash borer, an insect that kills ash trees, is spreading throughout the region and kills the trees in about two or three years, says Paul Catanzaro, UMass Extension. The insect is spread primarily by humans who move infected firewood from one region to another. (WWLP-TV 22, 5/6/14)

Michael A. Rawlins, manager of the Climate System Research Center, says in response to the new federal climate report that Massachusetts is already seeing changes and can expect more. “Here in Massachusetts, we can expect moving forward, increases in the growing season period, warming, an increase in heavy precipitation events.” In winter, he says, “We can expect wetter winters, not necessarily more snow.” (WWLP-TV 22, 5/6/14)

Residents of 32 Massachusetts towns can receive free, expert identification of ticks and the disease-causing pathogens they carry, with testing provided by the Laboratory of Medical Zoology (LMZ) at the UMass Amherst. The two-year, free tick-testing program funded by the governor’s Community Innovation Challenge Grant helped to establish the state’s first Tick-Borne Disease Network (TBDN) for surveillance of ticks and tick-borne diseases. The LMZ identifies, tests and reports ticks and associated diseases to residents, local boards of health and the state Department of Public Health. (Republican 4/30/14)

In 1974, UMass Extension vegetable specialist John Howell visited area farmers to talk them into coming to Gothic Street on Saturday mornings to sell their produce directly to customers at a little thing he was trying to start called a farmers market. Forty years later they are celebrating success as one of the first in the state.

Sonia Schloemann, fruit specialist, UMass Extension, recently gave an informative talk to the Garden Club of Amherst about growing berries.

As the demand for locally produced food continues to grow, a proposal gaining traction in the Legislature would provide $20 million to help rejuvenate the University of Massachusetts agriculture extension site in Waltham, which has lacked funding for decades. State legislators are in the beginning stages of considering a $1.7 billion environmental bond bill that includes earmarking funds to revitalize the UMass site, which spans 58 acres over two plots along Beaver Street. The project is dubbed the UMass Center for Urban Sustainability.

A feature story seed libraries, including one at Hampshire College, includes a mention of Katie Campbell-Nelson, UMass Extension, who says she planted some kale too close to collard greens and the plants cross pollinated, creating a bitter tasting plant.

Eric Decker, UMass Amherst food scientist, says most foods contain some genetically modified organisms and the only way to completely avoid them is to purchase certified organic foods. He says much livestock food also contains the GMOs. Decker says the risk from eating foods with GMOs is very small and he believes they are going to continue to be part of the food system.

Flowers are common gathering places where pollinators such as bees and butterflies can pick up fungal, bacterial or viral infections that might be as benign as the sniffles or as debilitating as influenza. But “almost nothing is known regarding how pathogens of pollinators are transmitted at flowers,” postdoctoral researcher Scott McArt and Professor Lynn Adler at UMass Amherst microbiology, write. “As major hubs of plant-animal interactions throughout the world, flowers are ideal venues for the transmission of microbes among plants and animals.” In a recent review in Ecology Letters with colleagues at Yale and the University of Texas at Austin, McArt and Adler survey the literature and identify promising areas for future research on how floral traits influence pathogen transmission.