BRIDGEWATER - At Peterson’s Farm Greenhouse on South Street in Bridgewater, the farm stand is lit up by a display of blazing orange due to the dozens of pumpkins for sale at the stand.
“In a lot of ways, it was an ideal growing year,” said Katie Campbell-Nelson, a vegetable specialist for the UMass Extension School’s Center or Agriculture, Food and the Environment. The dry weather meant certain diseases were less prevalent in pumpkin plants. (Enterprise News 10/5/15)
Stephen M. Rich, UMass microbiologist and director of the Laboratory of Medical Zoology, comments in a story about lone star ticks on Martha’s Vineyard. He says the insects have been present for a couple of years and now are well established on at least part of the island.
University of Massachusetts Amherst professor and entomologist Joseph Elkinton is working to curb the high numbers of winter moths in New England with a very specific fly called Cyzenis albicans.
“If you had them in your yard, you would never even notice them,” said Elkinton, and you definitely want them in your yard. “They only attack winter moths, which is a real advantage. We don’t want them on our native moths or butterflies.” (Sippican Week, 9/27/15)
Craig Nicolson, environmental conservation, took part in a panel discussion of Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change held Sept. 21 in Northampton. “No matter who you are and where you come from, this is an encyclical that is for you,” he said, noting that the pope directed the message to every person on the planet. (Gazette, 9/22/15)
UMass Amherst and the UMass Cranberry Station are studying the decline of bees that pollinate cranberry crops. Anne Averill, environmental conservation, is examining bumblebee colony growth in pesticide-free unmanaged conservation sites versus managed bogs.
Students from landscape architecture and regional planning created a small park in downtown Amherst on Sept. 16 as part of Park(ing) Day, an international event when people transform parking spaces into parks. As part of their project, they built a demonstration bioswale that they say could send cleaner water into the Campus Pond. (Gazette, 9/18/15)
The first continent-wide, multi-factor analysis of climate and land cover effects on watersheds in the United States, provides a broad new assessment of runoff, flooding and storm water management options for use by such professionals as land use and town planners and water quality managers. (Environmental Protection, Storm Water Solutions, 9/15/15; Waterbucket.ca, 9/19/15; News Office release)
There may not be a sweeter college graduation assignment than making ice cream. That was the challenge this spring for 26 seniors in the Department of Food Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Students who developed the winning flavor saw it produced and sold by neighboring Maple Valley Creamery. (Boston Globe 9/22/15)
AMHERST, Mass. – Seven University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty members are among “the world’s leading scientific minds,” whose publications are again among the most influential in their fields, according to a survey by leading multinational media and information firm Thomson Reuters.
The Thomson Reuters compilers, who set out to identify “some of the best and brightest scientific minds of our time,” recognized UMass Amherst food scientists Eric Decker and David Julian McClements, and soil chemist Baoshan Xing of the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, among others. (News Release 9/18/15)
The National Science Foundation’s Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity program has announced a three-year, $1 million grant to three UMass Amherst researchers and others to work with Holyoke Gas & Electric Co. (HG&E) to develop smart energy services. Preshant Shenoy, Simi Hoque and David Irwin are co-principal investigators. (Republican, 9/14/15; News Office release)
