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News from the Media

  • Orchards expect apple bumper crop, UMass Extension comments

    August 10, 2015

    Jon Clements of UMass Extension, who works at the university’s Cold Spring research orchard in Belchertown said he has every reason to believe that this year’s crop will be above average.

    “There hasn’t really been anything that’s had an adverse effect on it,” Clements said. “There was no spring frost, and the bloom was normal. We actually had a heavy bloom, there were lots of flowers. There was just no stress to the trees this year, there’s plenty of fruit out there.” (Recorder 8/7/15)

  • UMass biochemist, Elizabeth Vierling Secures $682,982 NSF Grant to Study Plants Under Stress

    August 6, 2015

    AMHERST, Mass. – Biochemist Elizabeth Vierling at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently received a three-year, $682,982 National Science Foundation grant to study how plants respond, at the molecular and cellular level, to stress in their environment and the role of a regulatory protein called S-nitrosoglutathione reductase (GSNOR). (8/5/15 News Release, 8/5/15 4-Traders.com, 8/6/15 Republican)

  • High school students spend week at UMass exploring world of farming, food

    August 6, 2015

    AMHERST – In recent years, the University of Massachusetts has offered a number of summer programs, but until this year a program in sustainable agriculture was missing. Ten students from around the country came to campus to the one-week program the last week of July. Their only regret was it wasn't two weeks long.

    UMass Stockbridge School of Agriculture instructor Sarah Berquist taught the program on sustainability and food systems. She said the summer is perfect for a program like this because "harvest is abundant." And she said the program "is a great opportunity to spread the word about our great program." (8/6/15 Mass Live)

  • Lessons On The Birds And Trees: UMass adjunct professor, David Bloniarz, interviewed

    July 30, 2015

    A new program about environmental awareness kicks off in western Massachusetts today. The US Forest Service along with the University of Massachusetts, the city of Springfield, and the nonprofit Regreen Springfield will hold a series of workshops to highlight the importance of trees, birds and water in urban neighborhoods.   WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke with David Bloniarz, a researcher with the U.S. Forest Service. To listen, click here.

  • Scientists, lawmakers seek solution to honeybee crisis. UMass professor comments

    July 29, 2015

    Massachusetts honeybees are disappearing without a trace. Hives are left barren of bees, save for a small cluster of larvae, nurse bees, and an abandoned queen.The question is: Why?

    Tuesday on Beacon Hill, scientists and lawmakers convened to explore the phenomenon of colony collapse disorder and to seek ways to protect decimated bee populations.

    “We saw a 40 percent loss in bees this year in Worcester County,” Kenneth Warchol, program director of the Worcester County Beekeepers Association, said in an interview. “Bees are like canaries in a coal mine — they’re sending us a message that something’s wrong here.”

  • UMass Amherst Food Scientists to Work with Small Farms and Growers on Food Safety

    July 16, 2015

    The USDA recently awarded a five-year, $241,000 grant to a team of food science researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to create a graduate training program that will combine laboratory research and practical application to help producers and processors improve the safety of fresh produce in the food supply.

  • UMass Agricultural Field Day Showcases Research

    June 25, 2015

    Faculty and graduate students offered presentations on a variety of research topics including growing malt barley, cover crops in potato production, hardwood biochar in agricultural soils, effects of bee disease on hedgerow plantings, dual-purpose cover crops and much more.

    The 358-acre agronomy and vegetable farm conducts research on vegetable crops, agronomic and bioenergy crops, organic agriculture and pasture. The farm has both a student-run vegetable project as well as a project that researches cattle, offering students hands-on experience with livestock. Faculty, extension staff and graduate students conduct applied research and are assisted by technicians, field staff and undergraduate students. (6/24/15 WWLP Channel 22)

  • 13 States Catalog Culverts: UMass Amherst hosts new database for regional network

    June 22, 2015

    Bridges get a lot of attention when they fail, but scientists are working to eliminate what they say can be an even greater scourge, because of their sheer numbers and their effect on wildlife: culverts.

    These passages that carry smaller streams under roads and driveways number in the thousands across the East, and their importance came into sharp focus during storms Irene and Sandy in the past few years, when floodwaters washed many of them out and cut off access for days or weeks. (6/21/15 Burlington Free Press, 6/8/15 News Office)

  • What makes ticks tick?

    June 22, 2015

    Why send a tick to college?

    Because the University of Massachusetts Amherst has a special program for them, under the direction of Stephen Rich, professor of microbiology and director of the laboratory of medical zoology there. Rich is wrapping up a year’s sabbatical on Cape, during which he and his family have been living in Centerville (“within walking distance of Four Seas”). He gave a talk about his tick research June 11 at the Waquoit Bay Reserve Visitor Center in Falmouth.(6/19/15 Barnstable Patriot)

  • Slovenian professor visits UMass, advocates for a ‘World Bee Day’

    June 17, 2015

    AMHERST — As pollinators across the world — particularly the honey bee — are succumbing to diseases and colony collapses, the government of one bee-loving country is trying to create a day to celebrate their worldwide importance.

    Janko Božič, a professor of animal behavior and beekeeping at Ljubljana University in Slovenia, visited the University of Massachusetts on Monday to promote World Bee Day, which he hopes will be established on May 20 starting in 2016. (6/16/15 Hampshire Gazette, Channel 22).
     

  • UMass report details impact of Tennessee Gas Pipeline on environmentally sensitive areas in Franklin County

    June 11, 2015

    f the proposed Northeast Energy Direct natural gas pipeline is built across 35 miles of Franklin County, it could affect a greater share of fragile landscape than in other parts of the state.

    Here, at least 42 percent of the pipeline’s total Massachusetts length is along environmentally sensitive regions and aquatic buffers, states a report by the University of Massachusetts Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment. The report on the permanent effects of the project on protected open space emphasizes lands dedicated to agriculture and conservation, primary habitat for rare species, wetlands, wildlife habitat and communities of biodiversity. (6/11/15 Hampshire Gazette)

  • UMass Amherst hosts new stream-crossing database for regional network

    June 6, 2015

    AMHERST, Mass. – A partnership of federal and state agencies, plus nonprofit conservation groups today launched a new, uniform protocol for citizen scientist volunteers and professional fish and wildlife managers to use in assessing the state of stream-crossing culverts in 13 Northeast states. The assessments will help identify culverts, for instance, that block turtles, trout, salamanders and other wildlife from moving up and down streams.

    Scott Jackson, professor of environmental conservation at UMass Amherst, which will host a database, says, “We know that these ecosystems must be reconnected to be healthy. As climate change alters habitat conditions, some vulnerable species like Eastern brook trout and Blanding’s turtles really need to be able to move freely. This new aquatic connectivity collaborative will bring people together in a unified network to address the issue in a coordinated, collaborative and systematic way.” (6/9/15 Red Lake Nation News, News Office Release)

  • Growth Opportunities: Attitudinal Shift in Food Movement says UMass Faculty and Staff

    June 3, 2015

    Joe Shoenfeld calls it “an attitudinal shift.”

    That’s how he chose to describe a movement, for lack of a better term, that has made terms like ‘fresh,’ ‘healthy,’ ‘organic,’ ‘sustainable,’ and especially ‘local’ not just adjectives that dominate the lexicon — and also the marketing materials — of those who grow, sell, and prepare food, but also part of this region’s culture.

    “I think we’ve definitely moved beyond something that could be called a fad or a trend regarding local purchasing and local food,” Shoenfeld, associate director for the Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment in the College of Natural Sciences at UMass Amherst, told BusinessWest. 6/2/15 (Business West)

  • Protecting South America’s Iconic Golden Dorado Fish

    May 27, 2015

    A new study launched this month by University of Massachusetts Amherst fisheries biologist Andy J. Danylchuk, in collaboration with Argentina's Ministry of Environment and regional partners including Juramento Fly Fishing, Tigres del Rio, Fish Simply, and Patagonia Inc., is the first to assess the impact of catch-and-release fishing and other human and environmental pressures on the golden dorado, a fish of high economic and recreational value across South America. (5/27/15 phys.org)

  • Caterpillars of winter moths threaten region’s trees, says UMass entomologist

    May 27, 2015

    It’s the annual attack of the tiny, very hungry winter moth caterpillars. Over the past few days, the green inchworm caterpillars have begun ballooning down out of trees by the thousands, dangling on a wisp of thread and leaving behind a tattered, frayed canopy of leaves.

    “There’s a tattering of the leaves. A lot of this comes from the caterpillars feeding on the buds before they open,” said Joseph Elkinton, a professor of entomology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has for a decade been releasing a parasitic fly that has begun to have success in controlling the population of hungry caterpillars. (5/27/15 Globe)

  • UMass Amherst Food Scientist Wins International Award for Rapid Pathogen Detection in Food

    May 27, 2015

    AMHERST, Mass. – University of Massachusetts Amherst food science researcher Sam Nugen is one of two winners of the 2015 Future Leaders Award from the International Life Sciences Institute’s (ILSI) North America division, for developing methods of engineering viruses to rapidly detect and separate microbial contaminants from food. (5/27/15 UMass Press Release)

  • Editorial: Buzz Surrounding Pollinators in Peril: UMass Researchers Referenced

    May 26, 2015

    There’s a growing threat across the agricultural spectrum that has the area’s farmers, orchardists, beekeepers, scientists and researchers at such places like the University of Massachusetts Amherst worried: The loss of pollinators, like the honey bee. (5/23/15 Recorder, Hampshire Gazette 5/23/15)

  • Complex roles of dietary fats and oils in health and innovation explored by Eric Decker, UMass, Professor

    May 20, 2015

    Are dietary fats and oils really good for us after all? And if so, what types and how much should we consume to achieve a health benefit? How realistic is the dietary advice about fats and oils? These questions and more are discussed in a scientific supplement published in the peer-reviewed journal, Advances in Nutrition. (5/18/15 Medical News Today)

  • Lone star tick the new pest in town, UMass microbiologist discovers

    May 18, 2015

    BARNSTABLE — Imagine a tick that travels three times as fast as the black-legged deer tick, has excellent vision and hatches in stinging swarms that can put fire ants to shame. The arthropod in question is the lone star tick, which scientists say has meandered northward and established a foothold at Sandy Neck Beach Park in Barnstable and Cuttyhunk in the Elizabeth Islands chain.

    “It’s pretty clear that the lone star ticks are established (at Sandy Neck) now,” said Stephen Rich, a microbiologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who is finishing a year’s sabbatical on the Cape. (5/8/15 Cape Cod Times)

  • Massachusetts students join the fight to save the planet

    May 18, 2015

    BELCHERTOWN – A cloudless sky, light breeze and the distinctive “teacher, teacher, teacher” song of the ovenbird welcomed some 260 students from 31 high schools across the state to Quabbin Reservoir last Friday morning for the 2015 Massachusetts Envirothon.
    The picture perfect day for the environmental competition in no way diminished the fervor with which teams from Springfield to Sandwich tackled this year’s current issue: climate change, its impact on local cities and towns, and measures to counter it.
    In opening remarks, Will Snyder, UMass Extension and chairman of the Mass. Envirothon Steering Committee, cited climate change as the greatest environmental challenge ever to face humanity, and one where results are measured a step at a time rather than an overall solution. 5/18/15 Worcester Telegram)

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