Resources from UMass Extension and the Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment: ag.umass.edu/coronavirus
Today, with the fresh emphasis on local food and sustainability, experts say they are seeing a renewed interest in planting backyard orchards. For an investment of about $400 for a 10-tree orchard and a little time, urban and suburban dwellers can discover the joys of growing their own fruit — even in small backyards. (Globe 5/27/14)
When it comes to promoting sustainable local agriculture, what could be more sustainable than preparing the next generation to understand and act on issues that affect local farms? (Leominster Champion 5/9/14)
At Leominster’s Sholan Farms, student competitors bring Massachusetts Envirothon front and center.
(Sentinel & Enterprise 5/16/2014)
Joseph Elkinton, UMass Extension, comments in two stories about efforts to combat the winter moth, a destructive insect that is damaging trees in eastern Massachusetts and has now been found in part of Connecticut. (The Day [New London, Conn.], 5/16/14; Wicked Local Marlborough, 5/10/14)
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)
Alumnus John Organ, division chief of the Wildlife and Sport Fishing Restoration Program for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is profiled. He is also an adjunct professor of environmental conservation. Organ recently received the Wildlife Management Institute’s 2014 George Bird Grinnell Memorial Award for Distinguished Service to Natural Resources Conservation. (Gazette, 5/7/14)
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)
Raymond S. Bradley, geosciences and director of the Climate System Research Center, says the new federal report on climate change released this week is “sobering.” He calls for action by Congress to “follow the strong example set by Massachusetts to move the country away from a carbon-based economy toward renewable energy, efficient energy distribution systems and energy conservation measures.” (Globe, 5/7/14)
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)
Though acid rain has begun to fade from public consciousness since environmentalists, scientists and even legislators rallied around the issue in the ’80s and ’90s, the problem still persists. One of the longest running volunteer monitoring corps in the country is keeping track of the issue in waterbodies across Massachusetts.
Since 1983, volunteers have been grabbing water samples for the Acid Rain Monitoring Project coordinated by UMass Amherst’s Water Resources Research Center.
Environmental Monitor April 24, 2014
