News from the Center

LINCOLN, Mass., May 18, 2017 – The message from teenagers who participated in this year’s Massachusetts Envirothon environmental education program was clear: local agriculture is booming in Massachusetts. For the past school year, they’ve been researching farming in their communities – from urban community gardens to rural orchards and pastures, from row crops to working forests – and assessing its benefits and its effects on local land and water resources, ecosystems and biodiversity.

The Massachusetts Wildlife Climate Action Tool partnership was awarded a 2017 Climate Adaptation Leadership Award at the National Adaptation Forum in St, Paul, Minnesota on May 8. University of Massachusetts project manager, Melissa Ocana, accepted the award on behalf of the partnership.   

Dorset sheep, the type that roam around the UMass Hadley Farm, are known to give birth to one, two or maybe three lambs at once. However, on April 7, one of the farm’s ewes delivered not three or four, but five healthy lambs! Students from the Animal Sciences program in the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (VASCI), Cris Wein (‘18) and Amanda Reilly (‘18), both on a pre-vet track, were ready to help deliver the lambs and assist in catching them, but the lambs sorted themselves out and were delivered one at a time.

The non-native, exotic chilli thrips (Scirtothrips dorsalis) has been recently confirmed from two samples of damaged Hydrangea spp. foliage from two residential landscapes located in Barnstable County, Mass. submitted to the UMass Plant Diagnostics Laboratory. 

Nearly 200 arborists, professors, town officials, utility employees and students attended this year’s tree conference held at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on March 7. While they came to learn about current tree issues of importance to communities (such as pests and diseases), the main emphasis of the day was on partnerships between communities and utilities.  This topic was chosen as a result of last year’s survey requesting input from arborists on their preferred focus.

Each year the UMass Stockbridge School of Agriculture and the UMass Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment offers a workshop series for homeowners and small scale farmers. All workshops have a hands-on component that will help participants gain new skills that they can use in their own gardens or landscapes. Locations and registration fees vary.

On a quiet Friday afternoon in early December, two UMass Amherst professors, authors of the just-released booklet Supporting Communities to Become River-Smart, discussed their policy recommendations with a gathering of planners, state officials from Massachusetts and Vermont, community members and others. Celebrating the new publication at a location alongside the Deerfield River in Shelburne Falls, site of significant flood damage during Hurricane Irene in 2011, seemed particularly appropriate. Eve Vogel, UMass associate professor of geography and lead researcher, along with Christine Hatch, extension assistant professor of geology, shared five target policies from the new 90-page report, “Supporting Communities to Become River-Smart.”

On a warm morning in November, coaches and teams of students from 18 Massachusetts high schools arrived on the UMass Amherst campus to get started on this year’s “Envirothon.” The 210 students came from across the state to attend a full day of environmental workshops to prepare for the 2017 Massachusetts Envirothon competition. Students participating in the Envirothon process across North America focus on one current issue for the year; for 2017 the topic is agricultural soil and water conservation. Considering our severe drought this year--connected to the ability of soil to retain limited water-- this issue is certainly timely here in Massachusetts.

Responding to the increased need for education on the science behind soil phosphorus, how phosphorus works with organic residuals applied to soils, and the protection of precious water resources, UMass Amherst Extension Agriculture and Commercial Horticulture Program organized and presented a full-day symposium in Marlborough on November 2. Over 140 regulatory officials, scientists, agricultural producers, turf and grounds management professionals, industry experts, and organic residuals distributors participated.