Crops and Soil Sciences announces four new crop management resources online for Northern New York farmers

The Northern New York Agricultural Development Program website at www.nnyagdev.org is providing area farmers with four new resources on the interaction of soils, nutrients, and crops. The publications are part of a series from Cornell University's Department of Crop and Soil Sciences and the Cornell Nutrient Management Spear Program. The fact sheets are designed to help farmers make decisions about field crop management, including which crops to plant, when, and on what fields based on the availability of essential nutrients, fertility management and good stewardship practices.

The How Quickly Will Soil Test P Increase? fact sheet reports research on the effects of how manure and fertilizer applications affect the changes in soil test phosphorus (P) levels in farm soils to help producers learn how long it may be before soil test P levels will reach a level at which alternative manure applications sites must be found. The study also shows how quickly soil test P levels rise for different soils. The Phosphorus Removal by Field Crops fact sheet shows how to estimate manure and fertilizer application limits if the P Index is high, based on the projected removal of phosphorus by a crop. The P Index requires producers to limit phosphorus application to the estimated level of crop removal when the risk for a farm is rated High. The Soybean Nitrogen Credits fact sheet provides the background behind an adjustment in Cornell guidelines for applying a soybean nitrogen (N) credit (an estimate of how much N remains in the soil for crop uptake) of 20 to 30 lbs of nitrogen per acre for corn production only during the first year of corn planted after a crop of soybeans. This rate of application is lower for soybeans planted after corn than for corn planted after corn and may save farmers money. The Late Season Stalk Nitrate Test fact sheets provide the sampling and submission procedure for evaluating the nitrogen (N) supply available for corn during the past growing season. Contact:  Dr. Quirine M. Ketterings, 607-255-3061; Joe Lawrence, 607-255-3061

Education and physics faculty members team up to increase the number of quality physics teachers

The Department of Education's Deborah Trumbull and the Department of Physics' Rob Thorne have spearheaded successful efforts to obtain project funding from the PhysTEC consortium. The project goal is to increase the number of highly qualified teachers of physics. The specific project goals are: to establish a network of institutions deeply engaged in the enterprise; produce more, better-prepared elementary, middle, and high school teachers committed to interactive inquiry-based approaches to teaching; provide compelling evidence of the importance and success of essential ideas and components; engage physics and education faculty in collaborating together with and developing essential program elements; and to promote and disseminate innovative programs, methods, and ideas. This joint effort at improving teacher preparation is facilitated by three of the most prominent national physics societies, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), American Institute of Physics (AIP), and American Physical Society (APS).

Hoophouse system extends bramble harvest

Photo Craig Cramer

Interior shot of trellis in tunnel

A new publication explains how Northeast growers can capture more of the lucrative local market for fresh berries by growing brambles (raspberries and blackberries) in high tunnels. These relatively low-cost, usually unheated, plastic-covered hoophouses push berries to ripen several weeks earlier in spring and extend the fall harvest through November. They also make it possible to grow some varieties in places where they were impossible to grow before because winters are too cold or the growing season too short.  Tunnel-grown berries also have longer shelf-life and require fewer pesticides.

The 29-page publication by Cornell and Penn State researches, High Tunnel Raspberries and Blackberries, spells out in detail how it's done.  Find ordering information or an online version of the guide at the Cornell fruit berry homepage:  www.fruit.cornell.edu/berry.html.

National Science Foundation awards $400,000 grant to Cornell University Library to facilitate data sharing and archiving

Mann Library has been awarded a $400,000 grant by the National Science Foundation to make sharing digital data easier among researchers. During the three-year grant, Cornell librarians will develop a set of services and electronic tools to document and archive digital scientific data that university researchers can use to share their work and make it available to other academic and government repositories. While researchers produce vast amounts of digital data, an infrastructure that supports the sharing and preservation of this type of data is not universally available across disciplines.  To address this problem, Cornell librarians will develop an electronic management system and related services for organizing and archiving digital data, regardless of discipline. 

Forestry internet seminars connect forest owners and managers from across the nation 

Image Peter Smallidge

An opening slide from a recent ForestConnect seminar

The ForestConnect Internet Seminar Series designed to link forest owners, managers, and practioners, and inform them of the latest in forestry management techniques, has been so successful in its debut year that it will continue in 2008, announced webcast coordinator, Dr. Peter Smallidge.

The seminar series, began last May, is the first of its kind in the United States. Each seminar uses the Internet to distribute, or webcast, a live and interactive presentation, connecting forest owners, managers, and practitioners nationwide who collectively own or manage about one million acres of forest land. More than 300 owners and managers from 40 states and three countries have signed up for the monthly webcasts. The next scheduled webcast “Don't Degrade Your Woodlot,” a how-to for forest owners interested in improving productivity and health of trees and forest ecosystems, will be broadcast on December 19th.  Previous seminar topics included small fire-wood production, arranging a timber sale, and creating woodland pools. The live, interactive seminars have been so popular they will continue running in 2008 with this year's participants choosing the topics of most interest through an online survey.

“It is exciting to be able to use a relatively new technology to connect to people who are making a difference in private, state, and federal forests,” says Smallidge.

The webcast seminars use unbiased and research-based information to teach strategies that help participants better enjoy and utilize forested property.  Seminars occur on the third Wednesday of each month and are recorded for subsequent viewing on the ForestConnect website. Participation is as easy as a high-speed internet connection via a web browser.  Participants connect to a secure Cornell Cooperative Extension server to join the presentation. A recent feature useful to some participants is the availability of continuing education credits from the Society of American Foresters for its Certified Foresters. Contact Peter Smallidge for more information at 607-592-3640 or pjs23@cornell.edu

Mann Library puts popular wine and grape publications online

Mann Library  is happy to announce the online availability of two Cornell wine and grape publications: the Finger Lakes Vineyard Notes Collection http://locale.mannlib.cornell.edu/flvn, a monthly newsletter produced by the Finger Lakes Grape Program, and the Wine Industry Workshop Proceedings Collection http://locale.mannlib.cornell.edu/wiwp, from the annual conference organized and hosted by the Cornell Enology Program. Both publications are freely available in full text and all issues are fully searchable (Vineyard Notes is full-text searchable after 1998). In addition to being collections in their own right, they are both also sub-collections within Mann's new locale Collection http://locale.mannlib.cornell.edu/, which contains CALS and CHE publications that have not been commercially published and therefore tend to be difficult to locate in print or electronic form.

Island Immersion: Shoals Marine Lab and Cornell Lab of Ornithology teach students through real encounters with gulls and other birds

Photo Mike McLellan

A Great Black-backed Gull takes charge of a ruler used by a student to measure nests.

"There is no better way to build class unity than to head into a colony of irritated Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls," says David Bonter, a scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who taught Field Ornithology on Appledore Island, Maine, for the Shoals Marine Lab. Students mist-netted and banded migratory songbirds, conducted a census of gulls in a nesting colony, and traveled to neighboring islands in search of seabirds.

Learn more about the students' experiences at: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Publications/Birdscope/Autumn2007/island_immersion.html