The weather’s (slowly) getting warmer, but that doesn’t mean you should be out in the garden digging holes for tomatoes. Although this is the traditional time for planting the tasty fruit, this spring has been unusually cold and wet, and eager beavers may be disappointed when plants don’t thrive or die…If dig you must, local garden centers and websites have a multitude of cold-weather seedlings ready to go into the ground now. Just be careful when you dig, advises Bruce Crawford, director of Rutgers Gardens…”Don’t dig until a day or two after it rains, or you may do some damage to the soil,” he said. “Wet, cool springs can be a challenge, and the soil may become compacted.”
Archives for May 2014
States Eye Ways to Keep Preserved Farms Affordable
Preserved farms are safe from development but not from the larger real estate market If the preserved land gets too expensive for farmers to buy, the land may fall out of agricultural production, defeating the purpose of preservation…Before the reces…
Rutgers Cooperative Extension Celebrates 100 Years
Rutgers Cooperative Extension is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the passage of the Smith-Lever Act, the legislation which officially created the national Cooperative Extension System. A reception will take place May 29 at 7:00 p.m. at the Rutgers…
Undergraduate Biotechnology Student Wins Graduate-level CARIG Award
Brianna Costabile, a Biotechnology major and 2014 George H. Cook Scholar, won one of three awards at the CARIG (Carotenoid Research Interactive Group) Poster Award Competition held as part of the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) at the Experimental Biology Meeting on April 26-30 in San Diego, CA. Costabile, an undergraduate […]
Achoo! Allergist puts NJ’s pollen counts into app
Leonard Bielory is just a bit obsessed with pollen. Sure, an allergist has to know the enemy, so to speak, in order to help his patients. But study pollen? Count its grains? Track its dispersal? Write a grant to study climate’s impact on it? And now, market a smartphone app that allows patients to figure out which tree’s reproductive grains are the source of their torment? “It was selfish,” he says of his app, iPollenCount. “I wanted my patients to be able to tell me what they’re allergic to…” Bielory, a specialist in allergy and immunology with the Rutgers Center of Environmental Prediction and physician at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, designed his app to track a wide variety of symptoms.
Made for the Shade: LA Students Create Twig Arbor Picnic Area at Rutgers Gardens
The Rutgers Gardens Farmers’ Market has added a new shaded picnic area in the woods adjacent to the marketplace at Rutgers Gardens, thanks to the efforts of the sophomore landscape architecture studio at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. Under the direction of Holly Nelson, instructor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and a […]
Four SEBS Faculty Honored by Rutgers for Teaching, Research, Service and Diversity Initiatives
Members of the Rutgers community who have made outstanding contributions in the classroom, to their disciplines or for the benefit of the community or world were honored during a May 7 reception at the Rutgers Visitor Center in Piscataway. Four SEBS/NJAES faculty members, Josh Kohut, Mark Robson, Pam McElwee and Dave Robinson, were among 35 […]
STEM Workshops Available for Afterschool Programs
Registration is still open until June 13 for professional development workshops designed to help afterschool educators and staff bring the award-winning Design It! and Explore It! engineering and science programs for children ages 8-12…Design It! and…
Former NJ Legislator Maureen Ogden Supports Rutgers Environmental Stewards Program with Charitable Gift
By Pat Rector, Environmental and Resource Management Agent, Rutgers Cooperative Extension. Reprinted from Green Knight newsletter, May 2014. The Rutgers Environmental Stewards program is the beneficiary of a $50,000 charitable gift annuity from renowned environmentalist, conservationist and former New Jersey Assemblywoman Maureen Ogden. Ogden chose to provide the gift to the Rutgers Environmental Stewards Program […]
What’s killing my turf?!?!
There is a plethora of abiotic causes for poor turfgrass quality, including traffic stress, compaction, improper fertility, incorrect use of pesticides, shade, poor drainage, too much or too little water, high temperature (especially soil temperature),…