The leaves are slowly starting to change color at Davidson’s Mill Pond Park in South Brunswick. The explosion of autumn hues can’t come soon enough for these locals… The fall foliage won’t last that long says Rutgers University’s Bill Hlubik, still this year, he expects the colors to last longer then usual because the leaves are expected to peak later then usual… “I think this year with the drought conditions, we’ll see more color in the beginning of November and possibly mid November as well. The only thing that may affect that in a negative way is if we have extreme cold weather that comes in before that,” said Hlubik… The agricultural agent says in New Jersey, leaf color typically peaks between Oct. 19 through the end of the month. But the recent dry weather will most likely delay that… “Chlorophyll is actually what gives us the bright green color of leaves and gives us the photosynthesis that produces all the energy that the plant needs,” Hlubik said.
Rutgers Scarlet Strawberry Has More Flavor Than Its Counterparts [VIDEO]
It’s opening day at Specca Farms Pick Your Own strawberry patch and customers aren’t wasting any time filling up their baskets… “Because direct marketing is so important in New Jersey what we found the need to develop a product that has more flavor and will produce better under our environmental conditions,” said Bill Hlubik of the Rutgers Cooperative Extension… The Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station began the project about 10 years ago. It was developed through a traditional cross breeding program… Thirteen farms throughout the state are growing the Scarlet Strawberry and at Specca Farms the fruit is just beginning to ripen so customers will be able to start picking by next week just in time to eat.
Rutgers Researcher: Sea Level Rising Faster Than Projections
The kind of research results that make you wonder what humans can really- and effectively- do to guard against rising sea levels. New research shows global sea level has been rising two and a half times faster the past 20 years than it had in the last …
Rutgers Researchers Use Cold Plasma to Prevent Food Poisoning
Siddharth Bhide- a Rutgers food science graduate student- is about to clean or decontaminate fresh produce without using any water. He’s using cold plasma. This plasma is a ray of light created by heating up molecules- the sun itself is plasma. All over the country and the world, researchers and professionals are using cold plasma for dentistry, for cancer and wound treatment and to sterilize medical equipment… “That has the potential of cross contamination. So a bacteria can leave one fruit and go and attach to another fruit, and that’s also what we’re studying right now by the way. But this way, there is no possibility of cross contamination from one fruit to the other fruit. And because chlorine also has its own problems- environmentally as well as some other issues from the nutritional point of view,” said Dr. Mukund Karwe, chair of the Rutgers Food Science Department.
Rutgers Researchers Collect Data from Antarctica in Real Time
At a lab in New Brunswick, a team of Rutgers University researchers collects data from Antarctica in real time. The information comes from gliders. The underwater robots are part of a project to determine how water properties and surface currents can a…