Rutgers Master Gardeners of Cumberland County have honored Sam Pace of Millville with the Rutgers Master Gardener of the Year Award for 2015 in Cumberland County. Pace will be recognized for the outstanding work he has done in Cumberland County on Oct….
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Rutgers Alumni Naturally Bring Walls to Life
In October, the Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health (IFNH) at Rutgers University will open, and a breathtaking highlight will become public knowledge. The award-winning structure under construction at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences is home to the largest interior living wall in the state… Measuring 40 feet tall by 33 feet wide, the living wall is the creation of EcoWalls, a business founded by Rutgers alumni Michael Coraggio and Ryan Burrows, both of Flemington. Coraggio received his degree in landscape architecture, while Burrows earned a master’s degree in ecology and evolution… A vertical garden design and installation company that was part of the Rutgers Business Incubator program housed at the Rutgers EcoComplex in Bordentown, EcoWalls was founded in 2008… For Coraggio and Burrows, the living wall on the Cook College campus is a “coming home” for the two. Life partners for 12 years, both credit their alma mater with inspiring and enabling them to do what they do.
Stand Tall to Beat Anthracnose
New Rutgers research shows taller height of cut with the right fertility and topdressing program gives turf a stronger chance to reduce summer stress and fight anthracnose… Dr. Bruce Clarke, Director of the Center for Turfgrass Science at Rutgers University, has been a part of a research group at Rutgers focused on anthracnose. The results from the 14-year long research project reveal how anthracnose can be thwarted through better management practices… “The project we are finishing up on started in 2001 when the disease was running rapidly on golf courses. We started as a research project and in 2005 expanded to a universal research project within 11 universities. Including one in Guelph, Canada. Right now we are focusing on putting together results from previous research about the best program for superintendents…” said Clarke.
Gap Firm Branches Out to Sell No-Soil Growing Systems Nationally
Innovation and new ideas don’t always need fertile soil to take root. For Sam Stoltzfus and Frank Fendler, co-founders of Aero Development Corp., they don’t need soil at all. Their company develops, manufactures and sells aeroponic growing systems for commercial and residential use – light-weight, no-soil vertical garden towers that can grow produce with far less space and water than conventional growing methods… Fendler says that the system is also very suitable for arid environments, because aeroponic growing only uses 10 percent of the water that would be needed for soil-based growing… According to David Specca, acting director of controlled environment agriculture at Rutgers University’s EcoComplex in New Jersey, aeroponic growing isn’t new. It’s been around for more than 20 years… “In order to make a greenhouse sustainable, you have to be really careful about energy use,” Specca says.
World-Famous, Yet Nameless: Hybrid Flowering Dogwoods Named by Rutgers Scientists
Garden lovers and horticulturalists now have two new species names to add to their vocabulary and memory. The world’s most commercially successful dogwood garden trees have finally received proper scientific names decades after their introduction into horticulture. The big-bracted, or flowering, dogwoods are beloved trees with cloud-like branches blossoming in early spring in white, sometimes red or pink. The new scientific names are published by a team of American scientists in the open-access journal PhytoKeys… So, why do we need formal names? “Crucial to communication in all parts of our lives is the naming of objects and phenomena,” explains Mr. Mattera, a Rutgers University graduate student in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. “Humanity needs words to tell other people what we are talking about, and the words need to have uniform and clear meanings,” he adds. Before their publication these horticultural plants largely lived in a taxonomic no-man’s land and could not easily be placed into horticultural databases… Co-author Dr. Lena Struwe, a botanist also at Rutgers University, explains that “Even artificial hybrids created by the fusion of species from separate pieces of the Earth are living, evolving things that need scientific names so they fit into our encyclopedias of life.”
High Hopes for Low Inputs
Oregon-based Mountain View Seeds is using the research facilities at New Jersey-based Rutgers University to test its current and future offerings. The company and university showcased their work during a field day July 15 at a pair of research farms……
Spiders in N.J.: Entomological Consultant at Rutgers Explains Arachnids
Curious about those eight-legged, eight-eyed wonders quietly living in nooks and crannies of your home or weaving expansive webs outdoors?… The Daily Record met with Eugene Fuzy, entomological consultant for Rutgers University in New Brunswick, to learn more about the spiders most prevalent in New Jersey, the ones considered most dangerous based on their venomous bite, and superstitions and misperceptions about these magical and beneficial creatures… “I’ve been fascinated with spiders since I was three years old. I was asthmatic as a kid and couldn’t have furry pets, so a Colorado potato beetle was my first pet and then I moved on to spiders. As a naturalist, I love spiders because they’re so unique, visually active and create such amazing webs,” said Fuzy.
Rutgers Scarlet Strawberry-Infused Beer? Say Cheers!
A desire to connect local growers with producers was the driving force behind Jake Makely’s (SEBS ’16) idea to combine two of New Jersey’s favorite warm weather delights, strawberries and beer. Makely, an agriculture and food systems major, has been a student intern in Applied Analysis of Successful Agricultural Enterprises since February 2014, which has provided […]
Local Moth Night to Kick Off National Moth Week July 18 in Jamesburg Park
Nature enthusiasts of all ages are invited to grab their cameras and head over to Port Street alongside Jamesburg Park in East Brunswick, NJ at 8 p.m. Saturday, July 18, for the kickoff of National Moth Week, sponsored by the Friends of the East Brunswick Environmental Commission. National Moth Week, celebrated this year from July […]
Entomologist Changlu Wang Receives 2015 Award of Excellence from Northeast Extension Directors
Rutgers, New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) Cooperative Extension’s Changlu Wang, associate extension specialist in urban pest management, in the Department of Entomology at Rutgers, has been honored as the recipient of the 2015 Award of Excellence from the Northeast Cooperative Extension Directors. This is the highest award presented by the directors of Extension in […]
