Extension News: May 2008 Archives

With interest in renewable fuels rising even faster than the price of energy, some New Hampshire farmers have begun making their own fuel, processing recycled cooking oil or pressing oil from their own seed crops to make biodiesel, which they use instead of petroleum-derived diesel fuel to power farm equipment.

Hands-on workshop shows you how
If you'd like to learn more about what's involved in making and using biodiesel, UNH Cooperative Extension will host a workshop June 5, from 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. at Tuckaway Farm in Lee, where farmer Dorn Cox grows sunflowers, presses oil from the seeds, and processes biodiesel for on-farm use in a unit he designed and built.

Workshop topics
"The morning session will feature a hands-on workshop with folks from Piedmont Biofuels in North Carolina, where they make 4000 gallons a day of biodiesel from poultry fat," says Becky Grube, Cooperative Extension's sustainable horticulture specialist. "Unfortunately, we had to limit participation in that session, and the slots have all been filled.

"But there's plenty of room in the afternoon workshop, where participants will break into groups and rotate through two stations, one to see the oilseed presses in operation and the mobile processing unit at Tuckaway Farm, the other to see Piedmont's mobile biodiesel processor, a combined heat and power biodiesel production system," Grube says. "Matt Rudolf of Piedmont will then lead a group discussion of the economics, safety, and quality issues of on-farm biodiesel production."

The workshop wraps up with a visit to UNH's Kingman Farm, where Grube and Cox will talk about growing sunflowers.

Ongoing farmer-driven research
"This workshop continues the farmer-driven research we started two years ago when Dorn came to UNH looking for a partner to help him evaluate how sunflowers perform in this area and to test the feasibility of small-scale oil pressing," says Grube. "Our Extension colleagues in Vermont and Maine have also been working on homegrown farm energy production. We have a lot more work ahead, but the future for on-farm energy production looks promising."

Workshop details
The morning session is full. The afternoon session and trip to Kingman Farm are free, but requires pre-registration. To register or learn more, call Suzanne Hebert at 862-3200.

Directions to Tuckaway Farm

Photo credit: Biodiesel sunflower crop at Kingman Farm, by Faye Cragin, UNH Cooperative Extension World Wide Web and Media Specialist

For more information
Oil Seed Sunflowers for On-Farm Biodiesel Processing Dorn Cox and Becky Grube report on their first year of collaborative research investigating the potential of various varieties of sunflowers for biodiesel production.

On Farm Oil Seed Production and Processing University of Vermont publication that summarizes a year of oilseed research in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Walk or Bike to Work

Want to get fit, lose weight, build muscle, lower your stress levels, save gas, and reduce air pollution?

Consider biking or walking all or part of the distance to work.

Many more of us could commute with our own two legs than do. You probably have a few good excuses for not powering yourself to work:

I live too far from work. It'll take too much time. I don't have a safe route to travel. I don't have a place to shower at work. I don't have a safe place to stash my bike. I don't want to appear weird. I'm too out of shape to go that far.

Many self-powering commuters have found creative ways to solve these and other problems.

One of the sites below may offer for a solution to yours. Although they speak specifically to bicycle commuters, many excuses and answers apply to walkers as well:

Save Time Commuting by Bicycle
The top 10 excuses for not commuting by bike
Another top 10 excuses
Overcoming bike commuting excuses
More overcoming
No more excuses

Check out The True Cost of Driving to calculate the dollar, pollution and social cost savings of commuting with your own two legs.

For a lot more information about commuting by bike, check out this new section of Lighten Up NH!

Listen to NPR reporter Alex Chadwick commute to work by bike.

Cheryl Smith, UNH Cooperative Extension's plant health specialist recently returned from a trip to Bangladesh where she served as co-instructor for a week-long Plant Disease Diagnosis Training Workshop held at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) in Mymensingh, Bangladesh.

"I've always been interested in international agriculture, sharing my knowledge and expertise to improve the plant disease diagnostic skills in developing nations, particularly in Asia," says Smith. "When my colleague Dr. Robert Wick of the University of Massachusetts asked me to join him for this first-of-its-kind training, I jumped at the chance. The plant disease diagnostic training workshop was the first of its kind ever offered in Bangladesh, or in Southeast Asia for that matter."

Wick and Dr. M. Bahadur Meah of BAU have collaborated as co-investigators on a U.S. Department of Agriculture-Bangladesh Cooperative Research Project aimed at establishing a plant-disease diagnostic clinic at BAU, the first of its kind for all Southeast Asia, and training faculty and staff in diagnostic techniques.

Smith says Wick and Meah hope to develop 8-10 satellite labs throughout Bangladesh, but funding efforts to develop them and train diagnosticians to staff them hasn't succeeded. "We're all hopeful that funding efforts will be successful now that the BAU clinic is up and running and the first group of workshop students have been successfully trained," she says.

"Before this workshop, many Bangladeshi plant diagnosticians relied heavily on visual identification of symptoms with little microscopic examination to identify plant health problems," Smith says. "They haven't had the intensive hands-on laboratory training they needed to work effectively with microscopes and conduct laboratory tests, which provide more accurate diagnoses and more cost-effective, environmentally sound treatments. Rob and I emphasized the importance of making an accurate diagnosis before an appropriate treatment can be prescribed."

Ten students from various Bangladeshi institutions, all with degrees in plant pathology, attended the week-long intensive training. Conducted in English, the workshop included work in clinical pathology, learning the steps to plant diagnosis, proper care and use of microscopes, preparing slides, making culture media, incubating samples for disease microorganisms and identifying pathogenic fungi, bacteria and viruses.

"Working with such a small group of students gave everyone plenty of hands-on experience," Smith says. "Several growers even brought in samples during the workshop, giving the students (and us) a chance to tackle some real-life samples."

A UNH professional development grant helped subsidize Smith's trip. "I consider Rob one of the best diagnosticians in the U.S., if not the world," Smith says. "Working with him on this workshop reinforced and expanded my own skills. Even though the climate and many of the crops grown in Bangladesh are different from our own, the process for identifying pathogens is the same. What I taught and learned in Bangladesh will certainly help me solve plant health problems in my own work at the UNH Plant Diagnostic Lab."

See a slide show of Smith's trip to Bangladesh.

Spring is finally here. The days are longer and warmer, daffodils are popping up, and the mulch volcanoes are erupting.

The mulch volcanoes? You know, those piles of bark mulch mounded up beneath many landscape trees. I don't know where or why this practice started, but too much mulch under a tree or shrub actually does more harm than good, and is a waste of mulch and money.

Mulch serves several purposes besides dressing up your landscape. It helps retain soil moisture, important because most "feeder" roots (the roots that obtain water, air and nutrients for the tree) grow in the top 12 inches of the soil.

Mulch that's deeper than three inches can smother feeder roots and compromise the tree's health. Roots may actually grow up through a too-thick mulch past the base of the tree and encircle the trunk, a condition called girdling. As the tree grows, these roots could choke the tree and cause a slow death.

Mulch should never touch the trunk of the tree. Because it holds moisture, mulch will keep the trunk damp, encouraging bark rot and disease. Also, insects and rodents may find homes in the mulch volcano and feed on the bark of the tree.

Spread the mulch in a uniform layer two to three inches deep and out at least to the drip line (the area beneath the outermost branch tips of a tree). You want the natural flare at the base of the trunk, where it meets the ground, to be exposed. You can renew mulch each year by adding a little to the surface; there's no need to remove old mulch, but don't allow it to become deeper than four inches.

Because mulch helps prevent roots from drying out, especially when newly planted, use a quality, natural mulch. Untreated plant-based mulches are best, since they help improve the soil as they decompose. These include wood chips, bark mulch, straw, leaves, and pine needles. Avoid wood-chip mulches made from construction materials, pressure-treated lumber and old telephone poles, as these might contain harmful chemicals.

Mulch can also prevent weeds from growing around the base of the tree. Particularly when the tree is growing in a small or confined area, unwanted plants (or even flowers) may compete with the tree or nutrients and water.

Finally, mulch provides a "safe zone" between your lawn and the tree. This makes lawn mowing easier, and protects the bark from mower or trimmer damage.

If you'd like to remove the mulch volcano from your tree, do it gradually over a few months. The trunk has been kept shaded and damp from the mulch, and sudden exposure to the sun could cause it to crack. If the feeder roots have grown up through the mulch, they could dry out and lose their ability to absorb water. Remove the mulch a little at a time, remembering to water the roots thoroughly for 20 minutes each time.

You may lose some roots to exposure during this process, but in the end your tree will benefit from having deeper roots and a healthier growing environment.

By Melinda Wright, Cooperative Extension Master Gardener and Tree Steward

Photo: the Plant & Pest Diagnostic Laboratory at Purdue University Used with permission.