Extension News: September 2010 Archives

It's here! The 2011 NH Outside Calendar offers a selection of excerpts from reflective essays written by UNH Cooperative Extension natural resources volunteers who share the humor, insight, and wonder they've found in the natural world outside their doorstep. Illustrated by original artwork, the calendar also offers daily tips and tidbits to expand your awareness of the natural world.

Order today! At only $9.00, these beautiful calendars make ideal gifts for anyone who loves and cares about New Hampshire's natural treasures.

Order online

Correction: We mistakenly credited the wrong author with the haiku that appears at the top of the July calendar page. The poem was written by Arlene Laurenitis. We apologize for the error.

Geospatial Technologies Training Center offers mapping-based advertising & digital marketing workshops

"If you want people to find you--your customers, for example--you need to put your location into the digital databases people use when they're looking for information,"says Shane Bradt, UNH Cooperative Extension's geospatial technology specialist.

"People are turning increasingly to online maps, especially via mobile communication devices, for all sorts of information," he says. "As people move about during their typical day--especially when traveling or on vacation--GPS-based devices are guiding their choices about where to go, what and where to eat, where to stay and what to buy.

"Built-in, car-based GPS navigation units are becoming standard, and stand-alone car GPS units are more affordable than ever. More than 53 million Americans are already using smartphones with built-in GPS technology, both in the car and on the run."

Being seen and found requires getting your information into digital mapping databases.

"To be seen by these map-users, businesses, organizations and towns need to have their information listed correctly in the databases that power the maps and mapping applications in these devices.

That's why we developed a workshop called Putting your Business on the Digital Map.

"The three-hour workshop will teach business owners and organizations how to get their business information into the databases used by mapping applications in car GPS units and smartphone applications. It's quite different from the other workshops we've offered since the Geospatial TechnologiesTraining Center opened in 1998," says Bradt.

Bradt will offer the three-hour workshop 10 times in the coming weeks, twice in each of five locations: October 18 in Manchester, October 25 in Keene, November 1 in Dover, November 4 in Conway, and November 15 in Plymouth.

What you'll learn

"In half a day, you'll learn about the new types of marketing opportunities offered by GPS and smartphones, load your own accurate and descriptive business information into numerous databases and maps used by online, GPS and smartphone mapping applications, and acquire the skills to maintain and update your listing in the most important mapping databases. Quite a bargain!" says Bradt.

Not just for businesses

He adds, "Although business is in the name of the workshop, these events will also be relevant to towns, non-profits, state government departments, or any group looking to promote and/or draw people to locations."

Interested?

Learn more about putting your business or organization on digital maps

Learn more about Cooperative Extension's Geospatial Technologies Training Center

Slate of topics: using GPS, developing roads and trails, forest management techniques, selling timber

Forests occupy more than 80 percent of New Hampshire's land base. Nearly three-quarters of these forested acres are in the hands of private landowners.

We depend on the stewardship of these landowners to deliver the many benefits our working forests provide, from our billion-dollar forest products industry, to wildlife habitat, to the scenic backdrop that makes New Hampshire such a desirable place to live and visit, to the many invisible environmental services such as flood buffering, water quality protection, and carbon storage.

Caring for Your Forest workshops
Each year, Cooperative Extension foresters partner with other natural resources professionals to offer a series of workshops on timely topics that inform forest landowners on how to meet their private objectives while protecting the many public values the forests provide.

This fall's Caring for Your Forest workshops all take place at the Merrimack County Extension office. Topics include:

• Using GPS on your woodlot.
• Constructing and maintaining roads and trails.
• The basics of silviculture, the art and science of regenerating and tending trees and forests
• Basics of a successful timber sale (covers contracts and timber-harvesting laws).

Interested? Get the details

Each year people speculate about whether the fall foliage will be better or worse than the years before. This year folks question whether the dry summer will dull the leaves.

We will have beautiful colors this year

Not to worry. According to Brad Simpkins, State Forester and Director of the N.H. Division of Forests and Lands, "We will have beautiful colors this year as we do every year. Our trees are brilliant and resilient.

"While moisture matters, the quality and experience of color are largely determined by the weather during the foliage season, rather than by weather before it," Simpkins says.

Fred Borman, Rockingham County Forester with UNH Cooperative Extension, echoes the importance of the weather during the foliage season for bringing out the color. "Dry summer weather might cause some trees to turn early, but the key to a successful foliage season is those cool, crisp nights followed by bright sunny days with clear blue skies."

Why fall colors appear

Leaves contain a mix of pigments that serve different functions; the most important of which is making food. As summer ends and autumn arrives, shorter days and longer nights signal trees to release a hormone, restricting the flow of nutrients to the leaf. This halts the food-making process, causing the chlorophyll, a green food-making pigment, to break down.

The brilliant color-change is mostly caused by this decrease in chlorophyll in the leaf. Throughout most of the growing season, the green chlorophyll is so abundant it masks the other pigments present. These other pigments--the carotenoids--are responsible for the yellows and oranges that are revealed in the fall. Carotenoids are the same pigments that color corn, daffodils, carrots and bananas.

Cool fall temperatures also play a role in the visual display. Anthocyanin is a red pigment produced when sugars are trapped within the leaf. This pigment colors cranberries, red apples, concord grapes, blueberries, cherries, strawberries, and plums.

Often these colors are more abundant and brilliant when the nights are cold. Sugars are made during the day and when the nights turn cold, the sugars stay in the leaf and are converted to the bright red pigment. Leaves sometimes turn from red to yellow and orange because the red anthocyanins don't last, decomposing to reveal the other colors.

On bright, sunny days with clear, blue skies the foliage fluoresces, reflecting light at different wavelengths than those that strike it. This produces the bright fluorescent quality that New Hampshire's forests are so well known for.

Thank your neighbors, the forest landowners

It's easy to appreciate New Hampshire's forests this time of year. Few places on earth can match our display of fall foliage. To add to the sheer visual brilliance, more of New Hampshire's countryside is covered by trees than all other states in the nation, except for Maine. Eighty-four percent of New Hampshire is forested. Most of this forest is owned by private individuals, so we owe this free spectacle to our friends and neighbors.

Learn more interesting forest and foliage facts

For advice on peak foliage areas and best routes to take Or call the N.H. Division of Travel and Tourism Development at 1-800-258-3608.

by Karen Bennett, Extension Specialist, Forest Resources

Farm estate-planning videos now online

Farm-succession planning tough to do

"Because it involves talking about the deaths of family elders and who gets the farm after their passing, farm estate-planning isn't easy for farm families to do," says John Porter, retired UNH Extension dairy specialist.

"Fear of the unknown, dislike of the subject, or just plain procrastination often shove this topic down the priority list. However, it's better to have those conversations with all the players around the table, rather than trying to second-guess what mom or dad would have wanted in the emotion-filled days after they die."

"After all," Porter says, "what's more important to a farmer than seeing a life's work--maybe generations of work--continue on?"

And what greater public benefit than keeping agricultural land open, since working farmland allows groundwater recharge, buffers against floods, filters pollutants, provides wildlife habitat, and delivers the scenic views that make New Hampshire such a great place to live and visit.

Real families tackle the issues

To help break the ice on this subject and hear from families who have dealt with estate-planning issues, a team of Extension colleagues that included Family Resource Management Specialist Suzann Enzian Knight, Program Assistant Katherine Fredette, Porter, and Agricultural Business Management Specialist Mike Sciabarrasi, has produced a series of six videocasts of farm families telling their farm-succession stories. The Family Farm Finances website Knight organized three years ago also contains a wealth of additional farm-family financial management information.

Opening their hearts, serving up practical advice

The videos feature three New Hampshire farm families interviewed at their farms about the estate planning steps they have taken: Charlie and Ruth Bachelder and their son Keith of Epsom; Ralph and Sandy LeClair and their sons Mark and Matt and his wife Beth, of Mason; and Martin and Lynda Connolly and their sons Patrick, Michael and Chris of Temple.

Porter asked each family a series of questions about how they dealt with estate planning. These became five segments, entitled How to start succession planning, How to prepare the generations, How to talk about succession planning, How to transition from discussion to documentation, and How to plan for life after farming.

"The families opened their hearts and gave a lot of honest, practical advice that could help another family get started in succession planning," says Porter.

Website, videos jumpstart the estate-planning process

Knight adds, "We've also posted to the website many downloadable resource materials that go along with the videocasts. Site visitors will find retirement budget calculators, sample documents, planning templates, and many other documents that can facilitate planning."

"The family farm financial website isn't a substitute for getting legal advice for finalizing the estate plan," says Knight. "But it can help get things started or reactivate stalled plans to promote the family discussions needed before sitting down with an attorney.

"Viewers will find that a lot of their apprehensions are shared by the farm families interviewed.Their discussions of how they worked through things can be a real encouragement."

Photo by John Porter Porter writes:

Farming is a family affair at Bachelder's Spooky View Farm in Epsom. Charlie and Ruth have been concerned about the business continuing on to the next generation and have done estate planning to help transition the farm to their son Keith. They still own the real estate and live in the house, but Keith runs the farm, and many extended family members are part of the activities and help out as needed. Shown above left to right are: Charlie Bachelder the dad and grand-dad; Amanda Bolduc, wife of another son, Brent; their children Alex, Ethan, and Adam Bachelder; son and operator Keith; and mother and grandmother, Ruth Bachelder.

The project was sponsored by the Northeast Center for Risk Management Education.

While New Hampshire probably won't feel the full force of Hurricane Earl, the coast and some inland regions may experience strong winds, downed trees and branches, heavy rains, and power outages as the storm roars up the New England coast tomorrow night.

Stay safe! To keep your household's emergency plans updated, consult these online resources:

Hurricane resources General information resources

Food and Water Safety During Emergencies

Assessing and Cleaning Up Storm-Damaged Trees: Stay Safe!

ReadyNH Official N.H. emergency preparedness site.

National Weather Service Hurricane Center Up-to-date information about Hurricane Earl

UNH Cooperative Extension's Plant Diagnostic Lab has just confirmed late blight on a sample from Grafton County, not surprising since the fungus has been found just over the river in Vermont.

Plant Health Specialist Cheryl Smith urges tomato and potato growers (including home gardeners) to apply a late-blight specific fungicide as soon as possible, as rains and winds will help to spread the disease spores. Check our late blight page for current information about this plant disease.