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Ron Wolford

Ron Wolford
Extension Educator, Horticulture

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Chicago Urban Gardening

The day to day experiences of a University of Illinois Extension Urban Horticulture Educator in Chicago, Illinois

October 29, 2007

Become a Chicago Master Gardener

Mother Nature is Calling, "Get Back to the Earth!"

U of I Extension Master Gardener Classes to Begin January of 2008

Do you have an interest in gardening and a willingness to share your knowledge with others? If so, the Master Gardener program is for you!

Be a part of the 'greening of Chicago'. Extension's Master Gardener adult volunteer program is vital in bringing horticulture information to the public through University of Illinois Extension offices in Chicago and beyond.

WHEN:

Wednesdays, January 16, 2008 through April 2, 2008 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

WHERE:

Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences at 3857 West 111th Street and at Garfield Park Conservatory at 300 North Central Park in Chicago.

Instruction is also offered online. Call (773)233-0476 or email Nancy at nkreith@gmail.com for information about the online Master Gardener program.

WHAT:

University of Illinois Extension educators provide more than 60 hours of training on botany, vegetables, tree and small fruits, diseases, insects, pesticide safety, soils, fertilizers, pruning, trees, flowers, organic gardening and rain gardens. Students must then pass a final, comprehensive exam. In return for the training, Master Gardeners give back at least 60 hours of volunteer time to the Chicago Master Gardener Program within the year.

A fee of $225 covers the Master Gardener manual and supplemental handouts. Scholarships are available.

Applications are available for 2008 classes. Class size is limited. Each applicant will be required to go through a short informal interview in December. To apply online go to http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/cook/mgchicago/or call 773-233-0476 for an application.

Contact person: Ronald Wolford, Extension Educator, Urban Gardening/Environment, 3807 W. 111th Street, Chicago, IL. 60655, rwolford@uiuc.edu, 773-233-0476.


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October 11, 2007

Illinois Farmers' Market Advertising Grant Program

The Illinois Department of Agriculture recently announced it has received specialty crop block grant funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. $175,450.42 of those grant funds will be used to fund the Illinois Farmers' Market Advertising Grant Program.

Through this new program all Illinois farmers' markets can apply for grant funds to help off-set the cost of advertising the market for the 2008 farmers' market season. The maximum allowable grant is $7,500. All grant funds must be spent by October 31, 2008.

Kane County Farm Bureau, in cooperation with the Illinois Department of Agriculture, will host a GRANT PROGRAM WORKSHOP

Friday, October 19–1:00 p.m.

Kane County Farm Bureau

2N710 Randall Road

St. Charles

Kim Janssen of the Illinois Department of Agriculture will present a workshop designed to help Farmers Market operators develop proposals and carry out administrative and procedural requirements involved in applying for Farmers' Market advertising projects. The workshop will cover:

Program Scope

Eligible Specialty Crops

Matching Requirements

Application Procedures and Requirements

Announcement of Grant Awards

Restrictions and Limitations on Program Activities and Expenditures

Post-Award Management of AgriFIRST Grants

Reporting Requirements for Awarded Projects – Progress and Final Reports

Record Retention for Awarded Grant Projects

Reservations are requested for this Workshop by Friday, October 12

Call (630) 584-8660 for more info or to reserve your space today!

Grant Application Deadline: November 7th, 2007 - 5:00 p.m.

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October 3, 2007

Wanted: Citizen Scientists to Track Wild Bees in Illinois

Honey bee colonies are in decline in many states, but little is known about their wild cousins, the bumble bees, or, for that matter, honey bees living on their own in the wild without beekeepers. A new initiative from the University of Illinois seeks to build a better record of honey bee and bumble bee abundance and distribution in Illinois by recruiting citizen scientists to report on wild bees seen anywhere in the state.

Beginning Thursday (Oct. 4) the BeeSpotter Web site will connect bee enthusiasts to resources that will help them identify local bees, post photographs and enter geographic information about wild bees seen in backyards, parks or other Illinois locales.

University of Illinois entomology professor and department head May Berenbaum will announce the Web site launch during a presentation at the Chicago Cultural Center on Thursday. Her presentation, on the ongoing pollinator crisis in North America, will describe the widespread decline in the viability of animals that transport pollen and allow most of the planet's flowering plants to reproduce.

Berenbaum has testified before Congress on colony collapse disorder, a mysterious malady of North American honey bees. She also chaired the National Research Council committee that reported this year on the status of pollinators in North America.

The idea for the BeeSpotter Web site emerged from recommendations in that study, Berenbaum said. A key finding was that too little information on pollinator abundance and distribution has been collected, particularly in the U.S.

"We don't know what is going on with pollinators because America has never deemed it important enough to try to keep track of its pollination resources," Berenbaum said.

"Given that 90 crops in the U.S. agricultural sector depend on a single species of pollinator, and other crops depend on other pollinators, it would seem that for economic reasons alone this has been a serious oversight on our part," she said.

There are too few pollination experts in the U.S. to bridge the data gap, she said. The new Web site seeks to address the problem by involving citizen scientists in bee-monitoring efforts. Participants will feed their information into a database, interact with experts in the field who will answer their questions and connect them to other resources, such as the Illinois Natural History Survey database of North American bees.

BeeSpotter will provide a bee family tree, with biographies of the honey bee and each of the 12 species of bumble bees in Illinois. It will include a summary of the status of North American pollinators, with visual keys for identifying bees and distinguishing them from other insects. A data entry site will allow visitors to post digital photos, plot the location and describe the characteristics of bees they have seen.

More content will be added to the Web site throughout the fall, including information about the honey bee genome, the economic impact of bees, how to avoid and treat bee stings and how to build a bee-friendly garden.

Berenbaum's presentation, "Disappearing Bees," will be at 6 p.m. in the fifth floor Millennium Park Room of the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 East Washington Street.

To view or subscribe to the RSS feed for Science News at Illinois, please go to: http://webtools.uiuc.edu/rssManager/608/rss.xml.



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October 2, 2007

Plenty of Pumpkins for Halloween in Illinois

Although this summer's unusually heavy rainfall was particularly hard on the northern Illinois pumpkin crop, University of Illinois researchers say that growers may have less income, but consumers won't have a problem finding a jack-o-lantern.

"Illinois consumers will not suffer. There will be plenty of fall pumpkins," said Mosbah Kushad. "The flooding has affected the crops especially north of I-80, but it will just mean that there will be fewer pumpkins exported this year to other states."

"The weather was very strange this year," said Bill Shoemaker, researcher at the University of Illinois Horticulture Research Center in St. Charles. "There was drought in southern Illinois at the same time that the rain belt in northern Illinois and up into Wisconsin had double the normal rainfall." Shoemaker recorded 14 inches of rain at the horticulture center in St. Charles from July 17 to August 25.

"It was a fantastic year for corn," said Shoemaker, "but corn isn't susceptible to the fungal disease problems of specialty crops like pumpkins." Shoemaker said that the conditions were perfect this year for fungal diseases to develop in susceptible crops.

Shoemaker said that in addition to the unusually wet conditions, some farmers like to plant in the lower, richer soil, and that's the area where water accumulated the most. "The flooding primarily affected the jack-o-lantern pumpkins, but even though there may be a shortage of locally produced pumpkins, pumpkin retailers will have plenty of supply."

Prices may also reflect the shortage, said Shoemaker. "But, despite the problems this season, I saw some very nice pumpkins out there." He said that there are a number of disease-resistant varieties, such as Magic Lantern.

Illinois is the number one state in pumpkin production. Illinois is a major producer of jack-o-lantern pumpkins and approximately 90 percent of processing pumpkins produced in the United States are grown in Illinois.

Most of the processing pumpkins destined for canned pie filling are grown on farms near Peoria and Morton in Tazewell and Mason counties, south of I-80, and didn't experience the flooding other farms saw this year, so those crops were largely unaffected, said Shoemaker.

Source: William Shoemaker


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