- This year’s Native Meadow Twilight meeting will be held on Sept. 17 from 4:30pm-7:00pm at the Farm Hub. The event will feature Claudia Knab-Vispo and Conrad Vispo from Hawthorne Valley’s Farmscape Ecology Program, and Anne Bloomfield, the Farm Hub’s farmscape ecology coordinator. The team will describe how the plant composition in the meadows continues to evolve and share their insights into the use of different meadows by pollinators, pest predators, and other wildlife on the farm. This will include a discussion on the planning, choice of species, and the fieldwork undertaken over the last three years. The rain date is on Thursday, Sept. 19 at the same time.
- The Farm Hub is participating in a Northern Organic Vegetable Improvement Collaborative (NOVIC) research trial that asks farmers to grow vegetables for organic seed production. The Farm Hub is growing carrots and winter squash for the trial. The NOVIC organic seed trial, now in its third round, is funded by the USDA and is a collaboration between five universities including Cornell. “This project launched with the recognition that there’s a lot of diversified vegetable growing happening in more northern climates including Wisconsin, Oregon, and New York’s Hudson Valley,” says Kristen Loria a researcher at Cornell’s Plant Breeding and Genetics Section. “The idea is to increase the number of vegetable varieties available.”
- The Farm Hub’s Language Justice team will continue to provide Spanish/English interpretation for a series of workshops at Soul Fire Farm that examines various aspects of food sovereignty, including “uprooting racism” and “decolonizing the food system.” Future workshops include climate-resilient farming and plant medicine.
- Amy Wu, communications manager, was one of the key speakers at Cary Institute’s annual “Forum in Translational Ecology” on July 2 designed for college students interested in science and the field of ecology. Amy discussed the importance of collaborating with growers and ecologists in digital storytelling and social media.
- Adriana Pericchi, the language justice coordinator, attended the 2019 PGM ONE Summit in Philadelphia. The Summit stands for People of the Global Majority in the Outdoors, Nature, and Environment, and is an annual gathering of people of color who work with the environment and nature. Pericchi calls the experience “incredibly profound.” “It was fueling to learn from so many people of color about the transformative projects and analyses they are bringing to life,” she says.
- The Native American Seed Sanctuary at the Farm Hub enters its fourth season with new varieties of corn and beans, including Six Nations Blue Corn and Mother Earth Bean. This year’s grow-out also includes a continuation of Buffalo Creek Squash and Onondaga sunflowers. In addition, the Hudson Valley Bee Habitat installed a Bee Habitat Arbor that acts as a gateway to the Sanctuary and is designed as the Wampum belt, which symbolizes peace among the Haudenosaunee.
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