News

Our long-term applied farmscape ecology research at the Hudson Valley Farm Hub is entering its 5th year and there are several ways how you can learn more about it. A 25 minute documentary “Farmscape Ecology” by Jon Bowermaster/Oceans8 gives a beautiful introduction to some of the questions that guide our research, to the physical setting, and some of our colleagues at the Applied Farmscape Ecology Research Collaborative.

Conrad created an easy-to-read, well-illustrated description of our experimental research and first results.

More details about the native meadow establishment, maintenance, and plant community development can be found in the Native Meadow Trial Botany Report (and its appendices 1-15 and 16).

Finally, you can watch the recordings of two presentations given at two virtual FEP Open Houses in the spring of 2021, “Native Meadow Trial at the Hudson Valley Farm Hub–The botanical perspective of the first four seasons: 2017-2020” by Claudia Knab-Vispo (April 1, 2021) and “If you build it, do they come? The bugs’ perspective” by Conrad Vispo, Dylan Cipkowski, and Kendrick Fowler (May 6, 2021).

We hope you find this work interesting, inspiring, and thought-provoking! We are happy to field any questions or to hear your comments. Write to us at fep@hawthornevalleyfarm.org.

We are happy to announce that we plan to guide in-person spring flower walks, again this year. Registration for these small-group events is required and currently we accept only one registration per person. Please click on the respective link in the following list for more info and to register.

Friday, April 16, 1-3pm: Nutten Hook in Stuyvesant
Saturday, April 17, 10am-noon: Nutten Hook in Stuyvesant
Friday, April 23, 1-3pm: Siegel-Kline Kill Conservation Area in Ghent
Saturday, April 24, 10am-noon: Siegel-Kline Kill Conservation Area in Ghent
Friday, April 30, 1-3pm: Crellin Park in Chatham
Saturday, May 1, 10am-noon: Crellin Park in Chatham

Sunday, May 2, 3-5pm: Photo Walk focused on spring flowers at Hawthorne Valley Farm (new offering by Kendrick Fowler)

Wednesday, May 15, 2-4pm: No-Bottom-Pond in Beebe State Forest, Austerlitz

The Farmscape team began our “Wonder Wanders” almost a year ago as a way to share the beauty and inspiration found in the natural world during uncertain times.

Follow our blog or find us on Facebook to catch up on past Wonder Wanders, and to stay up to date on future ones—now happening on a weekly basis. In collaboration with the Columbia County Land Conservancy (CLC), we’re also setting up a self-guided Wonder Wander Walk at a different Conservation Area each month. Currently, you can explore the ancient Oak-Maple Forest at the Drowned Lands Swamp Conservation Area in Chatham with our self-guided tour. Please go here to learn more about other Wonder Wander offerings.

Despite this unusual year and the adjustments to some of our planned activities necessitated by the pandemic, we were able to conduct most of the research we had planned and continue to engage with our audience, often in new ways. In Year in Review you find a detailed and illustrated narrative of our activities in 2020. Links to some of the new digital content we created this year are available here.

“Farmscape Ecology”, the movie, is now on-line.
Created by Jon Bowermaster of Oceans8 Films and funded by the Hudson Valley Farm Hub

View the movie here.
 
Farming is ever-evolving. Today, when we think about what’s to come next for farmers a key question is, “How do we produce food and still maintain a livelihood for farmers, while respecting the needs of other organisms with which we share the land?” As part of the Applied Farmscape Ecology Research Collaborative, scientists and researchers examine that question by researching and monitoring soil, water, and wildlife to discover how farming and wildlife co-exist.

Aside from profiling some of our own work, this movie includes profiles of many of our colleagues in the Applied Farmscape Ecology Research Collaborative, including Anne Bloomfield (an ornithologist at the Farm Hub), Shafiul Chowdhury (Director of Enviornmental Geochemical Science at SUNY – New Paltz), Gabriel Perron (microbial ecologist at Bard College) and Jason Tesauro (herpetological researcher at Hudsonia).

The Flora of Columbia County (Part 1): Introduction and Some Spring-flowering Plant Families is the most recent installment of presentations about the plants and animals that share the landscape with us. Botanist Claudia Knab-Vispo reviews some helpful botanical concepts and then introduces spring-flowering plants of five plant families that are found wild-growing in Columbia County.

Past presentations include An Introduction to Butterflies and Their Natural History by Dylan Cipkowski and The Butterflies of Various Habitats in Columbia County by Conrad Vispo.