News

On Oct. 20, 2017, Hudson Community Radio WGXC aired a 38 minute radio program on insect sound maps featuring a conversation between Tom Roe (WGXC), David Rothenberg (author of Bug Music), and Conrad Vispo, Dylan Cipkowski, and Julia Meyer from the Farmscape Ecology Program. Sound mapping is a technique we are developing to document the distribution of singing insects in different habitats. Here you can learn more about how we create sound maps and what they can tell us.

We have had a busy field season spent in forests and on farms, in classrooms and in collaboration.  Our Year in Review shares some of the highlights of 2017.  Click on the links below to read more about our work.

• Applied Farmscape Ecology Research – insects on farms, experimental wildflower meadows…
• Progress of the Seasons – bringing a curriculum into the classroom, a snazzy new browser, a scientific paper…
• Ecological and Cultural Field Guide – brief update
• Biodiversity/Natural Resource Inventories – spiders, sound maps, the Columbia County Natural Resource Inventory…
• Creating Beneficial Habitats at Hawthorne Valley Farm – new plantings in the Corner Garden and Creekhouse…
• Community Food Access – food pantries, rural food access…
• Outreach and Educational Programming – bilingual walks, hands-on workshops, Harvard Forest presentation, radio show…
• Staff Developments – our intern Julia focuses on spiders, Dylan goes to graduate school and there’s a new puppy!
• Acknowledgements

We are offering a series of winter ecology walks (Nov 2016 – Feb 2017; check calendar for details) as an opportunity to become more familiar with the art of identifying woody plants without their leaves. We have compiled some Winter Botany resources to help walk participants and people who are interested, but can’t come to the walks, to delve deeper into the mysteries of winter botany.

On Saturday, Nov. 19^th, which turned out to be the last balmy day of this fall, we met here at the Creekhouse for a brief introduction to the many different clues which can be helpful in identifying plants in the winter. Amongst other things, we were reminded to consider overall shape (gestalt) of a tree or shrub; to look at the bark; at the arrangement of twigs and buds (alternate vs. opposite); at the size, shape, color, and texture of the buds; to check if freshly broken twigs have a distinct smell; to not forget to look for leaves and remains of fruit on the ground; and to always be aware of the habitat where the plant is found.

Then, our multi-generational group spent a couple of hours inspecting in some detail the characteristics of trees and shrubs growing on Hawthorne Valley Farm’s recently acquired Schnackenberg Road property.

An article by Dave Meyers about the Farmscape Ecology Program’s work with the Hudson Valley Farm Hub that also gives a nice summary of the interchange between nature and agriculture was just posted by the Farm Hub – you can check it out HERE.  The Farm Hub, an initiative of the Local Economies Project, is a newly developed nonprofit center for farmer training, agricultural research and demonstration of innovative farm technology in Hurley, NY.  FEP is developing an ecological map of the land and working with farmers there to help enhance some of the synergies between nature and agriculture that you can read about in the article.

If you’re curious to actually watch one of us try to make sense of all this, you now can, courtesy of the Cornell Horticulture Department. “Farming and Nature: Looking at it from both sides”, a presentation given by Conrad Vispo in November 2013 at Cornell, is now available as an on-line video.
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