Coast to Coast with Kelli Rodda - November 2007

Kansas 

A Kansas State University professor plans to prove gardening can help combat childhood obesity. Candice Shoemaker received a $1.04 million grant from the USDA’s National Research Institute to study whether gardening can promote a healthier lifestyle. The study is called Project PLANTS (Promoting Lifelong Activity and Nutrition Through Schools). Shoemaker will help create gardens and high tunnels throughout the Manhattan-Ogden Unified School District for students to grow their own fruits, vegetables and flowers. “Physical activity and good nutrition are essential elements to prevent chronic disease and obesity,” she said. “Gardening can help meet the moderate-intensity physical activity recommendations, as well as offer fresh, nutritious produce for good nutrition habits.” For more: (785) 532-1431, cshoemak@k-state.edu.

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Texas 

Texas A&M University added two varieties to the Texas Superstar lineup, a designation of the state’s best-performing plants. Jatropha integerrima ‘Compacta’ and Caesalpinia pulcherrima (pride-of-Barbados) will be marketed with the Texas Superstar logo in garden centers and mass merchants across the state. As its name implies, ‘Compacta’ grows 8 feet tall as a shrub or small tree. It’s good for containers and survives the state’s hot summers. It grows well in a wide range of soil pH. C. pulcherrima puts on a floriferous show when other seasonal color has wilted in the hot, summer sun. Start plants in a warm greenhouse for rapid growth. Overwatering will encourage root rot. For more: Steve George, Texas A&M University, s-george3@tamu.edu.

Massachusetts 

University of Massachusetts Extension created a Web site that helps growers choose renewable energy. The site provides facts on wind, solar, biomass and geothermal power. The site’s creators included cost-effectiveness; contractors; state, local, utility and federal incentives that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency; and agricultural operations in Massachusetts using renewable energy. For more: www.umassvegetable.org/food_farming_systems/green_energy/index.html.

Connecticut 

The state is struggling to employ people between the ages of 25-34 because they keep leaving. Between 1990 and 2004, Connecticut lost 30 percent of that demographic -- more than any other state. It’s a growing threat to the state’s work force, said Bob Heffernan, executive secretary at Connecticut Nursery and Landscape Association. The state’s high housing costs and scarce affordable housing are driving that group away, he said. Demographers reported illegal immigration has helped offset the loss, but with less-educated people, he said. For more: (800) 562-0610; connnrsry@aol.com.

Postcards

A University of Colorado study revealed a fish story about the one that got away. For more than 20 years the federal government has been working to restore the greenback cutthroat trout population in Colorado waterways. But in a case of mistaken identity, government officials have been stocking waterways with the wrong fish. Instead of the greenback variety, many of the fish were the more common Colorado River cutthroat trout. But four of the released populations were the correct species. … Smell-a-vision may still be a pipe dream, but aroma marketing is a reality. KFC tried it in the nation’s capitol, Dallas and Chicago. The fast-food chain put a plate of its fare on mail carts so the scent would waft through the building during pre-lunch mail drops. Let’s hope Bumble Bee Tuna doesn’t try the same scheme. … Bette Midler, who publicly rides the environmental bandwagon, had some 200 trees removed from her Kauai property -- varieties her attorney said were non-native and invasive. Problem: She didn’t file the proper permit. She planned to replant with native trees, but now she faces a fine by the state.

Quotable:

“We are also proposing to amend the definition of from.”

- USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in a proposed rule filed in the Federal Register.

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- Kelli Rodda