Growing organic: Weekend of facts and learning for farmers

By TRACY TURNER

OSU Exten­sion

COLUMBUS – From veg­etable graft­ing and dairy cow man­age­ment to plas­ti­cul­ture straw­berry pro­duc­tion and organic grain pro­duc­tion, Ohio State Uni­ver­sity pro­fes­sion­als will present per­ti­nent infor­ma­tion on some of the key issues in organic and sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture next month dur­ing Ohio’s largest sus­tain­able food and farm conference.

The Ohio Eco­log­i­cal Food and Farm Association’s (OEFFA) 34th annual con­fer­ence, Grow­ing Oppor­tu­ni­ties, Cul­ti­vat­ing Change, is Feb. 16–17 in Granville. And with 27 work­shops, Ohio State sci­en­tists, spe­cial­ists and stu­dents will offer a record num­ber of pre­sen­ta­tions dur­ing the event, which is expected to draw 1,200 par­tic­i­pants, orga­niz­ers said.

The pre­vi­ous high was 19 work­shops from Ohio State pro­fes­sion­als in 2011.

“Our work­shops draw on the tal­ents and exper­tise of sci­en­tists and researchers, farm­ers, chefs, home­stead­ers, and entre­pre­neurs from across Ohio and the Mid­west,” said Lau­ren Ketcham, OEFFA’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions coor­di­na­tor. “With cook­ing demon­stra­tions and more than 90 edu­ca­tional work­shops on sus­tain­able farm­ing, gar­den­ing, green liv­ing, live­stock, and busi­ness man­age­ment, there’s some­thing for everyone.”

The Ohio State pre­sen­ters are from the Col­lege of Food, Agri­cul­tural, and Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ences and its research and out­reach arms, the Ohio Agri­cul­tural Research and Devel­op­ment Cen­ter (OARDC) and Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Extension.

The con­fer­ence fea­tures some 90 ses­sions in all plus a trade show; two pre-conference work­shops on food safety and graz­ing; a kids’ con­fer­ence; and keynote talks by Nico­lette Hahn Niman, an attor­ney, rancher, and writer, and George Siemon, a found­ing farmer of Organic Valley.

Reg­is­tra­tion ranges from the $65 one-day stu­dent mem­ber rate to $205 for both days for an adult non­mem­ber of OEFFA. Meals, the kids’ con­fer­ence and the pre-conference work­shops are extra. Reg­is­ter online at http://www.oeffa.org/2013.

Edi­tor: Mem­bers of the press can attend some or all of the con­fer­ence free of charge. To arrange a press pass, con­tact Lau­ren Ketcham at lauren@oeffa.org or 614–421-2022, ext. 203.

Work­shops offered by OSU experts in order of date and time include: Matt Klein­henz, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor and OSU Exten­sion spe­cial­ist, “Veg­etable Graft­ing: Why and How,” Sat­ur­day, 9:30–11:30 a.m. Jeff McCutcheon, OSU Exten­sion edu­ca­tor, and Bob Hen­der­shot, 2010 Stin­ner Award win­ner and retired graz­ing man­age­ment spe­cial­ist for the Nat­ural Resources Con­ser­va­tion Ser­vice, “Pas­ture for Profit,” a four-part work­shop series on Sat­ur­day, 9:30–11:30 a.m. and 1:45–3:45 p.m. and Sun­day, 9:30–11:30 a.m. and 1:30–2:30 p.m. Mike Hogan, OSU Exten­sion edu­ca­tor, and Julie Fox, OSU Exten­sion mar­ket­ing spe­cial­ist, “Is Your Farm Mar­ke­tReady? Sell­ing to Restau­rants and Gro­cers,” Sat­ur­day, 9:30–11:30 a.m. Gus­tavo Schuen­e­mann, assis­tant pro­fes­sor, Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine, “Tran­si­tion Dairy Cow Man­age­ment,” Sat­ur­day, 9:30–10:25 a.m. Jim Hoor­man, assis­tant pro­fes­sor and OSU Exten­sion edu­ca­tor, “Using Cover Crops to Reduce Crop Vari­abil­ity in a Chang­ing Cli­mate,” Sat­ur­day, 9:30 –10:25 a.m. Rory Lewandowski, OSU Exten­sion edu­ca­tor, “Mea­sur­ing and Main­tain­ing Soil Health,” Sat­ur­day, 10:35–11:30 a.m. Par­winder Gre­wal, OSU pro­fes­sor and direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Urban Envi­ron­ment and Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment, “Ecosys­tem Ser­vices of the Soil Food Web,” Sat­ur­day, 10:35–11:30 a.m. Michele Williams, a research sci­en­tist with OARDC, “Nat­ural Sup­pres­sion of Pathogens in Food Sys­tems,” Sat­ur­day, 10:35–11:30 a.m. Matt Klein­henz, OSU asso­ciate pro­fes­sor and Exten­sion spe­cial­ist, “Micro­cli­mate Man­age­ment in High Value Veg­etable Pro­duc­tion,” Sat­ur­day, 1:45–3:45 p.m. Marne Titch­enell, wildlife pro­gram spe­cial­ist for OSU Exten­sion, “The Good, the Bad, and the Hun­gry: Deal­ing with Wildlife Con­flict,” Sat­ur­day, 1:45–3:45 p.m. Brian McSpad­den Gar­dener, OSU/OARDC plant pathol­o­gist, “OFFER­ings 2013: Defin­ing the Organic Research Agenda,” Sat­ur­day, 1:45–3:45 p.m. Brad Berge­furd, OSU/OARDC Exten­sion edu­ca­tor and spe­cial­ist, “Plas­ti­cul­ture Straw­berry Pro­duc­tion,” Sat­ur­day, 1:45–2:40 p.m. Hoor­man, “Biol­ogy of Soil Com­paction,” Sat­ur­day, 1:45–2:40 p.m. Julie Fox, direct mar­ket­ing spe­cial­ist, “Maps, Apps and Mobile Media Mar­ket­ing,” Sat­ur­day, 1:45–2:40 p.m. Michael Lil­burn, OSU/OARDC, “Organic Pas­ture Poul­try Research at OARDC,” Sat­ur­day, 2:50–3:45 p.m. Mike Hogan OSU Exten­sion, “Writ­ing a Grant Pro­posal for On-Farm Research,” Sat­ur­day, 2:50–3:45 p.m. Casey Hoy, OARDC Kel­logg Endowed Chair, “Cre­at­ing Oppor­tu­ni­ties in Local Food Sup­ply Chains with a New Approach to Busi­ness Plan­ning,” Sun­day, 9:30–11:30 a.m. P. Larry Phe­lan, OSU/OARDC, pro­fes­sor of ento­mol­ogy, “Improv­ing Pro­tein Qual­ity for Bread Mak­ing and Sup­press­ing Weeds in Organic Spelt,” Sun­day, 9:30–10:25 a.m. Denise Ellsworth, pro­gram direc­tor of Honey Bee and Native Pol­li­na­tor Edu­ca­tion, “Enhanc­ing On-Farm Habi­tat for Pol­li­na­tors,” Sun­day, 9:30–10:25 a.m. McSpad­den Gar­dener, “Why Cover Crop Your Toma­toes?” Sun­day, 10:35–11:30 a.m. Alan Sun­der­meier, OSU Exten­sion, “Report on 10 Years of Research on Organic Grain Pro­duc­tion in North­west Ohio,” Sun­day, 10:35–11:30 a.m. Mary Gar­diner and Celeste Welty, OSU ento­mol­ogy pro­fes­sors, “Man­ag­ing Cucum­ber Bee­tles to Reduce Bac­te­r­ial Wilt in Cucur­bits,” Sun­day, 1:30–2:30 p.m. Phe­lan, “Part­ner­ing with the Soil Com­mu­nity for Healthy and Resis­tant Plants,” Sun­day, 1:30–2:30 p.m. Sun­der­meier, “Inter­pret­ing For­age Test Results and Their Impli­ca­tions,” Sun­day, 1:30–2:30 p.m.

Posted by Tina Murdock on Feb 24 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.