Echo

Big pigs, big problem: Feral swine spread to Great Lakes region

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By Chris Parks
parksch3@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
July 10, 2009

The wild pigs already troubling southern states are slowly becoming an issue in the Great Lakes region. In recent years these feral swine have been concentrated in California, Texas and southeastern states. But in Michigan alone there were 200 sightings of these animals in more than 60 counties as of late 2008. “Unfortunately, most statewide agencies don’t have individual numbers, but the pigs are now in at least 35 states,” said Seth Swafford, project manager for the United States Department of Agriculture’s feral swine management. And their numbers appear to be increasing in the Midwest, he said.

Echo

Cow power comes to the Great Lakes region

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By Thomas Morrisey, tmorrisey@gmail.com,
and Sarah Coefield, coefield@msu.edu,
Great Lakes Echo
July 7, 2009

A new multimillion-dollar research project at Michigan State University will transform manure from a bothersome waste to a green energy powerhouse. The East Lansing, Mich. university’s Anaerobic Digestion Research and Education Center, will focus on developing small digesters that use bacteria to break down manure into biogas. It is part of a group of similar efforts across the Great Lakes region. Biogas is made up of mostly methane, carbon dioxide and effluent sludge, a nitrogen-rich substance that can be used as fertilizer. The biogas, which can be generated from dairy, swine or poultry manure, can be burned to generate electricity and the sludge can be spread on fields as an alternative to using untreated manure.

Echo

Midland’s main drag to become farm market on summer nights

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(MI) Bay City Times – Downtown Midland will become a Farmers Market from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday evenings in July and August. Main will close to through-traffic from Rodd to Townsend to allow farmers to sell produce from the backs of their vehicles in the angled parking spaces. More

Echo

VIDEO: New perennial wheat easier on soil, passes cookie test

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By Steven Davy, stevenrdavy@yahoo.com
Great Lakes Echo
June 23, 2009

Crop and soil sciences researcher Sieglinde Snapp hopes her work at Michigan State University produces a more sustainable wheat. The variety she’s developing doesn’t have to be planted every year, and early research suggests it is easier on the soil, needs less fertilizer and contains more protein and micro-nutrients. It tastes good, too. Federal agriculture officials like the wheat so much they recently awarded the university a $1 million grant to help bring it to market. Snapp and graduate student research assistant Brook Wilke explain in this video the wheat’s research, potential and cookie test.

Echo

Foggy future of Great Lakes climate puts pressure on Michigan cherry growers

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By Andrew McGlashen
The Daily Climate

In the glacier-carved hillsides of northwest Michigan where half of America’s tart cherries grow, climate change is already in full bloom. The state is two degrees warmer on average than it was 30 years ago, and it’s generally wetter, said Michigan State University geographer Jeffrey Andresen, the state climatologist. There’s less ice on the Great Lakes, allowing for more evaporation and more lake-effect snow in cherry country. Farther north, Lake Superior has warmed five degrees since 1979. More importantly for growers, cherry blossoms now appear seven to ten days earlier than they did three decades ago, leaving them susceptible to potentially devastating spring frosts.

Echo

Rooftop gardens all about growth

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – A year ago, Erik Lindberg rented a boom lift with a bucket and hoisted 15 cubic yards of dirt to the roof of his north side remodeling business. In the process, he planted himself firmly in the middle of a growing urban agriculture movement. Lindberg, owner of Community Building & Restoration, turned to rooftop gardening in the belief that his actions might encourage people to grow their own food or buy locally grown produce. And by selling the vegetables he grows to subscribers and a nearby Outpost Natural Foods store, he may have become Milwaukee’s first commercial rooftop farmer. More

Echo

Greening the Herds: A New Diet to Cap Gas

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(NY) The New York Times – Libby, age 6, and the 74 other dairy cows on Guy Choiniere’s farm are at the heart of an experiment to determine whether a change in diet will help them belch less methane, a potent heat-trapping gas that has been linked to climate change. Since January, cows at 15 farms across Vermont have had their grain feed adjusted to include more plants like alfalfa and flaxseed – substances that, unlike corn or soy, mimic the spring grasses that the animals evolved long ago to eat.  More

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Urban gardening lets women grow

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(MI) The Detroit News – Gardening is quiet and hopeful, a specific remedy for despair that requires only soil, water, sunshine and human will. That’s why, in the shadow of a long-closed Catholic school, in a ravaged east side neighborhood, a woman steers a small tractor through a field, leaving crisply trimmed grass behind. That’s why “urban farming” is suddenly being talked about as a practical way to reclaim the Detroit prairie: It nurtures people and feeds them. More

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Study on Lake Huron bacteria points to agriculture

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(MI) Bay City Times – A university study says agriculture is the main contributor of E. coli bacteria to Lake Huron. The study by the University of Guelph and Ontario’s Environment Ministry looked at the Canadian side of the lake. But a Michigan regulator says the same thing could be happening in the Thumb – home to numerous large livestock operations and ongoing problems with beach muck, or dead algae, fouling shorelines. More

Echo

Organic Dairies Watch the Good Times Turn Bad

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(NY) New York Times – When Ken Preston went organic on his dairy farm here in 2005, he figured that doing so would guarantee him what had long been elusive: a stable, high price for the milk from his cows. Sure enough, his income soared 20 percent, and he could finally afford a Chevy Silverado pickup to help out. The dairy conglomerate that distributed his milk wanted everything Mr. Preston could supply. Supermarket orders were skyrocketing. More