A recent issue of “Bee Culture” magazine reported, “2009 has the worst honey crop on record. If you like honey, you should buy it now, and buy a lot.” Or, you might learn to raise bees and develop a homegrown honey supply. Washington State University Snohomish County Extension and Beez Neez Apiary Supply are once […]
Nine WSU grad students, as well as three University of Washington students, recently presented results of their northwest Washington research projects. The forum was a daylong symposium at the Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center titled “Agriculture and Northwest Ecosystems: A Graduate Student Symposium.”
Thursday’s Seattle Times included a guest opinion article by Howard Grimes on the importance of adapting to changing climates in order to provide food and fuel for the world. On Wednesday the Othello Outlook reported that the WSU Center for Risk Management Education has received a USDA grant to develop and deliver a curriculum for […]
I hope you played with your food when you were young. Perhaps you experimented at some point with pushing a drinking straw through Jello. If you twisted the straw as you removed it from your food, you could sometimes trap a column of gelatin in the straw. You then had the choice of either blowing […]
After a week of visiting various locations in Oregon and Washington, the ninth International Christmas Tree Research and Extension Conference capped off its recent annual meeting with a tour of the 18 acres of Christmas tree research plots at the WSU Puyallup Research and Extension Center. “This is a group that involves the leading Christmas […]
We Scandinavians have several strange customs, including our hallmark fish dish, which is cod that’s been processed for days in caustic lye. This truly imaginative creation is known as “lutefisk,” which means lye-fish. Lutefisk is a jelly-like material with a pH so high it must be soaked in water for days before you stand a […]
Last Monday’s Seattle Times featured a front page story on Gary Chastagner and his research to develop the perfect Christmas tree. The story about Gary Chastagner‘s Christmas tree research was also distributed by United Press International and generated stories in several other media both nationally and locally, including on KCPQ-TV in Seattle. A story in […]
Recent Budget Announcement from the Governor Last Wednesday, the Governor announced her budget recommendations to the Legislature which included an additional $13.55 million reduction to the FY-11 budget for WSU. This amount is on top of the $54 million reduction we have already sustained, and it is a permanent budget reduction. If this latest budget […]
WSU Grad Student’s Research Tackles Vineyard Nitrogen Puzzle Getting the nitrogen right in wine-grape vineyards is tricky. Nitrogen is essential for plant development and growth. However, too much nitrogen applied early in the growing season may result in overly vigorous vine canopies. A thick canopy, though lovely to look at, shades the young berries and […]
The recent massive snowstorm that moved from California across to New England certainly got the nation’s attention. While some Americans dealt with snowfall measured in feet rather than inches, my part of the Northwest simply endured temperatures near zero, night after night. (Where I live, we think of ourselves as human weather stripping, nobly protecting […]