News Stories - Page 86

Leyland cypress are one of the most commonly planted landscape trees, but poor site selection and disease pressure may soon send them the way of red tips and Bradford pears.

National 4-H Council has announced that CJ Harris of Covington, Georgia, is a runner-up for the 2022 4-H Youth in Action Award for STEM. Harris is recognized nationally for his work to use 3D printing to effectively and cheaply produce prosthetic limbs for children.

For more than 20 years, the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) has encouraged students to explore an important, yet often overlooked, side of Georgia’s leading industry. Since its creation in 1997, the Congressional Agricultural Fellowship has offered 123 students a firsthand look into the world of agricultural policy by placing them in legislative offices located in our nation’s capital. Each summer, a handful of CAES students move to Delta Hall in Washington, D.C., to represent the college and serve as agricultural liaisons in Georgia’s congressional offices.

Excessive rain signals another a bad year for leaf spot diseases on landscape trees and shrubs. The leaf spotting that affects pear trees, including both edible pears and ornamental Bradford types, is caused by a fungal disease known as Entomosporium leaf spot. This disease also affects related shrubs such as Indian hawthorn and red tip photinia.

UGA’s interdisciplinary host team comprises the College of Veterinary Medicine, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the Office of Global Engagement. The program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service, is designed to help developing countries in Africa improve their university agricultural education, research and extension programs by providing one semester of training at U.S. land-grant agricultural universities.

University of Georgia Cooperative Extension’s radon testing program — a holistic program that combines radon education outreach with research, testing and mitigation — has helped optimize sampling and testing methodology for radon in water throughout the U.S. The program has influenced national standards in radon testing.

All over the world, farmers are aging and young people are moving to more urban areas for economic opportunities. Leaders wonder what factors push young people to abandon agriculture and whether technology or other tools can make farming a more attractive option for the next generation. Next week, researchers from the University of Georgia and Virginia Tech will present early findings from research exploring those questions in Senegal, where a team surveyed more than 1,000 peanut-growing households to explore challenges among peanut producers and learn the main reasons why young people turn away from agriculture.

Late summer is a good time to observe many types of insects buzzing around homes and gardens. As we approach fall, the local populations of many types of insects begin to reach their peak.

University of Georgia Cooperative Extension’s Georgia 4-H program is one of 21 Georgia organizations to receive AmeriCorps funding to support programming across the state.