At the 2019 NY ReLeaf Conference last July in Rochester, Dr. Leslie Brandt presented a fascinating talk about her work on urban forest adaptation to climate change, and she offered up powerful resources and tools to our community. Here’s a brief summary of those resources compiled by [...]
Emerald Ash Borer. A report recently published in the Journal of Economic Entomology offers data on the newest parasitoid wasp released against the EAB beetle: Spathius galinae. One of the authors, Dr. Jian Duan of the Beneficial Insect Introduction Unit at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s [...]
A glimpse into upcoming urban forestry research: Why have a tiny percentage of ash trees survived EAB? How can LIDAR be used to improve urban forest management? How do mycorrhizae help young trees access soil moisture? Why do seemingly healthy trees fail, unpredictably impacting power lines, and [...]
“Backyards are very important,” says coauthor Dexter Locke. New insights from research on “Urban form, architecture, and the structure of front and backyard vegetation,” by Alessandro Ossolaa, Dexter Locke, Brenda Linc, and Emily Minord in the Journal of Landscape and Urban Planning. 185 (2019) 141–157 ABSTRACT Residential yards comprise most land [...]
Students in Nina Bassuk and Peter Trowbridge’s Creating the Urban Eden class, planting the bioswale in the Peterson parking lot, the site of the recent Cornell Sustainable Landscapes Trail opening ceremony. Photo from Cornell Horticulture blog (https://blogs.cornell.edu/hort) With excerpts from Cornell Chronicle and the CU Sustainable [...]
Quercus macrocarpa x Q. turbinella hybrid in UHI research plots. Photos by Nina Bassuk For nearly 15 years, Nina Bassuk and her grad students at the Cornell Urban Horticulture Institute (UHI) have been developing hybrid oaks for exceptional tolerance of urban conditions (drought, alkaline soil, etc.) [...]
Nina Bassuk Reviews Applied Tree Biology by Andrew Hirons and Peter Thomas Reprinted from the April 2018 Arborist News (Volume 27, Number 2). The first thing to notice in this very excellent text is the title, Applied Tree Biology. This is not exactly an arboriculture manual or [...]
Cornell UHI team Barbara Neal, Bryan Denig, and Nina Bassuk assess the health of one of the iconic elms ringing the National Mall. Photo by Yoshiki Harada In April 2018, the Cornell Urban Horticulture Institute team of Nina Bassuk, Bryan Denig, Yoshiki Harada, and Barbara [...]
Urban Forestry 2020 has released its findings and “Recommendations for Strategic Actions,” aimed at guiding the professional community within urban forestry toward an impactful, inclusive, and sustainable profession. These recommendations culminate five years of research. […]
Dr. Tara Bal examining earthworm activity in leaf litter. Whoa. Worms can cause a lot of problems, as we've been exploring on the blog with regard to the organic matter over-consumer, Asian jumping worm. A Michigan Tech study entitled "Evidence of damage from exotic invasive earthworm [...]