46th annual Delta Farm Forum set for Saturday

Agriculture will take center stage at the 46th annual Delta Farm Forum, Feb. 24, in Delta Junction.

The forum brings growers, producers and the community together to hear about current research, recommendations and farm agency news. Bryan Scoresby, the executive director of the federal Farm Service Agency in Alaska, will welcome participants at 9 a.m. in the Delta High School small gym.

Topics will include agritourism, requirements for certified organic producers, noxious and invasive weeds, and the AgrAbility program for disabled farmers and agricultural workers. State veterinarian Dr. Robert Gerlach will talk about introduced ticks and pathogens.

Delta Extension agent Phil Kaspari said historical presentations from early homesteaders have been popular among at the forum. Emily Keaster, a longtime Delta resident and homesteader, will reminisce about homesteading and farming in the Clearwater area. Arthur Keyes, director of the Division of Agriculture, will provide an agency update, along with the Salcha-Delta Soil and Water Conservation District.

A potluck lunch will take place at noon, and the forum will end around 4:30 p.m. The University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service and the Salcha-Delta Soil and Water Conservation District co-sponsor the forum. For more information, go to www.uaf.edu/ces, contact Delta Extension at 907-895-4215 or cmroden@alaska.edu, or call the conservation district at 907-895-6279.

Pat Holloway named to Alaska Innovators Hall of Fame

Pat Holloway with her peonies in the Georgeson Botanical Garden at UAF.
Photo by Cassie Galasso

Emeritus horticulture Professor Pat Holloway will be inducted today into the Alaska Innovators Hall of Fame in Juneau.

Holloway is being honored for being the first to recognize the commercial opportunities of the peony industry in Alaska and for her work developing the Georgeson Botanical Garden.

According to its website, the Alaska State Committee on Research created the hall of fame in 2014 to “celebrate and honor outstanding individuals who put Alaska on the map as leaders in innovation and to contribute to Alaska’s growing culture of innovation.”

Pat Holloway
UAF photo by Todd Paris

Holloway received a letter signed by committee co-chairs Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott and Larry Hinzman, the vice chancellor for research at UAF. The letter states, “Your demonstrated innovation has had a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of the people of Alaska.”

She is one of four honorees in 2018. The others include UAF Professor Kelly Drew, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry who discovered receptors that regulate the onset of hibernation and is using that knowledge to pursue a medical solution for human victims of stroke, cardiac arrest and spinal-cord injury; Eric Swanson, the co-inventor of optical coherence tomography, an imaging technique that captures micrometer resolution; and a traditional Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian wood halibut hook with an innovative design.

Holloway is pleased to receive the honor and will attend the induction ceremony at 4:15 p.m. in Centennial Hall. The ceremony is part of the Alaska Innovation Summit hosted by the Juneau Economic Development Council, which she will attend.

Holloways says she will use the opportunity to promote the Alaska Peony Growers Association and the SNRE resource management degrees. She will bring promotional materials for both.

“I’m just going to hawk my wares,” she said.

Holloway’s peony variety trials began in 2001, after she learned that peonies bloomed in Alaska in July, at a time they did not bloom elsewhere  — and that international buyers were interested. In addition to conducting 15 years of variety trials, she provided growers information on what varieties grew best and how to manage pests. She also brought up specialists to advise peony growers and provide research.

Only two past hall of fame inductees were honored for agricultural innovations, and Holloway is pleased to be recognized in that area, but she feels that the peony growers themselves are the innovators because they deal directly with issues related to growing peonies in the northern climate.

In 2016, growers shipped more than 200,000 stems to local, state and international markets, including the U.S., Canada, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam and Singapore. The number of peonies planted was expected to increase from 200,000 plants in 2016 to 250,000 in 2017. Many plants are not producing yet.

“It’s really heartening to see what people are doing,” Holloway said.

Holloway retired from the university in 2014 but remains involved with the Alaska Peony Growers Association and with peony growers.

“I get lots of emails and I answer all of them,” she said. She also advises the association on research and grant-writing efforts. After retiring, she collaborated with Washington State University researchers on identifying the different types of botryitis, a gray mold that that is the No. 1 disease that affects cut flowers. She said researchers have now identified 10 species in Alaska that afflict peonies in the field and post harvest.

Holloway wants to continue the research to develop control measures to prevent botrytis in flower boxes and in the field. She is also working with the Division of Agriculture to identify barriers to export markets, and she continues to survey research on cut flowers and posts good articles that could be helpful to peony growers on her HortAlaska Peonies blog.

The University of Alaska established the Alaska State Committee for Research in 2004 to promote research and development in the state. For more information, see its website.

Last Coverdell Fellow working on NRM graduate degree

Steve Harvey poses in a dry season garden (dambo) with his neighbor, Charles
Katango, left, and headmaster Bright Simtime.

l

Steve Harvey spent a little more than two years as an agricultural Peace Corps volunteer in rural Zambia, demonstrating conservation farming methods to subsistence farmers.

The methods, which replenished the soil and reduced erosion, included crop rotation, planting nitrogen-fixing trees, minimum tillage, and adding compost and manure to enrich the soils. Representatives from surrounding villages worked with him on a demonstration plot. Continuing the work of a previous Peace Corps volunteer, Harvey hosted three field days to show his personal demonstration plot and methods to others. He grew crops like corn, beans and peanuts.

Steven Harvey identifies pests in a school nursery.

Some of the people adopted the practices, and he said he felt like he had accomplished something when the headman of one of the villages got up and explained the farming methods to a crowd of about 100.

The education went both ways. Harvey learned how to replace his grass thatched roof and cook local foods, such as nshima, which is made of corn, cassava or finger millet, with small dried fish, beans and/or vegetables.

Harvey was introduced to agriculture while attending Western Washington University in Bellingham, where he worked two years on a student-run farm with gardens, chickens, bees and fruit trees. After graduating, he worked on an organic vegetable farm for six months while applying for the Peace Corps, which provided training in conservation agriculture.

Midway through his two-year term, which began in February 2015, he applied and was accepted the Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program, which provides educational support for the returning Peace Corps volunteers.  The Peace Corps program is sponsored at UAF by SNRE and the College of Rural and Community Development. Harvey applied to the School of Natural Resources and Extension program because it was affiliated with an agricultural experiment station and he wanted to study natural resources management.

“Coverdell was a good opportunity to attend graduate school,” he said.

Under the program, students receive a $15,000 stipend and tuition for two semesters. Participants are required to work with an underserved community 10 hours a week.

Harvey, who is attending his second semester at UAF may be the fifth and final Coverdell recipient with SNRE. Associate Professor Susan Todd, who coordinates the program for SNRE, said the Peace Corps notified her in December that the University of Alaska Fairbanks could not guarantee another five years of funding for the program. SNRE received its first Coverdell Fellow in 2011.

Todd understands the financial realities of the university but is disappointed because the Coverdell students bring an international perspective to classes they participate in and enrich other students with their experience.

“They bring all that background into class,” she said.

Steven Harvey in the tree nursery he developed to give away fruit and
soil-improving trees.

They also contribute to their communities, she notes. Past SNRE Coverdell Fellows with SNRE have helped the Department of Fish and Game survey families about the type and amount of subsistence foods they have used, and have worked with villages in Southeast Alaska to address community problems, such as funding for water systems. Stefan Tangen, who recently graduated from SNRE, helped communities in Western Alaska plan for climate change. Julie Cislo worked with the Fairbanks Soil and Water Conservation District to develop curriculum about soil and water for grade school students. Harvey is also working with the conservation district to put together a visual model that shows groundwater movement and contamination. He will also develop lesson plans about growing small grains.

For his master’s project, Harvey will work with Professor Mingchu Zhang on computer modeling of how different changes in climate may affect the growth of wheat in Alaska.

Harvey is also disappointed the Coverdell program will end. The program provides an incentive for individuals to volunteer for the Peace Corps and, he said, “It makes graduate school possible.”

SNRE also has three graduate students in the Peace Corps’ Master’s International Program. The Peace Corps announced in 2016 that it would end the program after current students completed their work. Under the program, students begin their master’s degree at UAF, apply to the Peace Corps and, if accepted, volunteer for 27 months and then return to complete their graduate degree.

Todd said Jordan Richardson recently returned from Paraguay and hopes to graduate in the summer of 2018. Lori Beraha is finishing her research project before she leaves for the Peace Corps. She will graduate this spring and hopes to go to the Philippines or Malawi in an environmental program.  Fiona Rowles finished her first year of coursework last year and is serving in Malawi. She will likely graduate in the spring of 2019.

Proposed plan would move degrees, reorganize SNRE

UAF Provost Susan Henrichs has announced plans to move the School of Natural Resource and Extension academic degree programs to the College of Natural Science and Mathematics.

Under the plan, SNRE academic faculty would form a department within the college. The school’s existing bachelor’s and master’s degrees in natural resource management and doctorate in natural resources and sustainability would continue to be offered through the College of Natural Science and Mathematics.

The change in the administration of the academic programs is part of a larger reorganization plan involving the School of Natural Resources and Extension, which includes the UAF Cooperative Extension Service and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station.

Under the proposed plan, the school would be eliminated as a result of the degrees moving to CNSM,  and Extension and AFES would continue to operate independently, sharing a business office and communications support. Fred Schlutt, the vice provost for Extension and Outreach, would remain the senior administrator for both entities and Milan Shipka will continue as director of the station. SNRE faculty would have research appointments with the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station.

In an email to SNRE faculty and staff, Henrichs said UAF Chancellor Dan White will need to request approval from the University of Alaska Board of Regents for the reorganization plan. The request could be considered as soon as the board's June meeting.

SNRE Academic Director Dave Valentine said students would see few changes as a result of the reorganization.

“They’ll have the same degrees and the same classrooms and we’ll be in the same offices,” he said. Most SNRE academic faculty and classrooms are located in the O’Neill Building and Arctic Health Research Building on West Ridge.

In a meeting with SNRE research and academic faculty last Friday, Henrichs said she believed that the degree programs would do better in a larger unit with more students and greater possibilities for academic and research collaborations, including the possibility for more cross-listed courses. She said the number of academic faculty have decreased from 18 to 11 and with budget constraints, the school has not been able to hire replacement faculty, making it more challenging to offer programs. While SNRE has strong degree programs, future funding reductions could make it difficult to maintain quality if the programs remain on their own in a separate school, she said.

In her email, Henrichs said there were significant matters yet to consider and resolve, and she will appoint academic faculty to a transition team.

The School of Natural Resources and Extension was created in February 2014, when the regents approved the merger of the former School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station and the UAF Cooperative Extension Service. Extension and the station are mandated to file a joint federal plan of work and annual report.

OneTree Alaska stages Valentine-themed fundraiser

OneTree Alaska has announced a Valentine’s Day special for people who wish to donate to the forest education outreach and research program.

Individuals who donate $100 to OneTree Alaska receive a
luminaria and a box of birch caramels.

Those who donate $100 will receive a red Valentine’ s box with a dozen birch caramels, one ice luminaria and the opportunity to become a “sap sergeant.”

OneTree is working with the University of Alaska Foundation to raise money for its program, which provides forest education to K-12 students and researches birch sap processing methods. The program had hoped to support its work by selling products made from 6,000 gallons of the birch sap staff and volunteers with a birch sap cooperative collected last spring. A freezer failure in October resulted in losing most of the sap concentrate. Dawe says she hopes to raise $100,000 by June to pay for the program’s seasonal birch sap crew, buy a freezer alarm and support the education program.

A variety of funding levels have been established. These include Friends of OneTree, $25; Adopt a Seedling, $50; Sap Sergeants, $100; Sapling Steward, $365; Deep Roots Donor, $500; and Community Science Champion, $1,000 or above. Depending on the level of contribution, donors receive caramels, luminaria, a limited-edition print by Kes Woodward, or recognition as an underwriter of saplings.

Anyone who wishes to donate may call OneTree Alaska at 474-5517 or use its website at https://onetreealaska.weebly.com/giving.html. The caramels and luminaria may be picked up at OneTree studio at Lola Tilly Commons from 4-6 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday and 10 a.m. to noon on Valentine’s Day.