News from the Center

Dr. Simi Hoque is passionate about improving the ways in which buildings use the earth’s resources.  She teaches environmental systems and sustainable design principles in the Department of Environmental Conservation at UMass Amherst. Her research, partially funded by the Center’s Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station, is focused around the application and development of energy-efficient buildings. Dr. Hoque specializes in energy modeling, resource efficiency, and systems design. She is co-author of a recent online publication (October 2013) intended to provide a quantitative approach to assessing sustainability indicators in a city.

UMass Amherst held its first Student Garden Tour on September 28, 2013 under brilliant skies.  Five unique gardens right on campus were hosted by the students who manage them.  One of our main goals was to make students aware of myriad opportunities for growing food without leaving campus. 

A stunning floral display is ready for your viewing pleasure: the UMass Amherst Demonstration Gardens in front of Durfee Conservatory. This garden features several new annual plant cultivars recently introduced by plant breeders. The gardens are intended for observation of new plants under local growing conditions followed by reporting back to the breeders.

For the last thirty years or so, Frank Caruso has been the “go-to” guy for disease problems with the plants in your bogs, if you are one of those who farm the state berry of the Commonwealth. Last week, Dr. Caruso retired as Plant Pathologist with the UMass Cranberry Station in East Wareham. As late as his final days on the job, he was out in the bogs, looking at...

Microbiologist, Dr. Haim Gunner, professor emeritus at UMass Amherst has discovered and developed a microorganism that naturally combats fungus as part of an eco-management approach to plant disease protection.

As part of the UMass Amherst Sesquicentennial, CNS and the Center for Agriculture are co-hosting a Celebration of Agriculture day on Thursday, April 25. CNS carries forward the national land-grant university tradition of agricultural research and education that began with the creation of Massachusetts Agricultural College on April 29, 1863.

With this year’s final crop totals still being tallied, Massachusetts cranberry growers estimate they have harvested around two million barrels of fruit.

Every two years, professional greenhouse growers and garden retailers from throughout New England and New York gather at the Northeast Greenhouse Conference and Expo to learn about new developments in their field and products and equipment useful for their work.

Thanks to the work of UMass researchers, 4-H members, volunteers, and the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, hundreds of hungry families in western Mass. are receiving locally grown potatoes in time for their holiday meals.