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Master Gardener Symposium
By Michael Chamberland
Our popular Citrus Clinic, held each January, was delivered as an online program this year. Rather than a daytime weekend program, the Clinic was reinvented as a set of two-hour long presentations on four consecutive weekday evenings. Following this example, two new Master Gardener-delivered symposia were launched.
The Vegetable Garden Symposium ran for four evenings in early April, organized by Beth Reidhead following her experience with the Citrus Clinic. Master Gardeners Emily Heller, Don Sutton, Melissa Kruse-Peeples, and Pam Perry each presented on aspects of home gardening. In addition to the primary speaker, one volunteer each night assisted with chat/moderating questions: Judy Reid, Keri Means and Kathy Oakey. This symposium was free and open to Master Gardeners. It was designed as a test run and a model for future symposia to be open to the public. An average of 70 Master Gardeners attended these sessions. Feedback was positive and encouraged using this model for future events.
In early May Noelle Schlader organized and moderated the Master Gardener Compost Symposium. This ran for three consecutive evenings, each with an hour-long program followed by Q&A. Master Gardeners Pam Perry, Bonnie Newhoff and Jackie Rick presented on composting-related topics. Keri Means and Kathy Oakey helped to support the speakers, monitoring the questions over zoom chat and facilitating a Q&A session after the presentations. This symposium was free and open to the public, with 292 attendees.
Both Symposia were very successful and popular! The experience has helped to build Master Gardener abilities with online delivery using Zoom. With our newfound confidence in these methods, more online programs are envisioned, as well as hybrid programs incorporating in-person options. Our symposia helped to publicize other Master Gardener programming, such as Desert Institute of Gardening (DIG) classes and our online Ask A Master Gardener plant diagnostics sessions. The latter saw a significant boost following the Composting Symposium.
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2021 4-H Camp G.R.I.T. - Change Your Child's Life This Summer! By Caroline Werkhoven
Registration, via ZingBooks, for 4-H Camp G.R.I.T. is now open! This year, 4-H Camp is set for June 21 – 25, 2021 and will be held at James 4-H Camp, east of Prescott Valley. 4-H Camp is a five-day, four-night residential camping experience for boys and girls 8–14-year-olds. 4-H membership is not required!
Sending a child to Camp can benefit them in many ways; they will have a ton of fun, make new friends, develop new skills, be physically active, gain an appreciation for nature and create a lifetime of memories. Youth learn to make good decisions, build their self-confidence, become more independent, and learn how to work well with others. These skills help youth develop into strong adult leaders.
During camp week, youth will engage in a variety of activities designed to challenge, educate, and entertain. From arts and crafts, hiking, GPS navigation, archery, canoeing, and evening activities, planned by the teen counselors, including campfires, Olympics, and a talent show, it’s guaranteed to be a blast!
Interested in signing up your child, friends of your children or your neighbors contact Esther Geel at esthergeel@arizona.edu.
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Smartscape Meets In Person By Kirti Mathura
We did it!
Smartscape’s 2021 Smartscape en Español course is well underway, live, in-person, with all participants, instructors, and Master Gardener volunteers fully masked. The Palo Verde room is certainly arranged a little differently, with all tables spread out to accommodate social distancing of a limited enrollment, but it feels so good to not be the lone being in the room during class! Since we were not quite organized to run the course via Zoom last year, so many people were happy to have the opportunity for learning once again.
We adapted in every way possible to keep everyone involved safe and healthy. The Master Gardener volunteers have been a tremendous help with this. All of the attendees have been very respectful of the UArizona protocols. In short, we’ve turned the COVID-19 corner at MCCE, and it is so exciting to once again be able to deliver a quality training face-to-face, with all the associated benefits that we missed while operating face-to-screen.
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Turfgrass Extension Program By Kai Umeda
The Turfgrass Extension program has been completing and establishing field experiments to determine effective weed control with new herbicides. Goosegrass has been increasing as a problem weed in turf as it begins germinating now as you read this. Unlike crabgrass and cupgrass that emerged earlier in the spring, a different strategy is required to control goosegrass with preemergence herbicides or attack it with postemergence herbicides after it begins growing. This past winter was a blessing in disguise without much rain to germinate the highly invasive stinknet weed. Despite the lack of significant amounts of the weed emerging, successful experimental tests determined that there are options available to control the weed with different herbicides (https://turf.arizona.edu/presentations.htm ) Also, the masked chafer beetles are flying now and light traps are being deployed to trap and monitor when their peak flights occur so that if necessary, soil-applied insecticides could be placed in a timely manner to control emerging larvae as eggs hatch. A new approach is using LED light traps versus traditional blacklight traps that typically attract flying insects (photo). A graduate student will be starting this fall to precisely identify the grubs and beetles using DNA analysis in the laboratory.
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Picture Caption: Project CENTRL “Class 57” spent a hybrid week in Washington, D.C. meeting with Arizona’s Congressional delegation online via Zoom, including Rep. Greg Stanton and hearing from other speakers in-person.
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Project CENTRL
By Scott Koenig
June is a month of transition for the Arizona Center for Rural Leadership! The flagship program: Project CENTRL will celebrate the completion of the formal training for Classes 28 and 29 and welcome 16 new individuals into Class 30. The participants range from Quartzsite to Safford and Tucson to Flagstaff and many places in between and share a commitment to making a difference for our rural communities. In April, 22 participants from Classes 28 and 29 combined together and called themselves Class 57 while they experienced Gettysburg, PA and Washington, DC learning leadership lessons from the largest Civil War battle from retired colonels and how to get involved in the legislative process in our nation’s capital from Farm Credit Services, American Farm Bureau Federation and the Center for Study of the Presidency and Congress.
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Studentsfrom Concordia pack FarmRaiser bags with Sun Produce.
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| Working Together on Produce Accessibility
By Paula Barr Skillicorn, Food Access Coordinator/ SNAP-Ed, AZ Health Zone
One of SNAP-Ed’s many partners is Sun Produce Cooperative, a collaboration of growers, producers and others involved in agriculture and produce distribution. With help from SNAP-Ed staff, Sun Produce incorporated in 2017 to increase the availability and sales of locally grown fruits and vegetables. The organization has grown exponentially since then, and now offers a wide variety of strategies to provide affordable, high-quality local produce.
Sun Produce is a key partner in SNAP-Ed’s efforts to reduce food scarcity and increase availability of affordable, fresh produce in low-income areas. In addition to our work in schools and direct education to youth and adults, SNAP-Ed focuses on PSE (Policy, Systems, and Environment) change. That includes identifying barriers to affordable produce and partnering with other agencies to try to reduce or eliminate those barriers.
As part of our efforts, SNAP-Ed’s food access team works with Sun Produce to connect growers with schools, government vendors, organizations, and individuals to increase the amount of fresh, Arizona grown produce in their meals.
In addition to providing health benefits for our communities, Sun Produce helps Arizona growers, producers, and distributors. Sun Produce works with more than 30 farms in Maricopa County and across the state to give them a venue to sell a wide variety of seasonal produce. Customers include wholesalers, grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals, food banks, farmers markets and more. The majority of sales are to buyers in other states.
Sun Produce is working on expanding its number of farmers as well as its sales sites in order to support local famers while distributing local foods across the state. More information about Sun Produce and its services is available by calling 602-469-9400 or emailing sunproducecoop@gmail.com.
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The Field Crops/IPM Program
By Dr. Ayman Mostafa
With an optimistic future regarding the COVID-19 outbreak, hopefully we will start switching our Extension programs to hybrid format with in-person and virtual deliveries, adhering to health and UArizona guidelines. My program and all UArizona Cooperative Extension ag team programs continue running as close to normal in terms of research and Extension activities conducted.
As we move forward in 2021 with having our Extension events remotely, we have our events virtually instead of our traditional in-person way. We started 2021 with our UArizona Cooperative Extension Field Crops “Clinics” on January 27, 2021. We also had the 2021 Arizona Cotton Production Update Meeting on 2/18/2021, and the Southwestern Ag Summit on February 25, 2021. We had our Annual Alfalfa and Forage Workshop on April 8, 2021. I’m planning for the upcoming New Technologies for Field Crops in June 10, and our annual Tent Talks in July. Our Field Crops IPM Program continue its applied research to provide solutions for sustainable pest management practices, and nutrient recommendations for various crops. Our most recent research involves economics and management of alfalfa weevils, aphids and caterpillars, spider mite in corn, sugarcane aphid in sorghum, and phosphorous and Potassium management in alfalfa.
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Directors CutBy Dr. Ed Martin
With June right around the corner, I am already bracing myself for lows in the mid 90°s and high temperatures exceeding 110°. But along with high temperature in the summer come many exciting programs from your County Extension office. The Field Crops/IPM program is in full swing with the 8th Annual New Technologies Workshop for Field Crops at the Maricopa Ag. Center is taking place on June 10. Dr. Mostafa and his team help keep growers in Arizona competitive in a global market. The Master Gardener program has continued to thrive despite the challenges the pandemic has caused. Michael Chamberland and many devoted volunteers continue to educate people in Maricopa County about the importance of the right plant, right place, and proper irrigation. The Family Resource Center Staff continue to reach out to the communities of the Roosevelt school district. Classes on child seat safety and Pack and Play, play-yards, are met with great success and help ensure the safety of our youngest, brightest stars. The Agricultural Literacy and STEM program is preparing for a hybrid Summer Agricultural Institute in June and our 4-H staff is getting excited to return to the James 4-H camp at Mingus Mountain for the 2021 Camp GRIT. As the face-covering restrictions begin to ease, we look forward to increasing our face-to-face programming, and I look forward to seeing everyone back at the office instead of in a square on my computer. Do not forget to visit our website at https://extension.arizona.edu/maricopa to get the latest on what’s happening at your County Extension Office.
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