Article written by Madeline Wimmer, UMN Extension Fruit Production Educator. Kathleen Rhoades is a plant breeder who works for the Savanna Institute, a non-profit organization that focuses on sustainable food production systems. Their major emphasis is on agroforestry, which integrates trees and shrubs into crop and animal farming. Agroforestry can be the main focus of a farm, be combined with farm landscape needs such as windbreaks, and riparian buffers, or complement already-existing row cropping (alleycropping) or grazing settings (silvopasture)*. The use of a crop that can be incorporated into one of these systems or settings can include its leaves (used for fodder), seeds, or fruits, while lumber can also be used in some cases. One example fruit tree in their program is the American Persimmon ( Diospyros virginiana ), which has received little attention from other research organizations in past decades. This is one of two crops that Kathleen Rhoades is working on in her breeding p...
Annalisa Hultberg, Extension Educator, food safety The Cyclospora outbreaks across the country are continuing to cause thousands of illnesses. The patient counts related to the outbreak in Michigan are at more than 14,700 currently, and nearly 20,000 total nationally. What is going on? The CDC and other public health entities are still not certain what the source of the contamination is. View these new resources to learn more about this parasite, how to keep it off your vegetables, and how to talk with your customers. What the heck is Cyclospora? You my be getting questions from your customers about this foodborne parasite, since this outbreak is reacord-setting. To be clear - the investigation is still very much ongoing. Iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms grown in Mexico is likely the source of some of the illnesses, though likely not all. UMN Extension has created a short video that covers the key topics and messaging points for responding to customer concerns ...