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The new website is changing how we feature upcoming events. Each month this newsletter will highlight our top five upcoming UMD events of interest to urban farmers. The full calendar of upcoming events has even more learning opportunities.
All featured upcoming events in this issue are offered online.
- Pruning apples, peaches, and pears
April 10
Online workshop on how to prune fruit trees
- Understanding health insurance spring series
Noon or 7pm on April 12, 19, and 26, and May 3
Have questions about how to get or use health insurance, especially as a farmer? Check out this series.
- Sustainable Food System Lecture Series
April 13: Dr. Charles Owubah, CEO, Action Against Hunger
April 20: Dr. Stephen Thomas, Professor of Health Policy and Management and Director, Maryland Center for Health Equity
May 4: Michael J. Wilson, Maryland Hunger Solutions
- Backyard poultry webinar series
April 9: Composting, utilizing manure and protecting your garden from your chickens
April 16: Common Poultry Diseases
April 23: Happy hens -- Chicken behavior and welfare
- UMD MANNRS Presents "Environmental Racism: Continuing the Fight & Restoring our Earth"
Dr. Sacoby Wilson of the UMD School of Public Health joins UMD MANRRS to discuss ways to fight environmental racism in the midst of the current climate crisis.
See more educational events on the website here. |
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Pest alert! Thrips in greenhouse and high tunnels
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By Dr. Jerry Brust, UMD Extension
Republished from the March 26 special issue of UME Vegetable and Fruit Headline News
Over the past few weeks we have seen several greenhouse (GH) and high tunnel (HT) vegetable (basil and tomato mostly, but also lettuce, pepper and spinach) operations from around Maryland having problems with thrips, including species which can transmit tomato spotted wilt virus.
Image: Thrip damage on lettuce leaf, photo by Dr. Karen Rane, UMD Plant Diagnostic Lab
Click here to read the full article on how to identify and manage thrips in your greenhouse or high tunnel.
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How to protect young trees from cicadas
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We’ve been hearing a lot of excitement and questions about the upcoming Brood X Cicada emergence. Here are three places you can get your questions answered:
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How to protect young trees from cicadas. Don’t worry, cicadas do not pose a threat to the vast majority of plants. They only lay eggs on trees, and mature well-established trees will be fine. However, if you recently planted young trees in the past year or two, it is worth wrapping them in agricultural cloth (row cover works well) during the time when the female cicadas will be laying eggs (from emergence to 8 weeks later). This video from UMDHGIC demonstrates how to wrap a young tree.
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Want to learn more quickly? UMD HGIC has written a helpful article, with great pictures, quickly explaining what you need to know about cicadas.
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Got cicada mania? Want to learn everything you can about cicadas, follow cicada updates on social media, and even wear a cicada tee-shirt? Check out the UMD Entomology Department’s Cicada Crew website.
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Be counted in the 2022 Census of Agriculture!
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Is your urban farm signed up to be counted as part of the US Census of Agriculture?
The United States Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service conducts a census of all agricultural operations every five years, and other more targeted agricultural surveys in between.
The USDA defines as a farm “any establishment from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were sold or would normally be sold during the year.”
It is important for the future of urban agriculture, that urban farms sign up to be counted. This helps USDA make sure that federal farm programs are relevant to you. The USDA does a lot of things that affect farmers: farm funding programs through the USDA-FSA and USDA-NRCS, research through the USDA-ARS and USDA-AMS, grants through USDA-NIFA, farm census surveying through USDA-NASS. The people who serve on this new committee will have an opportunity to push USDA to make its work more relevant to and supportive of urban farmers.
The next five-year Census of Agriculture will be next year, 2022, so sign up today!
https://www.agcounts.usda.gov/static/get-counted.html
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April 18 deadline for Made in Baltimore’s Home Run Accelerator
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Made in Baltimore, a program of the Baltimore Development Corporation, is offering a new program to support Baltimore entrepreneurs. Their Home-Run Accelerator is a 5-month small business development program designed to help home-based entrepreneurs scale up and out into commercial production space. The program is specifically tailored for product-based businesses that are currently run by entrepreneurs out of their home or a shared makerspace.
Throughout the program, participants will also be supported by Made In Baltimore staff to offer connections to resource providers, feedback on plan development, and assistance identifying locations to grow their businesses.
Participants that successfully complete the program will be awarded between $5,000 – $10,000 in seed capital to support their launch into a new facility.
The application deadline is midnight on April 18, 2021.
Read more and apply here.
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Invitation to include your farm on the JHU Maryland Food System Map
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The Maryland Food System Map, a project of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, is an online interactive map and food systems database for the state of Maryland. The project is currently working on updating data for the spring newsletter. Included in the update are data on urban farms across the state. If you would like to be included on the map, please email Caitlin Misiaszek cfishe29@jhu.edu with your farm name and address.
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We're hiring! Click here to see open positions at University of Maryland Extension.
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The University of Maryland, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources programs are open to all and will not discriminate against anyone because of race, age, sex, color, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, religion, ancestry, or national origin, marital status, genetic information, or political affiliation, or gender identity and expression.
Los programas del Colegio de Agricultura y Recursos Naturales de la Universidad de Maryland están abiertos a todos y no discriminará contra nadie debido a raza, edad, sexo, color, orientación sexual, discapacidad física o mental, religión, descendencia, origen nacional, estatus matrimonial, información genética, afiliación política, o identificación y expresión de género.
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