News Stories - Page 221

News from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Deer are beautiful creatures, but seeing them dining on your landscape plants quickly makes their beauty fade. CAES News
Deer Habitat
While there is no hard-and-fast method to determining the exact number of deer in a county or state, current population estimates are coming in at just over 1 million animals. Ultimately, the habitat quality in a particular area limits the number of deer hunters may see.
National 2017 4-H Youth in Action Citizenship winner Amelia Day is a recent high school graduate from Fort Valley, Georgia. As a Georgia 4-H member, she created Operation: Veteran Smiles, a project that provides care packages to veterans in Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals. CAES News
4-H Week
Six million students across America participate in 4-H and, of those, more than 170,000 call Georgia home. To raise awareness of the state’s largest youth development organization, the week of Oct. 1-7 has been declared National 4-H Week.
'NuMex Easter' ornamental peppers won the All-America Selections award for its outstanding performance. CAES News
New Mexico Peppers
‘NuMex Easter’ peppers are small, compact plants that reach up to 12 inches tall and as wide, but they load up with more colorful peppers than you would ever imagine for that size of a plant. They make great border plants for the traditional landscape and will dazzle in herb or tropical gardens.
After an initial meeting with Rosalynn Carter and representatives from the National Park Service, the Master Gardeners began redesigning the butterfly garden on the Carter Compound in Plains, Georgia. CAES News
Presidential Garden
Earlier this spring, representatives for former first lady Rosalynn Carter sought help from the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. UGA Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardener Extension Volunteers, who are trained to help UGA Extension staff deliver research-based information about gardening and related topics to the public, began work on the project.
Cucurbit leaf crumple virus, a disease carried by whiteflies, infects vegetable plants like squash (pictured). CAES News
Whitefly management
Summer may have ended, but Georgia’s silverleaf whitefly infestation has not.
David Weber and Jillian Norrie, environmental educators at Burton 4-H Center, carry a sea turtle back to the ocean as a host of local Tybee Island residents and tourists look on. The turtle, named Zoe by the center's staff, quickly swam out of sight. CAES News
Turtle Release
Zoe, a loggerhead sea turtle that lived at the Burton 4-H Center on Tybee Island, Georgia, for the past five years, was released on the island Saturday, Sept. 30. A large crowd of local residents and tourists gathered with cameras ready as Zoe was lowered into the water just south of the pier on Tybee Beach, where the sea turtle hatched.
The Southeast Partnership for Advanced Renewables from Carinata (SPARC), as the consortium is known, will identify and develop varieties of carinata that will thrive in the Southeast. SPARC will work to develop every step of the supply chain necessary to produce carinata-based jet fuel for civil and military aviation, industrial chemicals and animal feed. CAES News
New Biofuels
Researchers have produced biofuels from corn, switchgrass and even algae, but researchers at the University of Georgia will soon study a new source of renewable biofuels: the lesser-known crop of carinata, also known as “Ethiopian mustard.”
Lavendar Harris, 16-year-old Georgia 4-H'er and a volunteer at Bear Hollow Zoo in Athens-Clarke County, compiled a coloring book to serve as a fundraiser for the zoo. Harris is a home-schooled student and Newton County, Georgia, 4-H Club member. The coloring book is the keystone of her Georgia 4-H Leadership in Action project. CAES News
Working for Wildlife
What has 16 paws, eight hooves and three beaks? The answer can be found at Athens, Georgia’s Bear Hollow Zoo, and it’s not a fantastic beast. It’s a coloring book featuring some of the zoo’s most notable residents.
Alyssa Beckstead, second row,  far left, with international friends on a hike to Lichtenstein Castle. CAES News
Semester Exchange
A semester abroad program didn’t seem likely for Alyssa Beckstead. As a University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences biological science major with a goal of graduating in three years, Beckstead thought it would be impossible to find courses at an international university that applied to her major and allowed her to stay on track for graduation.  
This spring, Samaria Aluko became the first recipient of the college's Broder-Ackermann Global Citizen Award. CAES Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Josef Broder and his seven siblings endowed the annual $1,000 award in spring 2017 in honor of their parents, Hans Broder and Margrit Ackermann. CAES News
Global Citizen
In high school, Samaria Aluko — currently a senior studying biological science — was a sprinter, a passionate, intense, focused runner who could run the 200-meter in under 27 seconds. She doesn’t run anymore, but she channels that intensity and drive into improving and saving lives and maintains her laser-like focus on radical compassion.