In September, the Ohio State University South Centers recently celebrated 25 years of extending knowledge, growing southern Ohio, and enhancing lives. There were around 250 people in attendance that day and they enjoyed seeing our facility. Below are a few images highlighting the day of celebration.

Hannah Scott, OCDC Program Manager

740-289-2071 ext 227

scott.1220@osu.edu

Sarah Strausbaugh, Program Assistant

740-289-2071 ext 112

strausbaugh.54@osu.edu

Christie Welch, Direct Marketing Specialist

740-289-2071 ext 234

welch.183@osu.edu

Two research scholars, Dr. Rafidah Binti Othman and Mr. Dingkun Xie (pictured right) recently joined the Ohio Center for Aquaculture and Development (OCARD) for their post-doctoral and PhD dissertation research. 

Rafidah Othman is a new visiting postdoctoral researcher at Dr. Hanping Wang’s Lab inside OSU South Centers. Originally from Malaysia, she is a lecturer and researcher from the Borneo Marine Research Institute a the Universiti Malaysia Sabah. She earned her PhD in Veterinary Sciences from the Universiti Putra Malaysia. 

Her research has been focused on health and disease management in aquaculture and other animals. Currently under the mentorship of Dr. Wang, her research involves the effect of stress on sex determination and sex differentiation in fish. She will explore details of the mechanisms involved in stress response due to high stocking density and chemical stressors in sex determination and sex differentiation during a critical period of early development. 

The findings from this study is important to gain insight into the potential development of new or better techniques for enhancing breeding strategies and sexual manipulation in aquaculture, and in producing monosex fish (either all-female or all-male) for a more sustainable aquaculture production.

Mr. Dingkun Xie, a PhD student, is from Nanchang University in China. He is working on his dissertation in Dr. Wang’s laboratory, focusing on the sex control and the sex differentiation in aquaculture species with marker screening and sex gene interference.

The markers are the specific sequences, and are different between male and the female fish. Because sex specific markers and SNPs can be used in the rapid sex identification for sex control and selective breeding in fish, these markers have high application value in aquaculture. Besides, as we know, overexpression and interference are the usual ways to regulate the gene expression. In sex regulation, hormones are often used to regulate the sex of fish in order to reach the goal of artificial sex-control for aquaculture.

Through this research, we can better understand how some sex control genes play roles in gender regulation with siRNA and miRNA interference.

By Dr. Hanping Wang
Senior Scientist

Yellow perch, bluegill, and largemouth bass are the top three aquaculture species in the Midwest and North Central Region. Funded by a USDA-North Central Region Aquaculture Center (NCRAC) and NOAA-Sea Grant, the Ohio Center for Aquaculture Research and Development (OCARD) at The Ohio State University South Centers has developed fast-growing strains of these species to meet industry’s needs in the past few years.

Larger, Faster-Growing All-Female Yellow Perch: 
Yellow perch females grow significantly faster and larger than males. All-female monosex populations will significantly benefit the aquaculture industry. OCARD at Piketon has created a technology that can generate large numbers of fast-growing, all-female yellow perch populations. A growth performance test of all-females vs. a mixed-sex group showed that all-females grew 26.3% faster than the mixed group, and 66.0% faster than males. In 2018, OCARD created a large number of neomale broodstock of yellow perch with a female genotype. The large numbers of superior neomale broodstock will enable us to produce a commercial-scale of all-female monosex yellow perch. The all-female monosex strain will be available to aquaculture industry in 2019.

Faster-Growing All-Male Bluegill
Unlike yellow perch, bluegill males grow significantly faster and larger than females. All-male monosex populations are needed by the aquaculture industry. OCARD at Piketon has created a technology that can generate large numbers of fast-growing, all-male bluegill populations. All-male or near-all-male bluegill populations were successfully produced and tested. Results from testing all-male or near-all-male bluegill populations at two locations showed: 1) Weight gain and growth rate of all-male stock were 2.1 times that of regular stocks; 2) All-male groups had significantly uniformed size and lower coefficient of variation; and 3) Survival of all-male groups was significantly higher than that of mixed sex groups due to more uniformed size. 
A successful creation of genetically male bluegill strains would have a tremendous impact on the sunfish aquaculture industry by increasing the growth rate of 30-35% and saving energy expenditure by 20-30% for sex growth. In 2018, the aquaculture team at Piketon created a large number of all-male producing broodstock of bluegill, which will enable us to produce a commercial-scale of all-male monosex bluegill. The all-male monosex strain will be available to the aquaculture industry in 2019. 

Faster-Growing Largemouth Bass
OCARD at Piketon genotyped  approximately 1,250 largemouth bass in total from 28 populations across the United States. Based on the genetic data and in collaboration with Southern Illinois University Carbondale, we identified a fast-growing strain. We conducted an experiment to compare growth performance of the identified strain vs. an Ohio control group and results showed the fish from the identified group grew 89.5% faster than the control group. The results provide a valuable base for developing fast-growing largemouth bass broodstocks for industry.

For more information about those fast-growing strains, please visit cfaes.osu.edu/stories/defying-the-laws-nature.

By Dr. Hanping Wang
Senior Scientist 

The Ohio State University South Centers, in partnership with Ohio Aquaculture Association (OAA) and University of Wisconsin–SP (UWSP) and Wisconsin Aquaculture Association (WAA), have successfully completed the second year of Aquaculture Boot Camp-2 (ABC-2).

ABC-2 offers new and beginning farmers integrated training in aquaculture/aquaponic production and business management strategies with “3-I” levels: Intensive, an in-depth level involving immersion in a year-long hands-on training and mentoring program; Intermediate, a mid-level involving participation in a variety of learning activities; and Introductory, a general level where sharing of information is the goal. 
The program offers a multi-faceted approach, including classroom and hands-on training, paired with industry mentoring to enhance the sustainability of new and beginning aquaculture/aquaponics and next generation farmers in the Midwest. ABC-2 completed 2018 goals on all the “3-I” levels. 

Intensive
Twenty-four monthly informative, educational modules and materials were developed in aquaculture/aquaponics and business/marketing in Ohio and Wisconsin in 2018. 
Each module was designed to coincide with seasonal activities on a typical aquaculture/aquaponic farm so that a participatory hands-on training event can simultaneously occur each month. 
Thirty and 35 new or beginning aquaculture/aquaponic farmers in Ohio and Wisconsin, respectively, were recruited in 2018 to participate in this intensive, hands-on aquaculture production and business training. Twenty-seven new and beginning farmers in Ohio, and 29 in Wisconsin, gained aquaculture/aquaponic production knowledge, business and marketing awareness and understanding, gained new perspectives, learned and practiced skills, and aspired to be more successful after completing the ABC-2 Intensive program. 

Intermediate 
We offered ABC-2 Intermediate level in 2018. This less-intensive training allowed participants to choose among the 12 monthly modules and three workshops, one conference, and one bus tour in both Ohio and Wisconsin. Four hands-on farm-based and classroom-based workshops were conducted by ABC- OAA/WAA. More than 200 additional new/beginning farmers in Ohio, and more than 395 in Wisconsin, were trained and mentored through ABC-2 Intermediate. 
A total of 198 and 108 people attended the OAA-ABC and WAA-ABC Annual Conferences, respectively. Thirty-one people attended the OAA Annual Bus Tour in Ohio. Forty combined students in Ohio and Wisconsin registered for the ABC-2 Intermediate program to participate in the online learning resources.

Introductory
Digital recordings of the ABC-2 Intensive training classes and practices were conducted and edited. An ABC-2 website was developed and has links to aquaculture information, podcasts, and updates of ABC-2 activities. Additionally, ABC-2 Introductory provides training and information through facility tours, individual and group counseling, phone, and email. Other than new farmers trained in Intensive and Intermediate programs, 76 people were trained through field days/farm visits/trips. There were 1,050 people who gained knowledge through visiting the ABC website, 871 people gained knowledge through our emails, and 172 people received support and information through the phone system.

Internship
The ABC, OAA, and WAA have established an internship program designed to provide apprentice-type training opportunities for new and beginning aquaculture farmers, and give established farmers a chance to mentor newcomers. Eight interns in Ohio and Wisconsin received training through ABC/OAA/WAA internship program in 2018. 

Mentoring Leadership and Guidance 
With the ABC program, the OAA and WAA provided mentoring leadership and guidance for new and small rural farmers. The activities included coordinating the ABC-2 mentoring and internship programs, providing an annual conference and bus tour of aquaculture farms, facilitating cooperation among new farmers and existing farmers, compiling and distributing information on aquaculture/aquaponics for new and small rural farmers, and creating and maintaining the ABC and OAA/WAA websites. ABC specialists worked together with OAA and UWSP/WAA staff to enhance OAA and WAA’s website, newsletters, and marketing strategies and opportunities. ABC-OAA’s and WAA’s annual conferences were organized, and eight issues of aquaculture/aquaponics newsletters were published in Ohio and Wisconsin in 2018.

These achievements were from multi-team efforts by OSU, OAA, UWSP, and WAA. Jordan Maxwell, ABC-2 Program Coordinator, coordinated all the ABC-2 activities in 2018. Matthew Smith, Jordan Maxwell, Brad Bergefurd, Chris Smalley, Christie Welch, Hannah Scott, Ivory Harlow, Brad Bapst, Ryan Mapes, Paul O’Bryant, Dean Rapp, and many non-OSU instructors/mentors taught ABC-2 students in 2018. Duane Rigsby and Sarah Swanson completed video recording and editing for all the classes and workshops and uploaded to the ABC website, and captured pictures of each exciting moment. 

Year 3 Perspective
The ABC Ohio Aquaculture, Business, and Marketing team and OAA have planned to foster more additional workshops, a bus tour, internships, and newsletters available to the Intermediate and Introductory ABC-2 students in 2019. ABC students in the future will plan to visit more aquaculture facilities. The ABC Wisconsin team and WAA have planned to continue all the “3-I” level classes workshops, bus tour, internships, and newsletters available to the Intensive, Intermediate, and Introductory ABC-2 students in Wisconsin in 2019. ABC students in the future will plan to visit more aquaculture facilities.

Dr. Hanping Wang’s book “Sex Control in Aquaculture” has been published by Wiley-Blackwell after three years of planning, coordination, writing, and revising. The book consists of two volumes and has a total of 888 pages. 

The Editor-in-Chief is Dr. Hanping Wang, Principal Scientist at the Ohio State University South Centers’ aquaculture research center, in addition to co-editors Dr. Francesc Piferrer of Spain and Dr. Song-Lin Chen of China. Dr. Wang and his aquaculture team also contributes six chapters of the book. Sarah Swanson assisted in chapter coordination and Joy Bauman, Bradford Sherman, and Jordan Maxwell assisted in English editing. 

The first comprehensive book of its kind, Sex Control in Aquaculture covers basic theory for sex control and sex control practice in major aquaculture species worldwide. It consists of 41 chapters and the contributors are internationally recognized scientists from around the globe. Currently, aquaculture, the fastest growing food-producing sector, contributes about 50 percent of the world’s food fish based on the Food and Agriculture Organization’s recent report. 

Sexual dimorphism in growth performance, ultimate size, and gonad value (e.g. Caviar) in a wide spectrum of fish species make the sexes unique from each other for aquaculture production for human consumption. On the other hand, energy expenditure for reproduction related processes and activities, including gonadal development, courtship, chasing, mating, breeding, competition, parental care, etc. are undesired in terms of food production. Therefore, sex control and monosex production knowledge and technologies are extremely important for aquaculture professionals and industries to improve production, reduce energy consumption for reproduction, and eliminate a series of problems caused by mixed sex rearing, and for conservationists to control invasive species using sex control approach.  

This publication provides very useful scientific information for commercial use, biological sciences, and for aquaculture researchers. For more information about the book, please visit: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119127291 

By Dr. Hanping Wang
Senior Scientist 
and Jordan Maxwell
Program Coordinator

The OSU South Centers, in partnership with OAA and University of Wisconsin–SP, have successfully started the second year of Aquaculture Boot Camp-2.

The program offers a multi-faceted approach, including classroom and hands-on training, paired with industry mentoring to enhance the sustainability of new and beginning aquaculture/aquaponics and next generation farmers in the Midwest. In 2018, we are running parallel 3-I level (Intensive, Intermediate and Introductory) ABC Programs in Ohio and Wisconsin.

Ohio:

The ABC-2 2018 Intensive class consists of 35 highly motivated fish farmers and aquaponics producers from across Ohio and West Virginia. The individuals selected consist of educators, business owners, researchers, students, and more – offering a broad spectrum of experience and knowledge. 

The kick-off session and classes were jump-started in February after January classes’ cancellation due to a heavy snow.  The session offered the students and their business collaborators an in-depth look into aquaculture/aquaponics production planning, business plan structures, and market identification. The students toured the OSU South Centers’ newly updated aquaponics system and aquaculture research facility, where they will be actively involved throughout the year. 

In March, ABC-2 students traveled to Fresh Harvest Farm, owned by Doug and Jeni Blackburn, for a tour of their aquaponics facility and a full day of learning. Matthew Smith, aquaculture extension specialist, covered key principals of aquaculture and aquaponics in the morning while guest speaker Brad Bergefurd, horticulture specialist at the OSU South Centers, taught plant selection and considerations in aquaponics. The afternoon breakout sessions focused on harvesting, packaging, legal considerations in aquaponics, and system components and construction, as well as successful fish husbandry practices.

In April, the third session held at the OSU South Centers combined business and biology. Hannah Scott, the CFAES Center For Cooperatives manager, gave an overview of cooperatives and their structure, while Brad Bapst, the Small Business Development Center Director, dove into cash flow. The afternoon breakout sessions offered the students a hands-on opportunity to learn about yellow perch spawning, artificial fertilization, egg ribbon incubation, fry estimation and stocking, and pond fertilization instructed by South Centers aquaculture research staff members Paul O’Bryant and Dean Rapp.   Matthew Smith introduced RAS and Biofiltration to the students and walked through the South Center’s aquaponics system design. 
The OSU South Center ABC-2 team has a plan for future sessions throughout the year and looks forward to bringing the ABC students the most up-to-date industry information and practices. 

Wisconsin: 

An extensive Aquaculture/Aquaponic Boot Camp-2 agenda was developed with 12 workshops to be offered during 2018. Thirty-six applicants, all interested in starting an aquaculture or aquaponics business, were selected to participate in the ABC-2 Intensive program. Attendance at the first four workshops has been around 90% with each participant also developing a pilot project that they discuss at each workshop. Final project presentations are scheduled for January 2019.
Three of the four business and marketing workshops have been scheduled or took place in 2018. At the March 3 ABC-2 Intensive workshop, presentations were given by the WI Small Business Development Center, where assistance by the Center was discussed in addition to an introduction to marketing and how to access publically available marketing research/data. 

On August 13-15, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP), Nelson & Pade, Inc. (NPI), and the Wisconsin Aquaculture Association (WAA) will host a three-day workshop that will focus on the fundamentals of aquaculture/aquaponic business and marketing. Attendees will be introduced to small business concepts and how to navigate the myriad of rules, regulations, permits, business and loan applications, and zoning and marketing approaches. 

Following that event, on August 18, a business and investment opportunities in aquaponics workshop will be hosted and provided by NPI. This will be a one-day course for entrepreneurs, investors and individuals interested in starting an aquaponics business.  The course will focus on the start-up, planning, operation, economics, marketing, profitability, ROI, and business models for commercial aquaponic ventures. 

The WAA, NPI and UWSP Aquaculture/Aquaponic programs selected six interns and paired them with established farms. The established farms have entered into a cost-sharing agreement with UWSP and have developed a rigorous, yet well-defined educational and training program for the interns. Each internship is taking place from May 29 – August 31, 2018 and is allowing the interns to apprentice and learn important aquaculture/aquaponic information provided by the producer, who also serves as the intern’s mentor.

The UWSP aquaculture/aquaponic websites (aquaculture.uwsp.edu and www.uwsp.edu/aquaponics) and Facebook pages are being used to distribute information on aquaculture/aquaponics for new and small rural farmers. Support is being given to the WAA to update their website (www.wisconsinaquaculture.com) and NPI recently updated their website (www.aquaponics.com) to be more user friendly and contain updated information. 

Discussion and initial plans have been developed to update the WAA newsletter, The Creel. ABC-2 intensive training and workshops are being digitally recorded and uploaded to the UWSP ABC-2 website (https://www.uwsp.edu/cols-ap/nadf/Pages/Aquaculture-Boot-Camp.aspx) and will also be made available through the OSU ABC-2 website (https://southcenters.osu.edu/aquaculture/aquaculture-boot-camp). 

On March 2-3, UWSP and WAA co-hosted the Wisconsin Aquaculture Conference in Marshfield, WI with the conference theme of “Aquaculture 2018: Strength in Numbers – Building the Industry with Collaboration, Training and Education.” The focus of the presentations was to combine private and public aquaculture/Aquaponic operations in an effort to share their experiences for new and limited resource farmers. Also, six interns are being mentored at aquaculture/aquaponic facilities in 2018. A bus tour of a variety of aquaculture and aquaponic businesses is scheduled for August 2018.

For more information about ABC-2, please contact Ms. Jordan Maxwell, ABC-2 Program Coordinator, at maxwell.411@osu.edu.

By: Hanping Wang, PhD, Senior Scientist

The first book, Sex Control in Aquaculture, is being published by Wiley and Blackwell in the summer of 2018 after two years of planning, correspondence, coordination, and writing, The book has around 910 pages and 2 volumes. The Editor-in-Chief is Dr. Hanping Wang, Principal Scientist at the Ohio State University South Centers. Co-editors were Dr. Francesc Piferrer of Spain and Dr. Song-Lin Chen of China. Joy Bauman, Sarah Swanson, and Jordan Maxwell assisted in English editing and chapter coordination.

The first comprehensive book of its kind, Sex Control in Aquaculture, covers basic theory for sex control and sex control practice in major aquaculture species worldwide. It consists of forty-one chapters and the contributiors are from internationally recognized scientists from around the globe.

Currently, aquaculture, the fastest growing food-producing sector, contributes about 50 percent of the world’s food fish based on the Food and Agriculture Organization’s recent report. Sexual dimorphism in growth performance, ultimate size, and gonad value (e.g. Caviar) in a wide spectrum of fish species make the sexes unique from each other for aquaculture production for human consumption. On the other hand, energy expenditure for reproduction related processes and activities, including gonadal development, courtship, chasing, mating, breeding, competition, and parental care, etc., are undesired in terms of food production. Therefore, sex control and monosex production knowledge and technologies are extremely important for aquaculture professionals and industries to improve production, reduce energy consumption for reproduction, and eliminate a series of problems caused by mixed sex rearing, and for conservationists to control invasive species using sex control approach.

This publication will provide useful scientific information for commercial use, biological sciences, and for aquaculture researchers. For more information about the book, please visit: https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1119127262

The 2nd book is World Perch and Bass Culture: Innovation and Industrialization, which is written in both English and Chinese and is being published by China Science Press. Perch and bass, belonging to Serranidae, Percidae, Moronidae, and Latidae families of the Perciformes, have worldwide importance as food and recreational fish. Global production of perch and bass is around 1,000,000 tons.

The economic value of perch and bass is comparable to cold water species salmon and trout. Comparing to the globally mature aquaculture industry of salmon and trout production, perch and bass are generally suitable for a wide-range of rearing areas and are well-suited for commercial production because of their fast growth. Aquacultural production of perch and bass is in the early stages of development and expanding rapidly. Therefore, there is much potential for expansion of perch and bass aquaculture. This book covers recent developments and innovations in genetics and breeding, nutrition, and culture technologies in major aquaculture perch and bass species, such as Chinese perch, largemouth bass, yellow perch, European perch, pikeperch, striped bass, and walleye.

By: Matthew A. Smith, Extension Aquaculture Specialist, The Ohio State University; Nicholas Phelps, Assistant Professor and Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center Director, University of Minnesota; Alex Primus, Assistant Professor, Department of Veterinary Population Medicine, University of Minnesota

The North Central Regional Aquaculture Center (NCRAC) is one of the five Regional Aquaculture Centers that was established by Congress in 1988. Their primary focus is linking an Industry Advisory Council to University researchers and Extension in the Midwest (12 state region). While aquaculture researchers are not in abundance in the North Central Region (NCR), Extension FTEs who are experienced in aquaculture are extremely limited. In order to disseminate information and improve technology transfer, an Extension Specialist facilitated a NCRAC Aquaculture Webinar Series that was very popular with industry and University alike. However, a lack of a hands-on component is a clear and understandable limitation of the project. The currently funded two-year project (2017-2019) complements the webinar series and enhances learning outcomes for participants by providing multiple hands-on, advanced aquaculture techniques workshops throughout the NCR. Topical areas for these fee-based workshops include culture techniques for important NCR aquaculture species, advanced aquaculture systems design and management, aquaculture business and marketing, water quality maintenance, advanced fish health diagnostics, and aquaculture regulatory issues. Additionally, workshop presentations and materials will be posted on NCRAC’s website and Ohio State University South Center’s website for archival and dissemination. The workshops are being evaluated for quality of content and delivery as well as their effectiveness in improving farmer knowledge, profitability and sustainability. This evaluation data will help refine future NCRAC endeavors optimize the leveraging of funding and learning outcomes and impacts.

The first workshop that this project contributed to was the annual Iowa Aquaculture Conference in 2017 and in February 2018 we contributed a session on aquaponics and recirculating aquaculture systems at the joint event with North Central Regional Aquaculture Center, the Kansas Aquaculture Association, and the Missouri Aquaculture Association. Future events are currently being planned to be held in 2018 and 2019 in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Indiana. With extreme limitations of Extension personnel with aquaculture experience in the Midwest, these types of projects allow us to be more efficient, proactive, and engaged in communities that normally do not have University aquaculture presence.

Forbes Magazine listed sustainably farm-raised fish and shrimp products as the number sixth most popular trend by chefs in 2016. Additionally, in 2017 and 2018 the National Restaurant Association listed sustainably produced seafood at number five in their annual What’s Hot: Top 10 Foods list. In Columbus, Ohio and surrounding sprawling cities in the Midwest, it is becoming more and more evident over time that the “Local Food Movement” is real, growing, and something that’s demanded by millennials and other generations alike. We hope that more hands-on workshops and training exercises will assist farmers in providing for this growing movement and allow for more seafood products used by restaurants to be sourced locally.

References:

Bender, A. 2016. Top 10 food restaurant trends. Forbes Magazine. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbender/2016/11/30/top-10-food-restaurant-trends-of-2016/#68f46c1b76b0. November 30.

National Restaurant Association. 2016. http://www.restaurant.org/News-Research/News/Whats-Hot-Top-10-food-trends-in-2017. December 8.

National Restaurant Association. 2017. What’s hot: top 10 foods for 2018. http://www.restaurant.org/News-Research/News/What%E2%80%99s-Hot-Top-10-foods-for-2018. December 4.

By Hanping Wang, Senior Scientist

After two years of planning, correspondence, coordination, and writing, the book Sex Control in Aquaculture is in the process of being published by Wiley and Blackwell in the summer of 2018. The  Editor-in-Chief is Dr. Hanping Wang, Senior Scientist at the Ohio State University South Centers aquaculture research facility, in addition to the co-editors Dr. Francesc Piferrer of Spain and Dr. Song-Lin Chen of China. The first comprehensive book of its kind, Sex Control in Aquaculture, covers basic theory for sex control and sex control practice in major aquaculture species worldwide.

The book contains forty-one chapters and the contributors are internationally recognized scientists from around the globe. Currently, aquaculture, the fastest growing food-producing sector, contributes about 50 percent of the world’s food fish based on the Food and Agriculture Organization’s recent report. Sexual dimorphism in growth performance, ultimate size, and gonad value (e.g. caviar) in a wide spectrum of fish species make the sexes unique from each other for aquaculture production for human consumption. On the other hand, energy expenditure for reproduction related processes and activities, including gonadal development, courtship, chasing, mating, breeding, competition, and parental care, etc., are undesired in terms of food production. Therefore, sex control and monosex production knowledge and technologies are extremely important for aquaculture professionals and industries to improve production, reduce energy consumption for reproduction, and eliminate a series of problems caused by mixed sex rearing, and for conservationists to control invasive species using sex control approach. This publication will provide very useful scientific information for commercial use, biological sciences, and for aquaculture researchers. For more information about the book, please visit: https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1119127262.

By Hanping Wang, Senior Research Scientist

OSU South Centers Aquaculture research team has completed whole genome sequencing of yellow perch and bluegill. These are the first Percidae and Centrarchidae (sunfish) that have been fully sequenced.

Yellow perch belong to the family Percidae, including about 200 species in 10 genera. The perch, darter, and their relatives are in this family and well-known species of great economic value include the three species of perch, walleye, sauger and ruffe.  

The bluegill is a member of the sunfish family Centrarchidae. The family has 37 species including many well-known species such as largemouth bass, bluegill, pumpkinseed, rock bass and crappies. All are native to North America only.

Both yellow perch and bluegill are very important aquacultural and recreational fish species. Bluegill display high levels of both intraspecific and intersexual reproductive competition, with males growing significantly faster and bigger than females. Yellow perch display a distinct pattern of sexual size dimorphism versus bluegill, with yellow perch females growing much bigger and faster than males. Monosex culture of these two species has a great advantage for the aquaculture industry. However, their gender regulation and sexual size dimorphism mechanism is unclear. It has great scientific and economic value to identify the sex determining genes and discover sex differentiation and sex determination, and sexual size dimorphism mechanisms.

Information of the whole genome in these two species makes it possible to see how genes interact with each other, and examine the exact gene that governs economically important traits such as fast-growing and disease resistance. In domesticated animals, such as cattle, pig, chickens, and other major aquaculture species (e.g., catfish, salmon, trout, and tilapia), their genomes are being used to improve breeding programs and production. The completion of the genome of yellow perch and bluegill allows the same to be done with these two species. The perch and sunfish genome sequence data provide useful genetic resources and lay an important foundation for discovering the molecular mechanism of growth, sex determination and sex control, reproduction related to aquaculture, and conservation of wild stocks for over 100 economically and environmentally important percid sunfish species.

By: Hanping Wang, PhD, Senior Research Scientist

Summary of Achievements: In 2014, in collaborations with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center Molecular and Cellular Imaging Center (MCIC), University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Lincoln University of Missouri, the Ohio Soybean Council, Battelle, and several international institutions, we accomplished ten research studies and projects including the 3-year on-farm on-station tests of improved yellow perch vs. local unimproved fish; published four journal articles and eight proceedings abstracts; received two grants; trained eight graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and scholars; completed/submitted seven new grant proposals; and made 8 presentations at international conferences.

O’GIFT (Ohio Genetic Improvement of Farmed-fish Traits) Program: The O’GIFT program is expected to increase aquaculture production of perch, bluegill and largemouth bass by 35-50% through the development of genetically improved broodstocks for producers.

On-farm and on-station tests of improved yellow perch in ponds: The 3-year project of the on-station and on-farm tests of genetically improved yellow perch was completed on three sites in two states using both separate rearing and communal rearing methods. This is an important step for commercialization of genetically improved strains. The testing results showed improved fish exhibited 27.6% - 42.1% higher production, and 25.5% - 37.5% higher growth rates, while having 12.3% - 27.8% higher survival than local strains, on the average, across the three sites.

Performance test of OSU improved perch vs. Bell perch in Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS): Two strains, 500 fish of each, were provided by Bell Aquaculture. OSU provided 500 fish from its genetically improved line. Each strain was tagged with visible implant elastomer color tags, and stocked to each of the two 6’x6’ round recirculating tanks and a 10’ x 5’ round tank with flow-through water, and communally raised in the same density/environment for an accurate comparison. After the 6-month test, OSU genetically improved lines outweighed Bell perch strains by 43.6% on average. This result shows OSU improved perch not only significantly grow faster in pond conditions, but also in recirculating tank systems. The 43.6% improvement can potentially save perch farmers as much as 43.6% of the grow-out time in both pond and recirculating tank systems.

Genomic sequence and tool development: In collaboration with OARDC MCIC, we completed restriction-site associated (RAD)/DNA sequencing of five strains of yellow perch to develop single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and identify genomic diversity of those strains for further improved perch growth. We also completed RNA sequencing of males and females in yellow perch to identify genes associated with sex dimorphism and sex determination, and developed a all-female yellow perch population using improved fish. The all-female population should be able to grow 50% faster than unimproved regular mixed populations. In addition, we completed RAD/DNA sequencing of white and black crappie to develop SNPs and identify genomic diversity of those species for a future crappie breeding program.

Improvement of egg hatching rate for industry: In 2014, we completed a project on determining efficacy of formalin, iodine, and sodium chloride in improvement of egg hatching rate and fry survival prior to the onset of exogenous feeding in yellow perch. The study revealed that formalin was a more effective disinfectant to improve the hatching rate and survival to first feeding fry of yellow perch than iodine and sodium chloride. To improve the hatching rate ,a concentration of 150 to 250 mg L-1 for 30 min is recommended to disinfect the eggs of yellow perch daily from the beginning to the eyed stage. The results have been published in Aquaculture Research and will be used by fish farmers to improve the egg hatching rate and fry production of yellow perch.

Yellow Perch Breeding: Multiple improved lines of yellow perch have been developed, and over one-million genetically improved fish have been distributed to fish farms. Three male populations with a female genotype have been created, which could produce fast-growing all-female populations for the aquaculture industry. Three projects related to sex-control and breeding were completed and three manuscripts on these projects are in preparation or in revision.

Bluegill Breeding: Three experiments related to sex-control and genotypes by environment interaction on sex ratio were completed. The findings on effects of temperature and genotype on sex determination and sexual size dimorphism of bluegill sunfish have been published in Aquaculture, a prestigious international journal. The results from these experiments provide a valuable base for developing all-male broodstock for bluegill, which could grow 35-50% faster than mixed populations.

Soy-Aqua Research Initiative:

In collaboration with the Ohio Soybean Council and Battelle, two projects have been completed in 2014. The first study, comprised of five major experimental phases, was conducted to develop indirect criteria to improve residual feed intake (RFI) of soybean diets (SBD) in yellow perch for selective breeding. With the high cost of feed for animal production, genetic selection for animals that metabolize feed more efficiently could result in substantial cost savings for fish producers. The current study showed that the weight loss during the feed deprivation period and the weight gain during a subsequent period of re-feeding are linked to variations in RFI in yellow perch. Such traits could be used as indirect criteria for improving RFI in fish through selective breeding.

In the second study, a modified soybean meal (MSBM) containing high protein and lower levels of anti-nutritional factors (ANFs) relative to regular soybean meal was evaluated as an alternative for fishmeal in the diet of yellow perch with significant success. Higher growth performance and feed utilization was observed for 50% replacement of fish meal (FM) by MSBM fed groups compared to 100% replacement of FM by soybean meal and MSBM fed groups. Modified soybean meal with high protein and low ANFs has considerable potential as an alternative to fishmeal in aquafeed.

Aquaculture Genetics and Breeding Laboratory:

This is the first lab of its type in the Midwest and is crucial to the success of the O’GIFT program and the improvement of farmed-fish traits. In this lab, genetic relatedness charts and genetic pedigrees of selected broodfish have been constructed for breeding programs for the past years. Family identification technology using DNA for selective breeding in yellow perch and bluegill has been established. Genotyping 900 fish from the breeding center for constructing genetic relatedness charts for the breeding program was finished in 2014. The data generated from the lab in 2014 has contributed to fourteen papers in prestigious international journals and proceedings, including twelve published in 2014.

International training program:

Leading research in aquaculture genetics and breeding at OSU South Centers has attracted more than twenty scientists and international scholars to work in the aquaculture research center and genetics lab at Piketon. In 2014, the lab trained eight visiting Ph.D. students, post-doctorial researchers and international scholars from four countries. These individuals significantly contributed to the aquaculture program’s success at the OSU South Centers.

By: Laura Tiu, PhD, Director of Ohio Aquaculture Extension and Brad Bergefurd, Horticulture Specialist

Introduction

Aquaponics is a growing area of interest for Ohio citizens in both urban and rural areas driven by the demand for locally grown food. The OSU Aquaculture and Horticulture Programs have received multiple requests for information each week. Seventy-five percent of current Aquaculture Boot Camp participants, new and beginning farmers, expressed interest in aquaponics. Additionally, multiple internal requests for information have been received from the College of Agriculture Engineering, the OSU College of Medicine, Ohio Sea Grant, and the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. Unfortunately, unbiased Ohio research-based data to share with the interested clients has been limited. To address this, an OSU Extension Innovation grant was received to develop and construct a research/demonstration-scale aquaponics system at the OSU South Centers. The system, in operation since October 2013, was used for training and available for touring to the over 300 visitors that visited the OSU South Centers in 2014.

Methodology

In June 2013, a demonstration-scale system was constructed in a glass greenhouse at the OSU South Centers. The system consisted of a 500-gallon tank for rearing the fish, a biofilter for solids removal and nitrification, and three shallow water rafts, 3’ x 5’ x 6", for supporting floating raft culture (Figure 1). Rafts were made from 1 inch Styrofoam board. Holes were drilled in the Styrofoam to support small net pots for germination and growth of various plant species. Water flowed from the fish tank, through the biofilter and rafts, and was collected in a sump where a small pump returned the water to the fish tank. One small air pump also provided oxygen to the fish tank. A small amount of water (approximately 10 gallons) was added daily to accommodate for evaporation, leaks and plant uptake.

Water parameters were measured throughout the trials. Dissolved oxygen, temperature and pH were measured daily, while ammonia, nitrate, hardness and alkalinity were measured weekly. The system was operational on July 13, 2013 and a three week break-in period was initiated. Twelve 4-5 inch tilapia and one bluegill were stocked into the system on July 13, 2013. Fish are fed to satiation daily, approximately 1 oz. of fish food (approximately 1% bw). Three fish jumped out of the tank before seeds were planted.

Results

Phase I – Fall 2013

Phase one was designed to compare the effect of three commonly used growing media (Figure 2), expanded clay pellets, expanded shale, and potting soil, on production of two leafy greens, mizuna and red leaf lettuce, in a six-week growing trial. Nine tilapia and one bluegill were stocked into a 500 gallon tank and fed to satiation on a daily basis.

Seeds were placed directly on the media in net pots on August 22, 2013. The majority of the seeds germinated on day two. By week three, plant growth had slowed (Figure 3). It was hypothesized that this may be due to not enough nitrates being generated by the small number of fish in the system, given the nitrate level remained at zero. Because of the lack of nutrients, the plants were small and discolored.

Water quality tests showed a system pH of around 8. While this is fine for fish, plants prefer a pH under 7 and had difficulty synthesizing what nutrients were there. Plants were harvested on October 3, 2013 after 6 weeks of growth.

Additionally, weaknesses in the system were identified. Water levels need to be constantly maintained so that gravity could move the water. There were several locations where this could break down. The system design needed to be upgraded to reduce the chance of overflow, back-up, etc. The Styrofoam rafts also needed modifying with smaller holes so that the net pots stop dropping through and the plants are at a more appropriate water level.

Phase II – Winter 2013/2014

With a system redesign complete, the same experiment was repeated for phase two. On October 12, 2013, approximately twenty-five pounds of small yellow perch (2-3 inch) were stocked into the 500-gallon tank and fed to satiation. Net pots were seeded with red leaf lettuce and mizuna on November 1, 2013. Hydrochloric Acid (Muriatic acid) was added as needed to the water to control pH. Plants germinated and were

growing slowly, when a fish kill occurred on November 22, 2013. It was determined that high ammonia levels were the cause of the fish kill. Plants continued to grow in the system and were harvested December 12, 2013.

Phase III – Spring 2014

The experiment was repeated for a third time in the spring. The system was restocked with approximately forty pounds of yellow perch (3-6 inch) on March 25, 2014. On April 3, 2014 float trays with the three media were seeded with mizuna and red leaf lettuce. Plants were harvested May 1st. In this trial, the plants failed to germinate or grow well due to the salt and mineral build-up on the media.

Production Results (combined from all phases)

Media                                          Species                                           Production (ounces/sq.ft.)

Styrofoam float tray                    Mizuna                                             19.11

Styrofoam float tray                     Red leaf lettuce                               11.44

Expanded Shale                          Mizuna                                             1.15

Expanded Shale                         Red leaf lettuce                                 8.15

Hydrocorn                                  Mizuna                                               1.21

Hydrocorn                                  Red leaf lettuce                                   7.44

Discussion

In this demonstration-scale system, the Styrofoam float trays filled with soilless potting mix performed the best in all the trials. The expanded shale and Hydrocorn both accumulated minerals and salts that inhibited the germination of seed and slowed growth. Red leaf lettuce performed most consistently in the system with mizuna performing well only in the Styrofoam float trays. The Styrofoam float trays with soilless potting mix are a good option for these small hobby-scale systems as they are inexpensive and readily available.

There were quite a few steep learning curves associated with this system, including system design, construction, operation and water quality balance. A lot was learned and shared with numerous clientele. The interest in aquaponics continues to grow and The Ohio State University should be prepared to offer research-based information to the public. Continued investment into the industry is warranted.

Future Plans

Two new varieties of mini-head lettuce, Dragoon and Rhazes, will be produced on a rotational basis with one float bed being harvested every two to three weeks. Data will continue to be collected from the system and educational tours will continue. For future trials, we will no longer utilize the rock media because of salt mineral buildup but continue to use the Styrofoam float trays with soilless potting mix. We are considering getting some backup power as a recent power outage resulted in a fish kill. Options for water treatment, such as a reverse osmosis system, are being explored.

(Editor’s Note: The following is the latest in a series of feature stories highlighting The Ohio State University South Centers Staff)

By Bradford Sherman
CFAES/OSU South Centers

Wayne Lewis has seen it all, and then some.

Not only has he been a part of The Ohio State University South Centers since the doors first opened back in 1991, he was also a university staff member for seven prior to then. In all, Lewis is closing in on another milestone – his 35th year of employment with OSU.

With his work anniversary date coming up in May, the South Centers Farm Manager sat down with Connections to reflect about his time at the university, talk about how South Centers has evolved over the years, and what’s next for him.
“We didn’t even have possession of these buildings yet,” Lewis recalled of his first days at South Centers. That’s because for the first few months of being open, South Centers offices were housed at the old Piketon Grade School on Clark Street. It wasn’t until later in the year 1991 that staff moved into structured located on the current Shyville Road property.

Lewis was employee No. 4 at South Centers; today, the staff is 10 times the size it was when he was hired. With more people comes more programs and projects, and obviously, the technology has gotten much better too.

“The technology changes have been remarkable,” Lewis stated. “There were a few computers here, but I didn’t have one. Everything had to be hand-written on paper.”

At South Centers, Lewis first fulfilled the role of an agricultural technician, the same title he held when he moved over from the Western Research Station near Springfield, where he got his start with OSU seven years earlier. His first responsibilities there saw him tending to the dietary needs of swine.

At South Centers, he moved up the ranks to become an Assistant Manager of Farm Operations and then Assistant Farm Manager, before finally ascending to his current role as Farm Manager.

Lewis is a graduate of Southwestern High School, which was once part of the Gallia County School System prior to consolidation. He worked on a private farm out of school before joining The Ohio State University in 1984.

When asked about what he likes best about coming to work every day, he said it is the relationships he has with his fellow employees. “The best part has to be the people – I get along with everyone. It’s almost like a family atmosphere,” Lewis said.
So what’s up next for Lewis? Will he be making that 40-year milestone? To hear him talk, he sounds like he still has plenty of gas left in the tank.

“As long as there are more days that I don’t mind coming to work, than ones that I do, then I’ll still be here.”

Lewis and his wife, Cindy, reside in Jackson on the campus of the Jackson Agricultural Research Station.

Passers by on State Route 32 are no doubt taking notice of The Ohio State University South Centers’ brand new sign. The Ohio State University’s new branding designs have been popping up all across the Buckeye State, and the project to update the sign at the corner of SR 32 and Shyville Road wrapped up on July 11, 2018. 
(Photo: Bradford Sherman, CFAES)

By Bradford Sherman
Program Assistant

A longtime journalist has been tabbed as the new publications editor for the Ohio State University South Centers.

Bradford Sherman joined the staff last month in the role of a Program Assistant. In addition to editing a variety of publications – including research papers, grant proposals and promotional materials – he will also assist several program leaders, perform general office-related tasks, and tap into his years of multimedia experience to help publicize the many goings-on at OSU South Centers.

“I have always said that working as a member of the media is a great way to prepare you for any job,” said Sherman. “You end up passively educating yourself on a wealth of different topics, due to the wide variety of subjects you report on. It also teaches skills that are sought after in any field, such as proper grammar and punctuation, teamwork, dealing with the pressures of working under a deadline, and how to communicate ideas with a vast and varied audience.”

Sherman worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for 13 years during which time he covered news and sports for publications in Jackson, Gallia, Meigs, and Pike counties in Ohio, as well as Mason County, W.Va.. 

But Sherman is no stranger to Ohio State, either. After exiting the journalism field, he joined the university in June 2015 as a 50 percent FTE Office Associate at the Jackson County Extension office. It was there that he learned what it meant to be a Buckeye, and decided that he wanted to turn that part-time job into a new career.

“I love working at the Ohio State University; it became apparent to me very quickly that I wanted to spend the rest of my working years here,” said the 39-year-old. 

Sherman, who is originally from Oak Hill, earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Communications from the University of Rio Grande in 2002. As a college student, he worked as an intern producing newsletters for senior citizens in Gallia County, and in the news department at WKOV radio in Jackson.

Sherman and his wife, Melanie, reside in Jackson with their two children, daughter Celyn and son Cuinn.

By Kelly O’Bryant
SBDC Export Assistance

In 2017, hardwood lumber exports in the United States was a $2.3 billion market, according to USDA FAS. That same report shows that the total U.S. export market for hardwood logs was $717.9 million. A majority of U.S. hardwood lumber products are sold domestically, here in the United States, but Ohio is a major export contributor for hardwood lumber, logs, and manufactured wood products. 

The Ohio State University South Centers Export Assistance Network, along with the United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agriculture Service, coordinated a reverse trade mission September 24-27, 2018 hosting eight Turkish lumber, log, and veneer buyers to meet with Ohio wood products manufacturers. 

The delegation made 12 direct stops at mills and manufacturing plants as well as a participated in a networking/matchmaking reception.

By Brad Bapst
SBDC Director

One of the core components of the Business Development Network at The Ohio State University South Centers continues to be the Small Business Development Center (SBDC).  

The SBDC provides business counseling and assistance to individuals who are either starting or growing their business. The Piketon center is staffed with highly trained, Certified Business Advisors (CBA) to help small businesses and entrepreneurs with development and growth to increase sales and create jobs in their local communities.  

A vital component of the SBDC is the Export Assistance Network (EAN). International markets provide opportunities for businesses to increase sales and create jobs. Many small companies do not have the expertise or resources to expand their business into international markets. The EAN helps companies to expand globally through counseling in the areas of market research, due diligence, general export education, export readiness assessments, and trade missions.

During fiscal year 2018, the SBDC at the OSU South Centers provided the following assistance to entrepreneurs and businesses in the Southern Ohio region:

• Provided consulting to 334 clients, of which 229 received five or more hours of consulting
• Assisted with starting 25 businesses
• Helped clients obtain $10,214,900 in capital
• Logged 4,323 consulting hours
• Held 19 training events with 344 attendees
• SBDC Clients created 106 new jobs and retained 532 jobs
• Recorded $4,944,400 in general sales growth for clients 

Regional partnerships are the primary source of referrals for the SBDC at South Centers.  Collaborative efforts with local chambers of commerce and economic development offices serve as the primary conduit to connect entrepreneurs with the services of the SBDC. South Centers also maintains formal agreements with local universities for regional economic development collaboration.  Pike County Community Action and the Minority Business Assistance Center are also key partners with the SBDC.  These relationships help the region’s entrepreneurs, business owners and small manufacturers with technical assistance and training.

Core SBDC Services Include:

• Business assessment evaluation                            
• Cash flow analysis                                                  
• Financial projections development                          
• Strategic business planning                                    
• One-on-One business counseling           
• Identifying sources of capital
• Workshops and training programs
• Marketing strategy development 
• Market feasibility and research
• Export Assistance

To schedule an appointment to meet with one of our highly trained counselors, contact Brad Bapst, SBDC Center Director at 740-289-2071 ext.230, or bapst.4@osu.edu. 

The Ohio State University South Centers was recently awarded funding by the U.S. Economic Development Administration to conduct an incubator expansion feasibility study.

The EDA investment of $28,205 will be used to hire a consultant to complete an analysis and evaluation of a proposed incubator expansion to determine market demand and sustainability over time.

This study will help define the current and future uses and strategies of the Endeavor Center Business incubator.  Completing market research will help us better understand the existing market and anticipated future market potential for business incubation in the region.

The funds for this study are a part of the EDA’s Technical Assistance grant program, which helps local business incubators promote economic development and alleviate unemployment.

“Ohio small businesses support local economies,” said U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). “This investment ensures the OSU Endeavor Center in Piketon has the resources it needs to help local businesses expand and bring jobs to the area.”
This investment will assist the Endeavor Center to build on strengths, improve weaknesses, capitalize opportunities and identify threats. Financially, the study should provide projections for potential revenue generation and total project cost expectations.

Finally, and most importantly, the study will assist in determining the need to increase business incubator space in our region.

The Feasibility Study will:
•    Complete a market study to help the Endeavor Center understand what types of new spaces should be considered based on the potential for specific start-up companies in the region.
•    Review the Endeavor Center’s financial position and provide suggestions regarding expansion feasibility and current / future cash flow.
•    Review existing client selection policy and processes and provide feedback to strengthen the application process.
•    Review tenant lease or license agreement that enumerates the shared services to be provided; delineates the incubator’s business assistance policy, including the provision of management, technical, and training policies.
•    Review the Endeavor Centers business assistance policy and provide suggestions for new ideas and improvement of existing programs.
•    Review current staffing levels of the Endeavor Center and business programs to ensure client / partner technical needs are being addressed.
•    Develop an incubator performance plan that includes how the incubator will track the success of incubator partners/clients, specifically identifying what performance measurement data the incubator proposes to collect from tenants/partners and for what period of time during and after the service period the data will be collected. This should also include members of any over sight or policy board for the incubator that will be responsible for setting performance goals of the incubator, selecting or approving selections of staff, establishing and reviewing policy, and monitoring performance.

By: Ryan Mapes, Business Development Network Program Leader and Endeavor Center Manager

Endeavor Center

2017 has been another successful year for the OSU Endeavor Center business incubator. The center operated at a 100% occupancy rate for most of the year.  During the year we had a couple partners leave but were fortunate to have new partners ready to come on board to fill the vacated offices.  State Street Laboratories is the latest business to become an Endeavor Center partner.  The Endeavor Center also partnered with the African American Chamber of Commerce to house the minority SBDC that covers the Southern Ohio Region. There has also been much activity and many visitors through the doors this year.  We hosted over 400 training or meeting events with well over 5,000 visitors during 2017.  In summary, there are 18 partner companies that occupy 26 office and light industrial bay spaces.  We also have 4 virtual partners that occupy the building on a part-time basis but do not occupy an office.

SBDC

The Ohio State University South Centers Small Business Development Center (SBDC) is a 9 person team that provides business counseling and training to a 10 county region in Southern Ohio. The Center utilizes a unified delivery model to incorporate resources from other programs affiliated with The Ohio State University South Centers, including the Ohio Cooperative Development Center, Direct Marketing and OSU Extension programs to strengthen service offerings.

The Export Assistance Network (EAN) helps companies to expand globally through counseling in the areas of market research, due diligence, general export education, export readiness assessments, and trade missions. A counselor also continues to specialize in providing opportunities for businesses to increase sales and create jobs through access to international markets as many small companies don’t have the expertise or resources to expand their business into these markets. Individual counselors are recognized each year at the Statewide SBDC conference for extraordinary efforts given throughout the year.  These Peer Recognition Awards are voted on by all counselors around the state. All levels of field staff are eligible for nomination and there are five (5) categories of awards: advocacy, collaboration, innovation, marketing and mentoring. This year two of our counselors brought home individual awards.  Chris Smalley won the Innovation Award for his work with the OSU South Centers Aquaculture Boot Camp program and Melissa Carter won the marketing award for helping clients develop and enhance informational/basic websites, Etsy stores, and social media platforms.

The Small Business Development Center at the OSU South Centers had very successful year providing business consulting to the existing and start-up small businesses in Southern Ohio. Also, Fayette County was added to the South Centers service area in 2017. During fiscal year 2017 the SBDC at the OSU South Centers provided the following assistance:
• Provided consulting to 365 clients of which 271 received 5 or more hours of consulting
• Assisted with starting 26 businesses
• Helped clients obtain $9,626,093 in capital
• Logged 4,484 consulting hours
• Held 18 training events with 324 attendees
• Clients created 113 new jobs and retained 824 jobs
• Recorded $7,000,000 in general sales growth for clients

Manufacturing Extension Partnership

The Ohio State University’s Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence (CDME) was recently awarded a contract from the Ohio Development Services Agency (ODSA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) to support the growth of small and medium sized manufacturing companies in the southeast region of Ohio. CDME is a unit within OSU’s College of Engineering focused on strengthening Ohio’s manufacturing sector.The contract establishes CDME as a Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) affiliate for the State of Ohio in support of Ohio companies. CDME will partner with the Ohio State University South Centers Business Development team to implement services in the Southeast Ohio region.

The MEP at Ohio State will focus on providing value added. CDME has a full-time engineering staff and is led by a team of former entrepreneurs and business owners who have successfully grown manufacturing and product innovation companies. The MEP program has access to CDME’s 40,000 square foot manufacturing space on the main Columbus campus, as well as most of the equipment in the broader Ohio State University landscape.  
 
CDME MEP is primarily focused on new product development, product improvement, innovation, business development, lean manufacturing, and supply chain management.  The program assists companies in the central and southeast Ohio regions in the following manner:
• Providing value-added engineering support for product development and innovation with an emphasis on design for manufacturing.
• Commercialization support and partner opportunities with commercial OEMs.
• Professional program management and industry-friendly contracts.
• Proposal identification and development support for federal, state and commercial funding programs.
• Access to the research capabilities and facilities of The Ohio State University and other State of Ohio research universities and federal laboratories.
• Introduction to support partners in the CDME network (incubators, venture capital, supply chain partners, fortune 100 OEMS, etc).
• Prototyping and small scale manufacturing of new products.
• Access to highly motivated students with experiential learning looking to join innovative manufacturing companies upon graduation.

Training and Programming

The staff of The OSU South Centers Business Development Network continues to engage community organizations and partners to maintain awareness of changing needs in the region and develop solutions to address those needs.  Throughout the year, members of the Business Development Team served as board members for multiple chambers of commerce, county economic development offices, and advisory boards for business organizations to increase awareness of business issues and identify solutions to problems.

University of Rio Grande - The OSU-Rio Collaboration is a multi-project partnership between the OSU South Centers and the University of Rio Grande.  The primary objective is to provide educational TV programming covering many different topics that promote Small Businesses, Business Support Organizations, programs at The Ohio State University South Centers, and Educational Programs at the University of Rio Grande / Rio Grande Community College. A member of the Business Development Network also serves as adjunct faculty to provide instruction for both online and on campus business courses.

Lumber Grading School  - Over a dozen loggers from Ohio and abroad gathered at OSU South Centers to participate in a course designed to give them a better understanding and develop their skills in the timber industry. The five-day Lumber Grading Short Course/Flex Day Course was instructed by a National Hardwood Lumber Association National Inspector.  The course began on October 2nd and finished on October 6th. The course was sponsored by OSU South Centers South Centers, Ohio Forestry Association, Inc., and the National Hardwood Lumber Association.

From Dream to Reality- This course is a five-week business program that meets twice a week designed to provide an opportunity to learn a variety of skills needed to own and operate a business. This course is offered two times per year through a partnership with the Pike Community Action Agency.

Agricultural Development and Young Farmer Programs- The SBDC works continues to work closely with the Southern Ohio Agricultural and Community Development Foundation to provide assistance  annually to  agribusinesses and next generation farmers to diversify from tobacco production into a profitable venture. The SBDC provides assists area farmers with writing business plans for projects that will be submitted to SOACDF for potential grant funding. This past year, there were 73 Ag Development applicants and 25 Young Farmer applicants. You can view details and deadlines about the program at http://www.soacdf.net/.

Chillicothe Veterans Affairs Medical Center - The SBDC has partnered with the Chillicothe Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center’s Office of Rehabilitative Services to establish an entrepreneurship program for veterans. The program is divided into three two-hour classes and occurred quarterly. The classes focus on business feasibility and entrepreneurship readiness, business plan components, marketing and operations. The veterans who have successfully completed this course have either already started or are in process of starting their own business.

By Ryan Mapes, Endeavor Center Manager and Business Development Network Program Leader

Open since 2005, the Ohio State University Endeavor Center, a 27,000 square foot mixed-used business incubator, has come to be recognized as a community leader in economic development as well as a business training and networking hub. The facility has a 2-part mission:

First, to provide four tangible advantages to new and emerging businesses poised for rapid growth; professional office space in flexible configurations, access to advanced technology, networking opportunities with other small businesses, and access to expert business counseling on a free and timely basis. Second, the center seeks to be a positive and visible example of how small businesses successfully navigate the difficult issues faced by all growing small businesses.

Meeting rooms at the Endeavor Center support the dual-purpose mission by providing partners and the business community access to technology and learning space. The OSU Endeavor Center has a number of rentable meeting spaces in a variety of sizes and technology accommodations. The largest room available is classroom 160, with approximately 1,200 square feet and accommodating up to 72 persons seated at tables.  Classroom 165 is approximately 800 square feet and accommodates up to 20 persons seated at tables. Both rooms have a built-in projector and screen, large whiteboard, audio system, large screen TV and CD/DVD combo. Conference room 112 is great for smaller meetings and will seat up to 12 persons in a boardroom style setting. Portable projection units service this room and it has a large whiteboard for use. There is also a 16-unit computer lab with projector available for lease. All classrooms can be rented for ½ or whole days and catering is available.

If you are interested in renting one of our excellent classrooms or in exploring the opportunity to conduct your business from our facility, please call 740-289-1605. We think you will discover the OSU Endeavor Center and its staff have a lot to offer your growing business!

Small business Development Center

The SBDC at the OSU South Centers recently was awarded additional funding from the Ohio Development Services (ODSA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA). Innovation Challenge Grant funding opportunities were made available to SBDCs across the state to further enhance the offerings the SBDCs provide to their client base. Local needs were identified and a proposal was developed, submitted and successfully funded to secure resources to assist the staff in meeting the needs of the local business community. This funding will increase levels of staff knowledge through professional certifications, learning software, and trainings. It will also provide access to consultants to assist in exploring opportunities to grow local industries in Southern Ohio. 

Human resource issues affect all industries in Southern Ohio. This funding will enable the SBDC to secure Business & Legal Resource (BLR) software to help businesses in the region to simplify compliance with state and federal legal requirements. BLR is the leading provider of employment, safety, and environmental compliance solutions. Employers know that they can count on BLR’s industry-leading compliance and training resources to keep them out of legal trouble, avoid fines and save money. This will afford the SBDC with the opportunity to help grow established businesses that may not have the capacity to handle common HR problems without assistance.

The forest and wood industry is a major driver in Southern Ohio’s economy. The SBDC and the Ohio Cooperative Development Center are exploring the opportunity of developing a cooperative business model which will construct and operate a wood drying kiln. This facility can be utilized by members of the cooperative to add value to their existing market lumber products. The Challenge Grant helped the SBDC secure funds to hire industry consultants to complete multiple designs for the kiln operation based on the data gathered from a previous survey and follow-up visits with potential users. Additionally, funds will be used to consult with attorneys specializing in the co-op model to assist with the development and vetting of the cooperative’s structure. This additional funding will help support the efforts of this project moving forward. The deliverables from this proposal will be used to complete the feasibility report for the operation, to develop the cooperative’s legal structure, and to provide information to potential co-op members. Industry consultants with expertise in kiln build out and operation and attorneys with expertise in agricultural cooperatives will provide consultations to the project team and potential members of the co-op.

2016 was an exciting year at the Ohio Cooperative Development Center (OCDC) at The Ohio State University South Centers! The center continued its mission of rural economic development by providing education and assisting cooperative businesses across Ohio and West Virginia.

Cooperative Education Across the Region

OCDC provides education on the cooperative business model and business development that not only increases awareness of the business model, but helps groups who are exploring the start-up of a co-op business to make informed decisions.

Throughout 2016, OCDC provided a number of educational sessions at events like the West Virginia Small Farm Conference, the Ohio Produce Growers and Marketers Association Annual Congress, the Ohio Aquaculture Association Annual Conference, and the West Virginia Agricultural Innovation Showcases in Huntington and Moorefield. Specialists with OCDC lead programs for high school agricultural science students from Portsmouth and Piketon, Ohio, and presented to business students at the University of Rio Grande.

Technical Assistance

In order to support the development of rural businesses, OCDC counselors provide technical assistance in a number of areas including feasibility analysis, business planning, cooperative formation counseling, and financial planning, among others. In 2016, OCDC counselors worked with a variety of clients who were forming new cooperatives or existing cooperatives that were working to improve their businesses.

For example, OCDC staff provided support to the Southern Ohio Growers Cooperative (SOGC) to explore the cooperative business model, legally incorporate a new business, and build financial projections for the 2016. The co-op was up and running for the 2016 growing season, marketing a variety of pumpkins to retailers across the state and helping member farms increase their revenue!

Ohio and West Virginia Food Hub Network

OCDC continued convening and facilitating the successful Ohio and West Virginia Food Hub Network throughout 2016, bringing together food hub managers, directors, developers, and technical assistance providers for peer learning and networking. The network met quarterly and included sessions focused on financing, quality and process controls, and institutional markets. Multiple network meetings throughout the year included tours of operating businesses, including produce aggregation and distribution businesses and local food grocers. The tours of operational facilities gave participants the chance to observe working facilities, learn from employees about how produce is sourced from growers, protocols for aggregating and distributing products, as well as the importance of quality and safety control throughout the supply chain. OCDC was pleased to partner with the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition and the Value Chain Cluster Initiative to host the August 2016 network meeting.

Building OCDC’s Capacity

OCDC is committed to building the center’s capacity for technical assistance in order to enhance the support available to Ohio and West Virginia’s new and emerging cooperatives. In October, OCDC took a large step forward toward increasing capacity by welcoming a new staff member!

Ivory Harlow is a Program Specialist working to provide technical assistance and educational programming to rural businesses in the region. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Strayer University and earned a Master of Arts from Ohio Christian University. Ms. Harlow is a veteran of the United States Air Force, where she served as a medical material logistics journeyman. She is a graduate of Syracuse University Whitman School of Management’s Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship (V-WISE) program, and Entrepreneur Bootcamp for Veterans (EBV) at the Trulaske College of Business, University of Missouri. Ivory has a background in agriculture and business development. She is the owner of Dickie Bird Farm LLC in Ross County, Ohio. She writes Farm Forward, a weekly agriculture column for Farm and Dairy Newspaper.

OCDC Recognized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture

On October 3, 2016, the Ohio Cooperative Development Center was recognized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development with an Award of Excellence. The award was granted, “In honor of nearly two decades of steadfast promotion and support of co-ops, leading to the success of innumerable rural and agricultural-based businesses in the Buckeye state.” Sam Rikkers, Administrator of USDA Rural Development’s Rural Business Cooperative Service presented the award to OCDC staff along with Tony Logan, Director of USDA Rural Development in Ohio. The two visited Piketon to help kick off Co-op Month 2016 and to announce awards for USDA’s Rural Cooperative Development Grant (RCDG). As a recipient of an award through the grant program for the upcoming year, OCDC received funds to support business assistance throughout the region, focusing particularly on businesses in agriculture, forest and wood products, transportation, and energy. 

Dr. Thomas Worley, Director of the OSU South Centers named the University of Rio Grande & Rio Grande Community College (URG/RGCC) the 2016 OSU South Centers Supporter of the Year. This award was presented to Dr. Michelle Johnston, President of URG/RGCC at the 25th Anniversary Celebration at the OSU South Centers on September 15, 2016.

This award recognized the strong commitment and collaborative efforts between the two Universities. Through their contribution of time, resources, ideas and collaborative efforts, The University of Rio Grande & Rio Grande Community College has been providing support and direction, as well as enhancing the overall quality of the OSU South Centers.

“I am honored to receive this award,” Johnston said. “Our partnership with OSU South Centers contributes to our efforts to serve our communities and provide our students with quality learning environments to help them succeed.”

Dr. Worley stated, “Dr. Michelle Johnston has become a very strong supporter and advocate of OSU South Centers during her time as President at University of Rio Grande. Our collaborative work in business development and in broadcasting has blossomed under her leadership. Her participation as a host of her own show is a tribute to her commitment to our shared efforts. I am very confident that we will continue to find ways to collaborate as we work to serve the residents of Southern Ohio.”

The OSU South Centers contracted with URG/RGCC in July 2009. At that time, the primary emphasis was in providing experiential learning formats to both MBA and undergraduate students enrolled in the Emerson E. Evans College of Business, as well as to work with students enrolled in other educational Programs. The OSU-RIO Collaboration is the “nickname” to the contracted agreement between The Ohio State University South Centers and URG/RGCC.  

Since that time, URG/RGCC has become a very strong collaborator with a number of our programs at The Ohio State University South Centers. As a result of initial collaboration, one major joint program has had a significant effect on both of our universities. Our OSU-RIO broadcasts on television, radio, and live-streaming programs on the web have allowed both universities to promote joint educational programs to clients, students, small businesses, and interested viewers in Southern Ohio, across the State of Ohio, and beyond. 

It was recognized by administration and staff from both universities that increased content, viewership, and a more concerted effort with the broadcasts would result in better visibility of educational and research programs both at the University of Rio Grande and The Ohio State University South Centers.

Some program highlights include:

•  Over 60,000 viewers and listeners have touched at least one YouTube or internet radio program.

•  Listeners or viewers from 178 Countries have tuned in to at least one of the broadcasts. 

•  Tallies show that approximately 350 listeners/viewers each week touch one of the archived educational broadcasts.

•  Several students under tutelage of Mike Thompson have tried their hand at RIO RADIO – a daily and weekly radio show.

•  Both administrations and key personnel from both universities host different shows on educational and informational subjects.

The University of Rio Grande & Rio Grande Community College and The Ohio State University South Centers have shared resources in promoting programs that enhance clients, students, and businesses throughout the areas each serves. This working collaboration has demonstrated a well-defined effort while providing needed information to its perspective clients, students, and community members. Please visit the link below to explore some of the various shows. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrv0SYonHCbXs1WgoOHa6mw

By Ryan Mapes, Endeavor Center Manager

The Endeavor Center continues to have a very successful year. We have been operating at a 100% occupancy rate for 2016. North Wind Construction Services LLC was the latest business to become an Endeavor Center partner. There has been much activity and many visitors through the doors this past quarter, hosting over 80 training or meeting events during the months of April, May and June.

Below is a list of Endeavor Center Partners:                                                                                                          

·   Adams Wealth Management

·   Boston Government Services

·   Alliant

·   CRC Technologies

·   EHI Consultants

·   EC Government Services

·   Hukari Ascendent

·   InSolves

·   InSolves Manufacturing

·   Navarro Research

·   North Wind Construction Services

·   Probatum Technology

·   Professional Project Services

·   Steve McCain and Associates

·   SAA Solutions

·   Swift and Staley

·   Visiting Angels Home Health

·   Wastren

The Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at the OSU South Centers was recently successful in obtaining Ohio Development Services Agency funding for another two-year period, 2017 and 2018. We will continue to provide business consulting to the existing and start-up small businesses in our coverage area. Through the first three three quarters of fiscal year 2016, the SBDC at the OSU South Centers has assisted 245 clients and helped create 15 new businesses. Our clients have obtained $6,247,395 of capital, increased sales by $915,000, have created over 60 jobs, and have retained another 746.

Recently our SBDC has worked on a wide variety of projects. We received additional SBA funding to have detailed marketing projects completed for SBDC clients. This project was completed in partnership with the University of Rio Grande in which students from Dr. Wesley Theone’s marketing class completed market research and developed  comprehensive  Marketing Plans for three different SBDC clients including a coffee wholesaler, a beef processing plant, and a co-packing facility.

Another project we are currently working with is the Agricultural Development and Young Farmer grant application through Southern Ohio Agricultural Development Foundation (SOACDF). This is a program where our SBDC counselors work closely with area farmers to develop business plans for projects that will be submitted to SOACDF for potential grant funding. You can see details and deadlines about the program at http://www.soacdf.net/.

The OSU-RIO Collaboration TV/RADIO broadcasts are multi-media (Radio, TV, YouTube and Live Internet Streaming) educational shows with a host of topics that promote Small Businesses, business support organizations, programs at The Ohio State University South Centers, and educational programs at the University of Rio Grande/Rio Grande Community College. These shows air on Wednesday afternoons from the Radio and TV Studio at the University of Rio Grande. Guests include a variety of people representing educational, business development, community and organizational programs. The mission of these collaborative TV/RADIO broadcasts is twofold, first is to be an educational learning lab and second is to be a promotional tool for educational programs at the University of Rio Grande/Rio Grande Community College and the business and agricultural programs of The Ohio State University South Centers. 

In January 2012, the shows began simulcasting with the Rio Grande Educational Channel 17 TV station. This public access TV Program broadcasts under the Time Warner Cable System using one of their Public Educational Channels. Viewers from four southern Ohio counties can view broadcast shows live as well as listen on the Internet Blog-Talk Radio. All completed broadcast shows are also uploaded onto YouTube, with all shows archived on Blog-Talk radio and YouTube video channels for viewing and listening again. According to statistics of YouTube and Internet Radio, over 178 countries and over 55,000 people have listened or viewed to one of the archived shows.

With the success of the University of Rio Grande partnership, the SBDC had the opportunity to obtain grant funds to initiate a live streaming radio and TV broadcast  international media channel to be located at the OSU South Centers. Emphasis is on small businesses, supportive small business organizations and agricultural programs. Training events covering a wide variety of business related topics also be recorded and archived on YouTube as well as the data recording platform used by the Ohio SBDC.

Be sure to visit our weekly Blog and stay up-to-date with the OSU South Centers business development network at https://u.osu.edu/osubusinessdevelopmentnetwork/.

By Hannah Scott
Center for Cooperatives Program Manager

What do a small group of fish and shrimp farmers purchasing feed together have in common with a classroom full of high school students who share the work of a successful 200+ acre livestock and grain farm? What do a group of small-scale vegetable growers collectively marketing produce have in common with a barista-owned coffee shop?

They’re all cooperators.

At the CFAES Center for Cooperatives, we like to say, “If you’ve seen one co-op, you’ve seen one co-op,” a mantra that certainly seems to describe our work in 2018.  Over the last year, the Center’s team supported cooperative development efforts across Ohio and West Virginia in a variety of areas. Team members helped aquaculture producers develop a business plan for cooperative purchasing, an effort to make their farms more efficient and sustainable. They helped growers in Mansfield and Moorefield – Ohio and West Virginia, respectively – learn about the cooperative business model and develop market assessment tools to evaluate how they could use a co-op to access new market channels. They led the completion of a multi-organizational feasibility study for a cooperative in the forest and wood products industry. And they helped link veterans developing a farmer-veteran training program to resources in OSU Extension and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

These efforts were made possible by funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Cooperative Development Grant program, which will continue in 2019, supporting the Center’s efforts to strengthen rural economies through cooperative development. The Center will focus on cooperative development in food and agriculture, forestry, rural connectivity, and worker-ownership in 2019. 
The Center will also continue efforts to educate various audiences about the cooperative business model, building on successes launched in 2018. 

In June 2018, the Center launched Co-op Mastery: Beyond Cooperatives 101, an innovative online training course and companion workbook designed to educate cooperative members, boards, management, employees, and students. Co-op Mastery’s curriculum focuses on mid-level knowledge about the cooperative business model, providing an in-depth look at governance, finance, taxation, and other areas. Ivory Harlow, a program specialist with the Center, received the OSU CFAES Staff Advisory Council’s 2018 Key Values Award in the area of Innovation for her work developing Co-op Mastery. 

The Center also brought cooperative education to a variety of stakeholders through workshops and seminars in 2018, sponsoring the seminar, “Agricultural Data Coalition: Putting Farmers in the Driver’s Seat,” and co-sponsoring, “Co-op Law & Practice CLE,” in partnership with the University of Dayton School of Law and Advocates for Basic Legal Equity, Inc. (ABLE). 

Center team members taught cooperative workshops at conferences around the region and nationally, including the 2018 Association of Cooperative Educators Annual Institute and Building Wealth through Worker-Ownership in partnership with the Ohio Employee Ownership Center at Kent State University and the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACENet). 

Center team members are looking forward to leading sessions at the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives 2019 Annual Meeting, the 15th Annual West Virginia Small Farm Conference, and the Ohio Small Farm Conference in 2019, among many others. 

Connect with the Center for Cooperatives on Facebook (@OhioStateCooperatives), Twitter (@OSUCooperatives), and the Collaboration Nation blog (u.osu.edu/osucooperatives).  

Visit the Center’s website at go.osu.edu/cooperatives and contact the Center at osucooperatives@osu.edu or 740-289-2071 ext. 111.

By Joy Bauman
Center for Cooperatives Program Coordinator

The CFAES Center for Cooperatives team has been working with the Agriculture Business Management students at the Ohio Valley Career and Technical Center in Adams County, Ohio to form a student-operated cooperative to manage the school’s 300-acre farm. The farm is a learning laboratory, providing valuable opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience managing and operating a farm. 

The students and Mr. Luke Rhonemus, the Farm Business Management program instructor and FFA advisor, have developed a relationship with the OSU South Centers staff over the past few years, starting with Joy Bauman who is currently a program coordinator with the Center for Cooperatives. Joy assisted the program in developing a working business plan for the school farm when Mr. Rhonemus first became the OVCTC Agriculture Business Management instructor in August 2016. Joy conducted farm business planning workshops and provided guidance to the students as they developed their farm business plan, which enabled the school farm to receive a $25,000 agriculture development grant from the Southern Ohio Agricultural and Community Development Foundation for infrastructure improvements and equipment purchases. At that time, the school farm comprised just over 100 acres. 

Recently, the district purchased an additional 200 acres to allow the students to expand the farm operation. Presently, the students raise beef cattle, meat goats, market hogs, corn, soybeans, and hay. For many years, tobacco was raised on the school farm, but presently, the students only raise tobacco seedlings in the program’s greenhouse to be sold as transplants. In addition, the students manage 300 taps for maple syrup production. The students sell the syrup, as well as freezer pork and hay. Mr. Rhonemus, who is in his 17th year of teaching high school agriculture and is a lifelong farmer himself, wanted the students to get as much practical experience as possible, including making management decisions, hands-on production, and marketing. 

The CFAES Center for Cooperatives staff members have been working with the students to develop a student-operated farm cooperative using the worker-owner cooperative model. The students learned about agricultural cooperatives and cooperative principles through lessons taught by Hannah Scott, Joy Bauman, and Ivory Harlow. Staff members used Co-op Mastery, the Center’s online cooperative educational platform, along with its companion workbook to help the students develop their cooperative’s bylaws and to begin the business planning for the cooperative.

Students can become members of the farm cooperative by paying a membership fee or by working six hours on the farm. The cooperative members can choose to be affiliated with one or more of the farm production and management committee areas, including livestock, crops, specialty products, and ag mechanics. Each committee recently elected two representatives to the cooperative board of directors to make business and management decisions for the farm. 

“This will give the students hands-on experience with running a business, particularly a cooperative, and serving on a board of directors,” said Bauman. Meanwhile, all of the student co-op members have the potential to earn money and/or receive farm products based on their personal share of the work contributed to the co-op.

Bauman explained that being a farm co-op member and working on the school farm can be part of a student’s FFA Supervised Agricultural Experience project and help them meet the qualifications to earn their State and American FFA Degrees. The student members of the cooperative keep track of their hours spent working for the farm cooperative in the FFA’s online record-keeping system. At the end of the fiscal year, if the farm makes any profit and the board decides to return a portion of the profit to the members, patronage (surplus profit) can be returned to cooperative members to share in the profits or products from the farm, based proportionally on the time invested by individual members. But first, the student-managers must make sure that adequate resources remain to keep the operation going.

“Much like real-life farming, there is no guaranteed profit,” Mr. Rhonemus told his students. There is a chance that no patronage will be returned if the board determines that there are insufficient resources to do so at the end of the cooperative’s fiscal year. As with any farm or business operation, there is risk involved. “For our students, that primary risk is their time investment,” Mr. Rhonemus explained.

The students in the Agriculture Business Management and Ag Mechanics programs at the OVCTC have always worked on the school farm, caring for livestock and crops as well as working on equipment and performing routine maintenance. By forming a student cooperative to operate the farm, the students get to be involved on a new level. “We really do care about the management decisions we make and how that relates to the farm’s profitability, because that will determine how much each of our members financially benefit,” said junior, Kamden Crum, one of the co-op members. “It’s helping us to really see how important it is to operate our farm efficiently,” said senior, Jaycee Baldwin, another student member.

Bauman has enjoyed working with the OVCTC students and instructors. “Having students learn about the cooperative business structure, along with hands-on management of an agricultural cooperative just adds to the vast amount of practical experience the students receive in the OVCTC ag programs,” she concluded.

By Ivory Harlow
Program Specialist, CFAES Center for Cooperatives

On June 1st, 2018, the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences Center for Cooperatives, based at the OSU South Centers, launched Co-op Mastery: Beyond Cooperatives 101.

Co-op Mastery is an engaging, online cooperative course for a variety of co-op stakeholders, including steering committee members of new and emerging co-ops, students of co-ops, and new co-op board members or employees. 

“Co-op Mastery curriculum focuses on mid-level knowledge about the cooperative business model,” said Center for Cooperatives Program Manager, Hannah Scott.  “Training modules build on existing fundamental materials by providing an in-depth look at governance, finance, taxation and other areas not typically covered by courses in fundamentals, yet challenging topics for stakeholders.”

The training features eight modules which include video interviews with numerous leaders in the cooperative movement: 
•    Logan County Electric Cooperative General Manager Rick Petty discusses cooperative principles and various functions of cooperatives. 
•    Dennis Bolling, retired President and CEO of United Producers, Inc., shares the benefits that cooperatives provide to members. 
•    Mid-America Cooperative Counsel Executive Director Rod Kelsay discusses effective education and training for a co-op’s Board of Directors.
•    Ohio State University Extension Educator Dr. Chris Bruynis gives insight to key factors that contribute to a cooperative’s success.
•    Nationwide’s VP of Sponsor Relations Devin Fuhrman shares the story of Nationwide’s history as a mutual cooperative company.
•    Agricultural attorney Carolyn Eselgroth of Barrett, Easterday, Cunningham and Eselgroth, LLP addresses legal considerations when forming a cooperative business.
•    Co-Bank Senior Relationship Manager Gary Weidenborner leads users through an interactive financial document exercise. 
•    Dr. David Hahn, Professor Emeritus at the Ohio State University, explains cooperative taxation.

During the first 30 days the program was live and available to the public, Co-op Mastery directly impacted 268 individuals, through website visitors and cooperative education workshops taught by Center staff in Ohio and West Virginia. Workshop participants also received Co-op Mastery workbooks, a 48-page compilation of activities and examples, to supplement their online learning.
Co-op Mastery is a valuable digital tool for cooperative education. Microfarmers in northwest Ohio have used Co-op Mastery to learn about co-op governance. Co-op Mastery workbook business and financial worksheets help simplify the business planning process for farmers exploring the formation of a co-op. 

In July 2018, Program Manager Hannah Scott and Specialist Ivory Harlow presented Co-op Mastery as a tool for cooperative developers and educators at the 2018 Association of Cooperative Educators Institute in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Attendees from across North America learned how to utilize Co-op Mastery as a digital tool for cooperative education and development.

Co-op Mastery: Beyond Cooperatives 101 was made possible by a Cooperative Education Grant from the CHS Foundation. The training is free and can be accessed online at 
go.osu.edu/coopmastery.

To request a workshop or more information, visit go.osu.edu/cooperatives or contact the Center for Cooperatives at osucooperatives@osu.edu or 740-289-2071 ext. 111.

By: Ivory Harlow Cooperative Development Specialist, CFAES Center for Cooperatives

Among draft horses, Belgians are reputed to be the strongest and most capable. A single Belgian draft horse can tow 8,000 pounds. More impressive is what two can do together; a team of two draft horses doesn’t just double- but triples pulling power to 24,000 lbs!

Like a team of draft horses, The CFAES Center for Cooperatives combined forces with industry, government and association partners to achieve great things in 2017. Collaboration created greater impact through cooperative education, technical and development assistance for stakeholders and students of cooperatives.

The Center teamed up with the Mid-Ohio Foodbank to share best practices with the Ohio and West Virginia Food Hub Network. Director of Food Resource Development, Mike Frank, led network participants on a tour, describing how the Foodbank has overcome challenges associated with the aggregation, storage and distribution of fresh food. The Network left with practical actions to improve their food hubs’ operational efficiency.

Collaboration between the Center for Cooperatives and the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development provided valuable information to local ag producers looking to diversify or enhance their operations.   A Value-Added Producer Grant informational session with key speakers from the USDA was hosted at the OSU South Centers, offering local producers an opportunity to ask questions and get answers from USDA grant experts.

The Center for Cooperatives worked closely with the Central Appalachia Cooperative Development Group to start Unity Coffee and Teahouse, the first worker-owned cooperative business in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Five Baristas and a coffee roaster created the co-op with a shared vision to foster a commUnity that supports workers, customers and local residents. Unity Coffee and Teahouse opened for business in January 2018.

The Mid-America Cooperative Council (MACC) brought together cooperative developers from across the Midwest to facilitate communication and coordination of co-op educational resources. The Center met with counterparts from Kentucky, Indiana and northeast Ohio at United Producers, Inc. headquarters in Columbus for a two-day roundtable. Developers discussed programming, goals and alignment. The Center identified opportunities to boost educational programming and technical assistance in the region by sharing knowledge and pooling resources.

The Center facilitated cooperative education for visiting scholars in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics over their stay in the United States, including an educational tour of agricultural cooperatives at the Farm Science Review. Scholars visited with representatives from Ohio’s Electric Cooperatives, Farm Credit, Heritage Cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America and COBA/Select Sires. The scholars returned to Ukraine motivated to share their newfound knowledge of agricultural cooperatives with students at their respective universities.

The Center connected with local vocational schools and FFA to build students’ awareness of careers in agricultural cooperatives. The Center hosted students at OSU South Centers, visited Ohio Valley Career & Technical Center FFA and served on an Ag Career panel in Ross County.

The Center worked with the Ohio State University CFAES Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics instructors to facilitate an undergraduate class project. Students interviewed cooperative leaders and created multimedia presentations sharing what they learned about the cooperative model.

Collaboration with partners created a great impact in 2017. The CFAES Center for Cooperatives intends to increase our horse power in 2018. We look forward to partnering with the Ohio Farm Bureau to provide cooperative education to the next generation of leaders at the AgriPOWER Institute and the Young Agricultural Professionals Winter Leadership Experience. The Center will forge new relationships with growers, producers and marketers at the annual Ohio Produce Network conference, the Ohio Association of Meat Processors conference, and the 14^th Annual West Virginia Small Farm Conference. Together, the Center and partners are resolved to drive forward the cooperative movement in the region and beyond.

By Ivory Harlow, Ohio Cooperative Development Center Program Specialist

Pumpkins are the third largest fresh market vegetable produced in Ohio. More than 7,000 acres across the state are dedicated to pumpkin production. According to the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, consumer demand for specialty pumpkins has grown steadily in recent years, and future growth is forecasted. The thriving market for pumpkins provides Ohio growers an opportunity to sell locally grown pumpkins at a premium price. 

Brad Bergefurd, horticulture specialist at the Ohio State University (OSU) South Centers, has conducted pumpkin research since 1998. His research identifies top-performing pumpkin cultivars with highly marketable traits and tolerance to plant diseases and pests. His reputation for helping farmers grow superior vegetables means Bergefurd often fields questions – from growers and buyers alike – about pumpkins, produce and fresh vegetable marketing.

In 2015, Brad received calls from regional buyers seeking pumpkins. “I was being contacted by larger buyers. I talked to local growers who I have consulted with for years and who had shared their interest in expanding to wholesale markets; but they did not have large enough acreage to do it on their own. I pitched the idea of a marketing co-op, and invited them to OSU South Centers to meet with Ohio Cooperative Development Center (OCDC) Program Manager Hannah Scott.”

A group of eight growers attended the meeting to explore how cooperatives benefit members. OCDC provided co-op education, assisted with business and financial planning, and guided the group through federal and state business filing procedures to legally form the Southern Ohio Growers Cooperative.

OSU South Centers provides comprehensive resources

The development and success of the Southern Ohio Growers Cooperative was a team effort. Several departments: horticulture, cooperatives, business and marketing, contributed to the project during start-up and continue to provide ongoing assistance.

Brad Bergefurd, whose horticulture research and connections initially brought the group together, continues to serve members with relevant pumpkin research. This year his research focuses on powdery mildew, a persistent problem for pumpkin growers in Ohio. Brad lends a helping hand to co-op members with cultivar selection, pest and disease problems control, and production questions.

The Ohio Cooperative Development Center provides ongoing technical assistance to the co-op. OCDC delivered board of director training, and helped members put a marketing agreement in place for the 2017 season. Hannah Scott assisted Southern Ohio Growers Cooperative members to develop end-of-year financial statements. “One of my proudest moments was seeing the co-op share first-year profits back with members,” Hannah Scott says. “That revenue would not have happened without the co-op.”

Chris Smalley, Small Business Development Specialist, helped the group forecast finances and production costs. Program Manager of Direct Marketing Christie Welch assisted members with their initial marketing plan, and to identify additional markets for expansion.

In 2016, Southern Ohio Growers Cooperative delivered over 500 bins of pumpkins to regional retailers. The co-op’s goals for the future include building a reputation for quality, increasing the volume of pumpkins and adding additional fresh produce offerings. OSU South Centers is here to help the Southern Ohio Growers Cooperative achieve their goals by providing comprehensive resources through collaborative partnerships.

By: Ryan Mapes, Endeavor Center Manager

The OSU Endeavor Center manager and staff of the affiliated programs at the Ohio State University South Centers continually engage community organizations to maintain awareness of changing needs in the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem and develop solutions to combat negative impact to the economy while promoting the regions resources and talents of the region. 2014 was once again a successful year for the Ohio State University Endeavor Center, its programs and its partners. Open since 2005, the 27,000 square foot business incubator has come to be recognized as a community leader in economic development, business training, and technological excellence.

Endeavor Center business programs and partners had another successful year. The technical assistance programs affiliated with or housed within The Endeavor Center include a Small Business Development Center, an International Development Center, the Ohio Cooperative Development Center and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. All of these programs provide technical expertise and guidance to the small businesses housed in the incubator. In partnership with the Endeavor Center, the region’s Small Business Development Center was chosen as the top performing SBDC within six states by the United States Small Business Administration (SBA). Partners proceeded to work on several projects at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion facility. The Endeavor Center facility housed eighteen individual businesses which filled twenty-seven office spaces throughout the year and operating at more than 100% of its original occupancy capability. In the last five years of operation, the Ohio State University Endeavor Center and its business partners have:

• Created more than 1,300 high-skill, high-wage jobs, adding more than 115 million dollars of direct economic activity to the local community.

• In cooperation with the Small Business Development Center of Ohio, sponsored or conducted 320 business workshops, training sessions and seminars with nearly 5,300 attendees – business owners, prospective entrepreneurs and ambitious employees seeking to improve the profitability of their businesses so they can grow and provide additional employment opportunities for those in the community.

In August, a partnership was formed with Community Action of Pike County to combat potential federal budget induced layoffs at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion facility. Community Action Committee of Pike County received funding to create a temporary transition center to provide technical assistance for employees facing layoffs. In short time, the transition center was up and running in the Endeavor Center.

Also in 2014, the OSU Endeavor Center was chosen as The Ohio State University’s nominee for the national C. Peter McGrath Community Outreach and Engagement Award. In October, the OSU South Centers director, Tom Worley, and Endeavor Center manager, Ryan Mapes, attended the national outreach and engagement award presentation in Edmonton, Alberta to learn more about the award process. The Endeavor Center staff is currently working with staff on main campus to prepare the presentation for the 2015 national award process.

By Gary Gao, PhD, Extension Specialist and Associate Professor

As a part of Gary Gao’s new specialty crop block grant, he travelled to the University of Florida in Gainesville to meet with professors Rebecca Darnell and Jeff Williamson. Together, they had a multi-year and multi-state USDA-SCRI grant to work on grafted blueberry trees.  Dr. Darnell was the PI of the project.  She showed Gary their grafted blueberry trees that were designed to improve harvest efficiency.  Southern highbush blueberry cultivars were grafted on the sparkleberry, Vaccinium arboretum in their study.

Dr. Jeff Williamson was one of the co-PIs of the project.  He showed Gary some of the advanced selections of sparkleberry plants.  It was very interesting to see the wide range of plant heights and forms.  Although the USDA project ended a couple of years ago, the blueberry tree project will continue, many thanks to some of the new state specialty crop grants that Drs. Darnell and Williamson have received.  

Gary Gao also reached out to Dr. Wei Qing Yang of Oregon State University for help.  Dr. Yang was able to send Gary Gao some sparkleberry plants from his rootstock selection program.  He is in the process of patenting several of his selections.  Hopefully, Gary Gao and his team will be able to find a few good selections for growers in Ohio.

Gary Gao and Ryan Slaughter would like to extend our sincere appreciation to the Ohio Department of Agriculture and the USDA for a new specialty crop block grant.  The grant will support a two-year study on grafted blueberry trees and evaluation of processing blueberry cultivars.

By Gary Gao, Ph.D., Extension Specialist and Associate Professor; Ryan Slaughter, Research Assistant; and Michael Daniels, Formerly Student Intern, OSU South Centers

Our container fruit production plot has finally been set up and ready for your viewing pleasure after several months of learning, planning, and hard work. Since we are not necessarily nursery production experts, we reached out to a few people before we decided on the specifics of our container fruit production plot. We toured Dr. Altland’s research facilities in Wooster, Ohio.  Both Dr. Altland and his assistant Dan Troyer welcomed us with open arms.  We are very grateful for all of the excellent information from them.  Our container production is on drip irrigation and is supported by a very strong trellis system. 

If you would like to bring a group to tour our research plots in Piketon, Ohio, please let Gary (Gao.2@osu.edu) or Ryan (Slaugher.71@osu.edu) know.  Fridays are typically the best days for tours like this.  Gary or Ryan can share what we have learned.  We planted blackberries, blueberries and raspberries so far, and may add other fruit crops.

The main objectives of this study are to:

1. Explore the techniques and practices of container fruit production;

2. Explore an effective way to produce blueberries where soil acidification is not feasible;

3. Provide an effective method of winter protection for blackberries;

4. Extend the fruit harvest season by “forcing” early or later blooms and fruit ripening;

5. Help farmers diversify their farming operations.

There may be other benefits from this project. We use aged pine fines as our substrate for our container fruit production. Pine barks are the byproducts of paper industry. In southern Ohio, timber industry is a significant source of cash receipts for many landowners. Using byproducts of the timber industry can help everyone!   

Since soils on many hilly areas are not ideally suited for fruit production, high density berry production in containers might be a good option. Stay tuned for more information. Pay us a visit, if you can’t wait!

We showcased our berry container production plot at our 2016 Super Berry, Container Fruit Production and Wine Grape Field Night on July 7. With the weather turning out to be much better than we had anticipated, it was a good turnout for the field night.

We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to Dave Daniels, Director of Ohio Department of Agriculture, and Ms. Lori Panda, a senior program manager at Ohio Department of Agriculture for a specialty crop block grant. We also thank the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service for the Special Crop Block Grant Program. 

By Dr. Gary Gao
Associate Professor and Extension Specialist

Growing blueberries in Ohio has been a challenging proposition for both commercial growers and backyard gardeners.  This is because blueberries require an acidic pH of 4.5, high organic matter of 4-7%, and excellent drainage.  Idea blueberry soils look like a sandy beach with high organic matter content and readily available water.  Only a few selected places, such as northern Indiana, northwest Michigan, Hammonton in New Jersey, northeast North Carolina, and Willemette Valley in Oregon, have ideal conditions for blueberries.  We are still trying very hard to mimic those ideal blueberry grounds with acidifying soil by applying elemental sulfur, increasing soil organic matter content through addition of peat moss or aged sawduct, and by building raised beds.

If you are thinking about growing blueberries commercially, you may want to get a copy of the Midwest Blueberry Production Guide available online: www2.ca.uky.edu/agcomm/pubs/id/id210/id210.pdf  

If you want to purchase a hardy copy of the bulletin, visit: southcenters.osu.edu/news/midwest-blueberry-production-guide for more information.  A limited number of copies are available.

If you want to grow blueberry in a home garden, you may want to check out this fact sheet at OSU Extension’s OhioLine: ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/HYG-1422 or check the OSU South Centers blueberry page: southcenters.osu.edu/horticulture/fruits/blueberries.

Grafting Blueberries
We are working on cold hardy and alkaline soil tolerant blueberry rootstocks.  We are seeing some promising selections, but we still need a lot of patience.  Our team members Ricardo Medina, Ryan Slaughter, and Pengfei Wang gathered together in April to work on blueberry grafting.  Our team is certainly looking forward to grafted blueberry trees from our research project, and is very grateful for the financial support of a USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant from the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

Growing Blueberries in Containers – More of a Reality than Fiction
It is so exciting to see the beautiful blooms on blueberry bushes in containers.  After three years of trials and tribulations, we are getting really good at growing blueberries in pots.  The container size is 10 gallons.  Blueberry production is not terribly hard, after all.  If you are thinking about doing this commercially, feel free to visit our trial plots at OSU South Centers in Piketon.  Either Ryan Slaughter or Dr. Gary Gao can give a demonstration or we can compare notes.  
Some of the suggested blueberry cultivars for container production include Blue Gold, Draper, Legacy, Nelson, and Sweetheart.  Each of these flowers should turn into a blueberry, as long as honeybees or bumble bees do their part.

Recording, Editing, and Publishing Videos
Gao and Slaughter, along with video producers Duane Rigsby and Sarah Swanson, have been working on recording videos on fruit production.  Gao says his program has a great team in place to produce this kind of education content, and hopes to produce quite a few videos.

“I jokingly told our folks that one of my career goals is to star in at least one fruit production video that draws one million views,” Gao said. “ A few days ago, my research assistant Ryan Slaughter took my message to heart and recorded one fun and educational videos with Duane.  He told me that the video on total blueberry renovation with a chainsaw drew more than 500 hundred views in one day.”  

Follow this link for the video on the South Centers’ YouTube Page at youtube.com/watch?v=Sxpn29w0TZE 

“It is a lot of fun to watch,” Gao continued. “I shared Ryan’s video on Facebook myself – I wonder if this video will go viral?  

“I will be happy and jealous at the same time.  It is very possible that Ryan’s video will reach the one million mark before mine,” he exclaimed.

By Brad Bergefurd, Thom Harker, Charissa Gardner, Wayne Lewis, Ryan Slaughter, Zach Zientek, and Becky Colon

Since The Ohio State University South Centers began hops research and educational programming in 2012, more than 100 farmers have become attracted to hop growing due to the continued demand for Ohio-grown hops from the craft brewing industry, and the high value crop opportunity hops offer to small acreage landowners.

Decades after disease and prohibition wiped out hops production in the Midwestern United States, Ohio’s hop acreage is making a comeback, rising to 200 acres from roughly 10 acres in 2012, according to Brad Bergefurd, Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension Educator and Horticulture Specialist with the OSU Extension in Scioto County and at South Centers in Piketon. 

Hops can cost $10,000 or $20,000 per acre to plant, according to university crop production budgets and research. An Ohio brewer, consumer, and hop farmer survey – conducted by the Ohio Hops Growers Guild and partially funded through a grant by the South Centers USDA Cooperative Development Center – indicated over recent years that breweries in Ohio want to buy local. Just as with all local direct agricultural marketing opportunities in Ohio, brewers want to put a face with the farmer growing their hops, which is a big selling point for Ohio brewers. The hop farmers survey results indicated that nearly every hop grower in the state intends to plant more hops in the near future. 

To advocate for, and educate, the state’s hop farmers, roughly 70 growers have joined the Ohio Hops Growers Guild, which released a set of standards for a seal of quality for hop growers to help guarantee high quality and food safe hops continue to be produced for Ohio craft breweries. If a brewer has a bad experience with poor quality hops because the farmer does not manage their crop properly, it hurts hop growers in general, just like someone who makes lousy beer taints the entire industry.
Hops production is no get-rich-quick endeavor, according to research conducted by Bergefurd and the OSU Hops Research and Education team. It costs more than $10,000, and more than $20,000 for some farms, per acre to plant and the crop doesn’t produce a full crop until year three.

Bergefurd and the other members of the OSU Hops Research and Education team have been conducting the development program since 2013 when they received USDA grant funding from the Ohio Department of Agriculture and planted the first hop research trials on record at The Ohio State University. According to Bergefurd, “as with any type of farming, if there’s a market to be had, we want to teach our farmers to be aware of the opportunity and see if it fits their farming operations.
“There’s a lot of infrastructure and upfront costs before you get the first dollar back,” Bergefurd added. “I always warn those interested – do not underestimate the hand and stoop labor that is required.”

Hops cannot be harvested with a tractor. They grow on large 20-foot-tall trellises made of aircraft cable and poles similar to telephone poles, so the plants must be harvested by hand, removed from the hop yard, and then a large picker is used to mechanically remove the hop cones form the plant. Plus, hops require precisely timed harvesting. “They’ll go from not being ready to too far gone within a matter of three or four days, weather-dependent,” Bergefurd explained. “Farmers get caught off guard by not having the labor to get it done in a timely manner.”

Hops quality is normally verified using laboratory wet chemistry methods that require reagents such as toluene, but these methods can be time-consuming and affect the cycle time of a facility. Due to the importance of harvest timing, and to ensure a high quality crop for brewers, in 2018 the South Centers began a research partnership with an international, Ohio-based company, Eurofins QTA, a subsidiary of Eurofins Scientific located near Cincinnati that has developed technology that provides a method of hop analysis which allows for hops to be tested for multiple parameters, such as alpha and beta acids, in 60 seconds using the latest in infrared technology – compared to three days to collect, mail, and test hops in a laboratory setting currently.

 This enhanced hop quality analytics equipment and procedures will allow farmers to determine prime harvest times quicker, and that can lead to increased hop quality for brewers. This new hop analysis technology was installed in the recently built hop and small fruit quality analysis lab at OSU South Centers in 2018. Preliminary test data from quality analytics of hops harvested from the OSU hop research yards and from farmer-cooperator hop yards indicates that this new technology can provide similar results to the current laboratory hop testing procedures, but within minutes instead of days. 

“By all accounts, the demand for hops is expected to continue to grow. So long as the brewing industry keeps pouring, bottling, and canning more craft ale, there should be a market for Ohio-grown hops,” says Bergefurd.

By Dr. Gary Gao
Ph.D., Associate Professor and Extension Specialist OSU South Centers 
and Ricardo Medina
Visiting Scholar OSU South Centers and Ph.D. Student, University of São Paulo

If you have time to stop by the greenhouses behind Howlett Hall on the CFAES campus of The Ohio State University, you will likely see a compartment of raspberry plants under some pink/purple LED lights.  The project is being conducted by the visiting scholar Ricardo Medina of Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil, and is a joint project of Dr. Gary Gao’s fruit production systems research and Dr. Chieri Kubota’s controlled environment research.

Below is the brief summary of Medina’s Research Project:

Low temperatures and limited amounts of sunlight during autumn and winter time can be limiting factors for raspberry production in higher latitudes, especially inside greenhouses where the transmittance of light can be very low. 
Usually, plants in the field lose their leaves and go through dormancy; since many chilling hours are necessary for the buds to overcome dormancy, their harvest period is concentrated in summer, when the prices paid for the fruit are the lowest. 
The experiment consists of growing raspberries in greenhouse conditions, using containers with substrates and intercanopy LED lights as supplemental lighting. With the warm temperature inside the greenhouse and the supplemental light provided by LED light bars, it is expected that the plants will not go through dormancy. 

The experiment has three different treatments considering the light intensity including: two layers of LED interlighting bars, a single layer of LED interlighting bar, and no artificial light. In addition, two cultivars with different fruiting habits are being tested. Plants will be tested for growth rate, harvest period, yield, and fruit quality in terms of marketable parameters, but also nutritional quality such as phenolic compounds content and antioxidant activities.

Medina got a chance to sit in on Dr. Chieri Kubota’s Lecture on Controlled Environment.  He also showcased his research project to the students of HCS 3200.  

Here is the summary by Medina:

The lecture presented by Dr. Chieri Kubota was addressed to the HCS 3200 – Horticultural Science class. Dr. Kubota was introduced to the students by Dr. Wendy Klooster at 10 a.m. and started her presentation focusing on controlled environment production systems, such as greenhouse (GH) and indoor production. She brought the key components required for each system and did some comparisons between those systems and the open field method for lettuce production, with data on spacing, yield, energy spent, total cost, and cost per unit produced – ending in a conclusion that indoor farming and greenhouse production can have an initial cost higher than open field, but due to a higher yield (units of lettuce head per area), the final cost per unit represents no more than 15% of increase compared to the open field system. This small increase in the cost may be overcome by a higher selling price when well-advertised that the product comes from controlled environment production, being a pesticide-free product (when that is the case).

The manipulation of the environment was presented by Dr. Kubota in many aspects including hydroponics systems, management of light quantity and quality, and CO2 concentration. The light quality can be manipulated using LED lights, where you can deliver to plants the exact wavelengths combination you want, once LED lights are a monochromatic source of light. Combinations of red and blue lights have been studied for many leafy greens, and more recently, for tomatoes and other crops. Other advantages of LED lights include less heat emission and the higher light use efficiency, with a better conversion of energy consumption to energy use in photosynthesis. Also, the CO2 can be manipulated to enhance tomato production up to 20% and leafy greens up to 50% when increasing CO2 content from 400 ppm (current air concentration) to 800 – 1,000 ppm.

Dr. Kubota gave some examples of successful greenhouse and indoor farming in Ohio, New ork City, Boston, and Tokyo. She also discussed future applications in controlled environment production with the use of drones and image recognition for real-time data collection in terms of the nutritional, pathological, and physiological status of the crop. She concluded her presentation willing a better interaction in between companies as well as academia, and suggests an open communication platform to share knowledge and technologies for indoor and greenhouse controlled environment production.

Following the presentation, a tour with students was conducted by Dr. Kubota, Mark Kroggel, and Medina at the Howlett greenhouse facilities. The tour began with strawberry production in a soilless system, where Kroggel explained how they grow strawberries using trophy and substrate, with supplemental LED lights over the canopy of the plants. The students asked questions about cultivars, sunlight radiation, disposition, and spacing of the trophies. 
The tour continued to the greenhouse where a raspberry production system is being tested. There, Medina explained to the students his project, consisting of growing raspberries in containers using intercanopy LED lights to make plants avoid dormancy, and the effects of the system in the plant growth, harvest period, yield, and fruit quality in terms of marketable parameters and nutritional quality. Students asked questions about plant dormancy, light treatments applied, and comparison to the traditional raspberry production system. This project is part of Dr. Gary Gao’s small fruit projects in collaboration with Dr. Kubota. 

The last greenhouse visited was the teaching greenhouse, where undergrad students can learn how to grow leafy greens, vining crops, and have the opportunity to understand different hydroponics systems. 

Acknowledgements:  We would like to than Dr. Abhay Thosar, a senior Plant Specialist of Horticulture LED for Signify (signify.com/en-us) in United States and Canada for the generous donation of LED lights used in the study.  Their global brands are Philips (lighting.philips.com/main/products/horticulture/language-selector) and Interact (interact-lighting.com/global) Stay tuned for more exciting results from this project! Please visit southcenters.osu.edu/horticulture/fruits for more information on Dr. Gary Gao’s research projects and extensive activities.

By Gary Gao, PhD
Extension Specialist and Associate Professor OSU South Centers

Dr. Gary Gao, co-leader of the Center for Specialty Crops at OSU South Centers, is very happy to announce that Dr. Pengfei Wang and Mr. Ricardo Bordignon Medina have joined the fruit research and extension team.

Dr. Wang is an associate professor of pomology at the College of Horticulture of Shanxi Agricultural University in Taigu, Shanxi, China, where he has been conducting breeding research on Chinese dwarf cherries and also teaches pomology classes.
He received his PhD, MS, and BS from Shanxi Agricultural University and has many years of knowledge and experience working in fruit science.  

Dr. Wang will be involved in all of the fruit research projects at South Centers with a focus on on blueberries, elderberries, and wine grapes.
Medina is currently a PhD candidate of Plant Physiology and biochemistry at University of São Paulo, Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil. 

He also brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in fruit science to the fruit program.  Medina received a MS in Horticulture, working on blueberries for his MS research.  He also received his BS in agronomic engineering and studied citrus at the University of Florida.  

Medina will conduct several research projects on raspberries while he is at The Ohio State University.  He first found Gao while searching for raspberry research and extension programs in the United States.  He has also done quite a bit of extension work in Brazil.  He organized workshops for commercial growers and students.

“I am very excited to have both as members of our team,” said Gao. “Both Dr. Wang and Mr. Medina will be staying with us for one year.”

Medina was borne in Campinas, São Paulo. He likes many sports including basketball, football (soccer), and volleyball.  He also likes plants, fruits, and travel and has two brothers and two sisters.

Dr. Wang is married and has two daughters. 

By Brad Bergefurd
Horticulture Specialist

Ohio hops growers experienced continued strong market demand in 2017 for locally grown hops, with many reporting being sold out before the end of 2017, and the demand is not likely to decline soon with almost 300 breweries operating (or soon to be) in Ohio.

The Ohio State University South Centers, in cooperation with the Ohio Hop Growers Guild for the fifth year in a row, held another sold-out Ohio Hops Conference and Trade Show at the OSU South Centers at Piketon on March 23 and 24. The goal of the event was to help new and experienced growers learn the newest hop production techniques, and network with over 200 hop growers in attendance, as well as 20 hop industry vendors and exhibitors, who showcased the latest in hop technology and innovations.

This year’s Conference included an Ohio brewers panel, whose members either currently are, or are interested in, purchasing Ohio-grown hops.  These brewers included A Butcher and a Brewer from Cleveland and the Portsmouth Brewing Company from Portsmouth. The panel included a tasting of Ohio beers brewed with state-grown ingredients.  

For the first time, we incorporated a bus tour to southern Ohio hop farms, which included the only certified organic hop farm in Ohio and a tour of a newly constructed and operating hop processing, drying, pelletizing, and packaging operation in Georgetown.  Attendees were able to tour the hop fields of these growers and gain knowledge from them on various techniques for growing this specialty crop.  

The event also featured hop experts with Ohio State University Extension, OARDC and OSU South Centers, University of Kentucky, Michigan, and other agriculture industry professionals.  Attendees also participated in hands-on field training and activities in the hop yards at the South Centers. These trainings included drip irrigation design, trellis construction, mobile drying, mechanical harvesting, and fertigation techniques. 

For more information on the Ohio Hops program and the 2019 Ohio Hop Conference, contact Brad Bergefurd at 740-289-2071, ext.136 or bergefurd.1@osu.edu, or Charissa Gardner at 740-289-2071, ext. 132 gardner.1148@osu.edu.

By: Brad Bergefurd, Extension Horticulture Specialist

Ohio Craft Brewers asked Brad Bergefurd if farmers in Ohio grew hops as they were seeking local suppliers of fresh hops to expand the diversity of locally produced brews using Ohio hops. These new brews include high value Wet-hopped harvest ales never produced in the past. Seeing this agriculture opportunity for Ohio, as a project PI and co-PI, Horticulture Extension Specialist Brad Bergefurd acquired Ohio Department of Agriculture and USDA Specialty Crop Block grant funding partnering with faculty in the Departments of Entomology and Plant Pathology to develop an Ohio hops education and research program, “Hop Production to Enhance Economic Opportunities for Ohio Farmers & Brewers”. The project allowed the OSU South Centers Specialty Crops Team to conduct field research and educational programming and three locations throughout Ohio.

Partnering with 14 County Ag/NR Educators, Bergefurd and the Specialty Crops Team have taught over 2,000 landowners at regional programs and authored 5 technical reports and fact sheets on the potential of growing hops as a specialty crop for Ohio’s $13.2 billion craft brewing industry. Working with the USDA Cooperative Development Center to form a hop growers association (Ohio Hop Growers Guild, OHGG.org).

As of fall 2017, 72 Ohio farmers report having planted about200 acres of hops, up from 4 acres in 2011, with an estimated annual farm gate crop sales value of $10 million. With this new local Ohio hop supply, Ohio breweries have begun using Ohio grown hops to produce a high-valued seasonal Wet-hopped Harvest Ale using wet hop cones delivered to Ohio breweries within hours of being picked by local hop growers. Harvest ales are an impossibly aromatic and bright IPA brew bursting with fresh pine, melon and citrus notes. Fresh hops are a high value specialty crop which demands a price premium 4x dried hop market value. Ohio brewers are now producing fresh-hopped Ohio ales using locally grown hops with an annual estimated retail value of over $5 million.

By Brad Bergefurd, Extension Educator, Agriculture and Natural Resources

Thanks to support from the Ohio Department of Agriculture, USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant, and the Ohio Vegetable and Small Fruit Research and Development Program that funded research exploring season extension production techniques, Ohio strawberry growers are profiting from adopting strawberry production technology based on research at the OSU South Centers.

Southern Ohio strawberry growers, south of I-70 and down to the Ohio River reported some of the best harvests in 2017 they can recall, achieving yields of almost 2 quarts per plant on some farms.

Strawberry market demand continues to grow and be strong in Ohio. Consumer demand at local farmers markets and farm markets continues to out-pace production. Consumer interest in “Pick-Your-Own” also continues to grow with most of this market demand peaking on weekends, for this is a form of “Agritainment” that families are wanting to experience. This weekend-only interest does make it necessary to have alternative weekday options to market strawberries. Demand is also strong for Ohio-grown strawberries at Ohio produce auctions and direct marketing to Ohio wholesaler buyers with many wholesale markets establishing “Buy Local” marketing campaigns to fulfill demand for local produce. Retail prices for the 2017 season ranged from $4 to $6 a quart pre-picked and $2.20 to $2.50 a pound for pick-your-own berries. The reported wholesale prices ranged from $2.25 to $3.85 a quart. Retail and wholesale prices are up from 2016, but growers report no consumer complaints.

Season extension production techniques continue to be explored and adopted to fulfill individual farm market demands. Though matted row production continues to be the main method, plasticulture production has been widely adopted to compliment the matted row system by providing a 3- to 4-week earlier harvest, which then leads into the later matted row harvest allowing farms to capture the consumer demand and a longer season with up to 12 weeks of cash flow. Ohio research continues and some farms are adopting greenhouse, high tunnel and/or summer day-neutral production to capture even more of the strong market demand. Growers that are harvesting and marketing day-neutral varieties through the summer and fall months are reporting great market demand and retail prices of $5 to $6 a pint. This summer production has complimented diversified farms that also produce and market summer-time fruit and vegetables. Growers who have adopted greenhouse and tunnel production for later harvest report the biggest issue being management of the Spotted Wing Drosophila and achieving economically feasible yields to cover the increased costs and management of these protected production systems. University and on-farm research is being performed to continue to refine these potential production systems for Ohio.

Weather was either the Ohio strawberry grower’s friend or foe in 2017. The very mild winter resulted in very little to no reported winter damage to plasticulture strawberry plants, that never go 100% dormant and are more prone to freeze damage than matted row. Weather was the southern Ohio grower’s friend when the spring warmed up earlier than normal, resulting in earlier bloom and harvest beginning the last two weeks in April, some of the earliest reported harvest dates ever. Spring frosts and freezing temperatures had to be managed some with row covers and sprinkler irrigation, but there were not many sleepless nights. Throughout harvest, rainfall was heavy in some areas resulting in some flooding making it difficult to get timely and frequent fungicide applications made. Some southern farms reported Botrytis outbreaks toward the tail end of harvest, due to rains during late bloom, or they would have picked even longer. There were also isolated reports of Leather Rot especially in northern areas where rainfall amounts were much heavier during initial bloom and lasted throughout the bloom period, resulting in field flooding and ponding and major crop damage and loss for some farms, especially in Northeast Ohio.    

Mechanical harvest aids are being adopted by more and more Ohio farms to increase harvest labor efficiency and increase the speed of harvest. Those that have adopted these harvest aids are reporting major savings in labor costs, as they are able to perform timely harvests with less labor. There also is continued research in mechanical harvesting techniques by Ohio engineering companies who showcased prototypes of mechanical harvesting robots at this year’s Strawberry Field Night held at the OSU Piketon Research & Extension Center in May and at several strawberry farms throughout Ohio. To keep up with market demand, mechanical harvesting options will need to be explored as seasonal labor becomes harder to find.  

The 2018 harvest season is looking good so far with high quality strawberry tips arriving from Canada and Nova Scotia the end of July showing no reported signs of disease or quality issues at this point. There were some 7- to 10-day delays in shipments from these northern Canada and Nova Scotia nurseries due to cool temperatures that delayed harvest of runner tips. The weather throughout August was great for on-farm and plug plant propagation by nurseries that have started growing plug plants for this growing market. There was not an overabundance of plug plants, because most nurseries plant on a pre-order basis, which made it difficult for growers that had not pre-ordered plants to find the plants they needed, resulting in them having to decrease acreage. Plant propagation nurseries reported an increase in plant orders. September weather allowed for timely planting of plasticulture strawberries with great plant stands and growth being reported. So far September and October weather has been a “Carolina” type of fall so flower bud initiation and branch crown development has been good so far.

A tri-state strawberry growers cooperative, including Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia farms continues to be researched with a core group of growers forming a steering committee in 2016 to explore the feasibility of forming a cooperative and/or association. This committee meets several times a year in conjunction with strawberry field days or conferences. If you are interested in what this cooperative may be able to do for your operation, contact founding member Danny VanMeter at VanMeter Family Farm 164 Old Peonia Loop Rd., Clarkson, KY 42726, Phone: 270-963-2320 or Brad Bergefurd at 740-289-2071 Ext. 136 or Dr. John Strang at University of Kentucky Dept. of Horticulture, N-318 Ag. Sci. Bldg. North, Lexington, KY 40546-0091 Phone: 859-257-5685 or Email: jstrang@uky.edu.

By Brad Bergefurd, Extension Horticulture Specialist

In 1994 the Piketon Research & Extension Center began high tunnel research on tomato and berry crops. Since that time over 3,000 high tunnels have been adopted by fruit and vegetable growers as a way to extend the harvest season. However, continuous cropping of high tunnels with specialty crops is resulting in reduced yields and quality of tomato crops. Partnering with Dr. Sally Miller of the OSU/OARDC Plant Pathology Department and her Vegetable Pathology Lab, USDA funding was received in 2016 to conduct on-farm research that explores soil-borne disease control methods.

Partnering with the Zimmerman family who owns Spring Valley Farm in Cynthiana, Ohio, this on-farm research trial was established in 2016 to conduct research and outreach programs to reduce the impact of soilborne diseases on production of locally grown, high-value vegetable crops. Two disease management strategies, anaerobic soil disinfestation and grafting, are being  optimized for Ohio farms and farmers are being educated on these technologies through specially designed workshops and trainings. Data being collected form this study is being used to develop a new soil diagnostic testing service to identify key soilborne diseases.

By Gary Gao, Ph.D., Extension Small Fruit Specialist and Associate Professor, OSU South Centers

Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Horticulture and Crop Science

Ryan Slaughter, Research Assistant, OSU South Centers

2016 was a busy and productive year for our specialty fruit crops horticulture program area. We conducted Extension and outreach programs for commercial fruit growers, revised fact sheets for consumers, conducted applied research projects, received new grants, and participated in international activities.

Extension Outreach:

Three key educational programs were offered at OSU South Centers in Piketon. They were the Ohio Super Berry and Wine Grape Workshop in March, Ohio Super Berry, Container Fruit Production and Wine Grape Field Night in July, and Wine Grape Analysis Work in December. Our research and demonstration plots were featured at all of these programs in addition to classroom presentations and field demonstrations by Gary Gao, Patrick Pierquet, Dong Qin, Ryan Slaughter, and Todd Steiner.

We also offered numerous tours of our research plots to students, new and existing growers, our colleagues at The Ohio State University and several other universities. Our group also participated in the 25^th year celebration of OSU South Centers in Piketon.

Dr. Gary Gao served on the planning committee for the 2016 Ohio Grape and Wine Conference in Dublin.  The program drew an excellent attendance in 2016 and evaluations were very positive.         

Dr. Gary Gao spoke at the OPGMA Congress, OEFFA Conference, Beech Creek Garden Symposium, Southwest Ohio Specialty Fruit and Vegetable School, Master Gardener volunteer training schools, and Farm Science Review in 2016. He also made several presentations in Chinawhich are highlighted in the International activities section.     

Dr. Gary Gao and Ryan Slaughter also updated and revised Extension fact sheets. 

The following revised fact sheets are now available on Ohioline:

Growing Apples in the Home Orchard - http://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/hyg-1401

Growing Peaches and Nectarines in the Home Landscape - http://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/hyg-1406

Raspberries for the Home Fruit Planting - http://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/hyg-1421

Growing Grapes in the Home Fruit Planting - http://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/hyg-1423

Growing Strawberries in the Home Garden - http://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/hyg-1424

Pruning Blueberry Bushes in the Home Garden - http://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/hyg-1430

Pruning Erect Blackberries in the Home Garden - http://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/hyg-1431

Research Projects:

Dr. Gary Gao and Ryan Slaughter had several on-going research projects at OSU South Centers in Piketon in 2016.  They were: Super Berry for Farm Diversification and Season Extension, Wine Cultivar Trial and Winter Protection, Container Fruit Production, and Chemigation for Pest Management.  Dr. Gao is also a Co-Principle Investigator of a multimillion dollar national USDA Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) project with Dr. Heping Zhu of USDA in Wooster and Dr. Peter Ling of OARDC/OSU, along with other faculty members at The Ohio State University and several land grant universities in the U.S.  

In 2016, Dr. Gary Gao and Ryan Slaughter received a new specialty crop block grant from USDA through ODA to work on grafted blueberry “trees,” new processing blueberry cultivars and fertility management of blueberries.  The project started in November, 2016.  Stay tuned for more information.

Dr. Gary Gao along with several researchers at OSU South Centers received an OARDC equipment grant in 2016. With the help of several cooperators, supporters, and our director Dr. Tom Worley, we were able to purchase a ThermoFisher Ultimate 3000 UHPLC ultra high performance liquid chromatography system and a MSQ single quadrupole mass spectrometer. This new system will greatly enhance the research capacity of all research areas at OSU South Centers.

By: Brad Bergefurd, Extension Educator Horticulture /Agriculture and Natural Resources 

Statewide interest purchasing local malting barley and hops by Ohio brewers has Ohio State University moving ahead with research and educational programming on these crops. Ohio commercial beer manufacturers and craft brewers send an estimated $36 million out of Ohio annually by purchasing hops and malting barley from west coast farmers. To help keep some of that economic activity within the state, the Ohio State University has developed a hop and malting barley research and education program focused on production and marketing. Dr. Mary Gardiner of the OSU Entomology Department, Brad Bergefurd of OSU South Centers and OSU Extension Scioto County, and Dr. Sally Miller of the OSU Department of Plant Pathology are the Principle Investigators of the Ohio hops research and industry development program.

Agricultural statistics records indicate that in 1871, barley was planted on 81,000 acres in Ohio, producing approximately two million bushels total. Today, barley production ranks well below other small grains in Ohio with only 6,000 acres planted in 2014 compared to 620,000 acres of wheat. Most of the barley grain cultivated today is a six-row feed winter barley variety used for livestock feed on-farm or sold at local elevators. Of the 6,000 acres of barley, less than 50 acres in 2015 were estimated to be of the malting barley variety in demand by craft brewers.

Dr. Eric Stockinger of the Ohio State University Horticulture and Crop Science Department began growing and testing  malting barley in the 2008–2009 growing season cultivation of malting type barleys at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) in Wooster and throughout northern Ohio. In 2013, Bergefurd and Gardiner partnered with Stockinger to expand this malting barley research into southern Ohio and began evaluating malting barley in southern Ohio at the Piketon Research and Extension Center, exploring both fall and spring planted varieties.  

The hop and malting barley projects are allowing Ohio State researchers and educators to develop sustainable production practices directly related to Ohio growing conditions that will develop these Ohio industries. Data collected from the field research trials allows us to educate growers about production, pest management practices, and marketing strategies to help them generate farm profits from these highly sought after crops. The research is evaluating new cultivars, innovative production techniques, insect and disease control methods, harvesting, processing, and marketing techniques that can be adopted by Ohio farmers.  The research will allow Ohio's beer manufacturers to spend their money in Ohio by purchasing Ohio-grown hops and malting barley and ultimately help create Ohio jobs, allowing Ohio growers to diversify into a high-value specialty crop. Preliminary research results indicate hops and malting barley can be successfully grown and marketed  throughout Ohio and are adaptable to most Ohio soil types.

The OSU South Centers Horticulture program conducted several hops and malting barley educational programs and field days in 2015, reaching over 2,000 people interested in learning more about the hop and malting barley research that is being conducted by the Ohio State University. These events included monthly first Friday educational tours at both the Piketon and Wooster research locations, three Hops Field Days held at the Wooster, Piketon and Bowling Green research sites and the 2^nd annual Hops and Craftbrewers Conference in Wooster with over 350 in attendance.  An Ohio Hop Farm tour was conducted in partnership with the Ohio Hop Growers Guild, OHGG.org, where over 500 people participated in all-day tours of ten commercial hop farms throughout Ohio. Hops workshop were also taught in two of Ohio’s Extension EERA regions in partnership with Extension Educators in those areas for new and interested hop farmers. 

For more information on the Ohio Hops and malting barley research and industry development program, visit our Ohio Hops Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/OhioHops or the OSU South Centers website http://southcenters.osu.edu/horticulture/other-specialties/hops for more information. If you would like to be added to the Ohio Hops email list serve to  receive Ohio hop updates and information, contact Brad Bergefurd, Bergefurd.1@osu.edu or call the OSU South Centers 1-800-860-7232 or 740-289-2071 extension #132.

By: Brad Bergefurd, MS, Horticulture Specialist and Extension Educator

Urban food hub organized and formed in 2014

A food hub to strengthen the local food system and increase access to healthy food in the Cincinnati area was formed in 2014 with support from the OSU South Centers Horticulture program, the OSU Direct Marketing Team and the Ohio Cooperative Development Center. The goals of the food hub are to increase organic vegetable production, sustain the food hub effort by developing and organizing training for farmers, and by creating family sustaining jobs in Greater Cincinnati. This effort began with the development of an incubator urban farm in April 2012, with an additional 100 acre farm leased and cultivated in 2014. In 2014, the incubator farm employed 20 people and 400 families purchased shares for a weekly Community Supported Agriculture Harvest box program. Our Harvest Cooperative aggregates produce, and supplies various retail and wholesale outlets. Our Harvest Cooperative is partnering with Cincinnati State’s newly launched Sustainable Agriculture Management Program which was spun off from the Specialty Crop Apprenticeship Training program started by OSU South Centers in 2013 where students come to the urban farm weekly for their practicum.

$100,000 Specialty Crop Block Grant received to explore new hop processing, plant propagation and production techniques

Thanks to a grant from the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the State of Ohio, and the United States Department of Agriculture, Ohio hop research and Extension education have increased. Brad Bergefurd as the projects Principle Investigator, and co-Investigators Mary Gardiner of the Department of Entomology and Sally Miller of the Department of Plant Pathology are leading this hops project to further support the growth of the expanding Ohio hops industry and craft brewing industry. Ohio’s brewing industry is booming! Legislation in 2013 allows Ohio’s craft brewers to invest more money into their breweries, increasing the demand for Ohio-grown hops. Over 140 licensed Ohio beer manufacturers and thousands of home brewers send an estimated $30 million in hops purchases and related jobs out of Ohio by purchasing the flowers of the hop plant, called hop cones or "hops" from out-of-state. Hops are a main ingredient in beer manufacturing, providing a bitterness that balances the sweetness of the malt sugars and a refreshing finish. Based on the increased interest from brewers in buying Ohio grown hops, Ohio farmers are investing in hops production. This project is providing the research based production guidelines for insect and disease management, irrigation and fertilization needed to produce Ohio hops in an ecological and economically sustainable manner. Further, Ohio growers are left without economical methods for post-harvest processing of hops that suit brewers’ needs and meets food safety guidelines. These are the critical priorities being addressed to move the hops industry forward. This project is expanding Ohio’s specialty crops research in hop production and is providing education and research focused on addressing Ohio hop production and processing issues that are impacting profitability of Ohio hop farmers, including plant nursery production, pest management, processing technology and grower education.

Horticulture program receives grant to conduct a three-year high tunnel training program

From field research the OSU South Centers began in 1996 and continues today, Ohio has faced an explosion of high tunnel production by mostly new producers due to conservation program incentives and an uptick in local foods and urban agriculture. High tunnels are a way to extend the season for fruit and vegetable crops. There is continued need for education at the beginner and advanced levels of pest management and production. Grafting techniques that add horticultural diversity and combat soil borne diseases, plus the introduction of a new fact sheet series on tomatoes has been incorporated into a three-year high tunnel training initiative, part of an $886,643 USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) grant. Brad Bergefurd is a co-principle investigator on this project.

Ohio has a huge demand for integrated pest management (IPM) training regarding high tunnels, with a mix of hundreds of existing seasoned operators needing advanced training, and a recent influx of almost 300 new growers requiring basic training due to the popularity of the Natural Resources Conservation Service EQIP High Tunnel initiative. The university-based and on-farm based training program that began at Piketon in April 2014 is for new and advanced growers, Extension Educators and Specialists who want to learn about high tunnel IPM and production management. This training program is comprised of a combination of on-site educational modules and experiential "in-tunnel" learning showing practical application.

Over 350 attend first annual Ohio Hop Growers Conference

We organized and taught the 1st annual Ohio Hop Growers Conference in Wooster, OH at the OSU OARDC campus on February 13th, 2014. With over 350 attendees, this workshop was a huge success! Brad Bergefurd was the Conference Moderator for the day-long conference and began the day with an overview of the hops industry in Ohio and the opportunities for Ohio farmers to grow for the ever-expanding Ohio Craft Brewing Industry. Other educators for the day (and topics) included: Andy Pax (beginner’s advice from an established grower), Chelsea Smith (pests and beneficial arthropods), USDA Farm service agency, Fulya Gurel (diseases and virus control and management in hops), Jason Channels (Ohio Department of Agriculture: food safety regulations and requirements for hops processing and sale), Dan Kamburoff (Irrigation design, setup, operation, fertigation and management for hops) and Eric Stockinger (Malting barley research and production opportunities in Ohio). A post-conference craft brewery tour was conducted at JAFB brewery in Wooster. The second annual Ohio Hop Conference will be held in partnership with the Ohio Craft Brewers Annual Conference on February 5 and 6, 2015 at the OARDC campus.

Brad Bergefurd, Horticulture Specialist and Extension Educator Agriculture & Natural Resources

Email: Bergefurd.1@osu.edu

Phone: 740-289-2071 ext. 136

Thom Harker, Research Assistant

Email: harker.4@osu.edu

Phone: 740-289-2071 ext. 177

Wayne Lewis, Farm Manager

Email: lewis.34@osu.edu

Phone: 740-289-2071 ext. 135

Charissa McGlothin, Program Assistant

Email: mcglothin.4@osu.edu

Phone: 740-289-2071 ext. 132

Chelsea Smith, Research Assistant

Email: smith.7231@osu.edu

Phone: 330-202-3555 ext. 2560

By: Brad Bergefurd, MS, Horticulture Specialist and Extension Educator

Thanks to a grant from the Ohio Vegetable and Small Fruit Research and Development Program, the Ohio State University South Centers Horticulture program has been researching pumpkin crops for over 20 years. This pumpkin research and extension program has explored new production methods that have been implemented on Ohio farms to add to the profitability of Ohio pumpkin enterprises. Pumpkins, gourds and winter squash are a big cash crop for Ohio. Ohio ranks third in pumpkin production in the United States, harvesting over 10 million pumpkins off of 6,100 acres, and generating over 15 million dollars in 2013.

One area of on-going research is the evaluation of new pumpkin germplasm or varieties that are in the testing stages or that will be soon entering the market. OSU South Centers have tested new selections to see how they perform under Ohio growing conditions and if they have the traits necessary for the wholesale and retail fall crops market, which, according to the National Retailers Association, is the second most decorated season of the year--second only to the Christmas holiday season. To view the results of pumpkin research performed in Ohio, visit our web site at: southcenters.osu.edu/horticulture/vegetables/pumpkins.

Manufacturers have the opportunity to place high school and career technical students as interns in their manufacturing operations. 

The Ohio Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) has created this internship program to assist manufacturers with their workforce needs and is providing financial assistance for participating Ohio manufacturers.

Advantages of having student interns:
•    contribute to developing your future manufacturing workforce
•    connect with schools to ensure students are work-ready
•    be reimbursed up to 50% of student wages (up to $1,500/student)

How does the program work?
•    We help you work with your local schools to select students for internship positions in manufacturing operations
•    We will design a work-based learning experience with you that is school-approved and complies with state requirements
•    You guide the student(s) through their internship experience
•    You are reimbursed 50% of each student’s wage (up to $1,500/student)
For more information on this program, contact Bret Whitaker via email at whitaker.77@osu.edu.

By Christie Welch
Direct Marketing Specialist

Nearly 100 farms from all across Ohio met Monday, March 25 at Maize Valley Winery in Hartville, Ohio to learn how agritourism is having a positive impact on Ohio’s farms.

Collaborating with OSU Extension, Wright & Moore Law, LPA, and Ohio Farm Bureau Federation to offer information and education to Ohio farmers, the day began with Bill Bakan, owner of Maize Valley Winery, sharing information with attendees on how to manage customer expectations.  Throughout the day he and his wife, Michelle, shared information on how they have grown their once dairy farm into the successful agritourism destination it is today.

What is agritourism? The USDA defines agritourism as “any business activity that invites visitors to come on the farm, ranch, or into a rural community to enjoy agriculture and the natural resources” (2004). And for many farmers and ranchers across the county, agritourism is proving to be a beneficial addition to the farm’s bottom line, as well as for spreading awareness of how food is produced.

There is a great deal of interest by consumers in how and where their food is produced.  Agritourism operations invite these consumers onto their farm in a variety of ways to help them learn about food production and farming in Ohio.  Agritourism is an agriculturally related educational, entertainment, historical, cultural, or recreational activity, including you-pick operations or farm markets, conducted on a farm that allows or invites members of the general public to observe, participate in, or enjoy that activity (Kirk-Hall, 2018). And since most Ohioans do not live on a farm, their interest in visiting farms is high.

But don’t just jump right in. You need to do your homework and some planning to ensure you are managing the associated risks of having the general public come onto your farm to enjoy the setting and the products you produce. March’s conference was designed to assist new and existing farmers learn about agritourism trends; how to evaluate and manage risks; understanding Ohio’s laws, rules, and regulations; how to work with your community; and see how others have successfully incorporated agritourism into their farming operations.

If you are considering adding an agritourism activity to your farm, the OSU South Centers Direct Food and Agricultural Marketing team can help.  There are a number of agritourism resources on the team’s website, southcenters.osu.edu/direct-marketing, or they can meet with you to discuss your new enterprise.

By Christie Welch
Direct Food & Agricultural Marketing Specialist

A new fact sheet has been published via Ohioline to assist Ohio’s farm/farmers’ markets interested in accepting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.  SNAP is the federal food assistance program known in Ohio as the Ohio Direction Card. 

These benefits allow income eligible Ohioans to purchase food for their families.  In 2017, 224 Ohio farm/farmers’ markets redeemed $270,510 in SNAP benefits, a 34.6 percent increase from 2012. Even with this positive increase, there are many more markets in Ohio that could accept SNAP benefits to increase where SNAP recipients can shop for locally produced foods. 

You can access the fact sheet at ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/anr-65. If you have questions or would like additional information about accepting SNAP at your market you can contact Christie Welch, welch.183@osu.edu.

By Christie Welch
Direct Food & Agricultural Marketing Specialist

If you are a small-scale food producer, there is required documentation you will need to complete in order to be compliant with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). This includes documentation of your size exemption as a “qualified facility” and various food safety programs.

A related special workshop, intended for small (< $1 million in sales/year) producers of fermented, canned, and other shelf-stable foods, is planned for various locations around the state. This one-day course is a hands-on opportunity for processors to develop their food safety documentation in small groups with individual coaching from instructors. Participants are encouraged to bring their existing documentation, if they have it, for review by instructors. Attendees should leave with completed or nearly completed food safety documentation for size exemptions, Good Manufacturing Practices, and Preventive Control Food Safety Plans as relevant.

LOCATIONS AND DATES:
• Columbus on December 13, 2018
• Athens on January 7, 2019
• Bowling Green on January 10, 2019
• Dayton on January 15, 2019
• Cleveland on January 29, 2019

TIME: Each location has its own timeframe. For more information and to register go to go.osu.edu/valueaddedfoodsafety2018-2019

COST: $25.00 per person

This workshop is being offered through support of The OSU Connect & Collaborate Grant, CFAES Department of Food Science and Food Industry Center, The Center for Innovative Food Technology (CIFT), Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet), and The OSU South Centers Direct Food & Agricultural Marketing Program.

By Christie Welch
Direct Agriculture Marketing Specialist

Local food producers and buyers had the opportunity to come together to network, learn from each other, and make connections – all in the name of helping citizens through increased access to Ohio produced foods.  

Beginning with a locally sourced breakfast consisting of sausage, bacon, eggs, milk, yogurt, granola, coffee, and baked goods, The Appalachian Table helped to raise awareness among producers and buyers about the diversity of local foods produced in the region, and the diversity of opportunities to sell to various markets.

Leslie Schaller, a founding member of Casa Nueva, shared experiences about sourcing local foods for her restaurant and value-added line. Highlighted were some of the logistical challenges of sourcing locally produced foods, accessing the ability to process those items, and then store them for year-round use in the restaurant.  Casa Nueva is an Athens, Ohio based, worker-owned cooperative restaurant that sources as much locally produced food as possible.
Sandra Gross, co-owner, and Frances Kroner, Executive Chef of Sleep Bee Café, shared information about their restaurants and working with local food producers.

They source as much locally produced foods as possible and then create seasonally inspired meals that are served in their Cincinnati area cafés.  Local producers appreciated their willingness to share about their process and learned from the success they shared.

Attendees also heard from a panel of producers that currently sell their locally produced products via various market channels:  McDowell Farms selling to a regional grocer, Way Farms sells via a farm market and farmers markets, and Two Roasting Joes sells via farmers’ markets and specialty stores.  Attendees were able to ask these producers about the challenges and opportunities of the various market channels they currently use.  One participate said that, “learning firsthand what restaurants and wholesale customers want from producers and how they want to be contacted” was very beneficial.  

Participants also appreciated the knowledge of the many resources that are available to help them grow their businesses.  Collaborators for the program included the OSU Extension Direct Food and Agriculture Marketing Team, The CFAES Center for Cooperatives, The Minority Business Assistance Center, The OSU South Centers Business Development Network, and The Appalachian Center for Economic Network (AceNet).

If you would like additional information about direct marketing locally produced food and agricultural products, the OSUE Direct Agricultural Marketing Team would like to help.  You can visit our website at southcenters.osu.edu/marketing or email welch.183@osu.edu for more information.

By Christie Welch, Direct Agricultural Marketing Specialist 

Agritourism is growing around the country. In an effort to assist Ohio’s agritourism operators connection with their communities and potential customers, the OSUE Direct Food and Ag Marketing team partnered with the Ohio Tourism Association to offer a workshop to current and potential agritourism operators. Agritourism provides farmers with the ability to diversify the income for the operations, can attract additional tourists to visit the communities in which they are located, and provide an opportunity for the general public to visit a farm to learn more about agriculture in Ohio.

The workshop was held in three locations around Ohio and we had the opportunity to learn more about the assistance that local Convention and Visitors Bureaus can provide to agritourism operators. In addition, Melinda Huntley Executive Director of Ohio Travel Association shared information about the benefits agritourism can provide to local communities and the businesses that serve the travelers.

In addition to these workshops, the OSUE Direct Food and Ag Marketing Team collaborated with Wright & Moore Law Company, LPA and the OSU Agriculture and Resource Law Program to host the first annual AgritourismReady workshop in the spring of 2017. This event was very well attended and participants heard from a variety of experts in the areas of ag law, risk management, zoning, marketing, and more. Due to the success of the workshops and the interest in agritourism in Ohio, the team is planning a second annual AgritourismReady workshop in March 2018. More information will be forthcoming.

If you would like to learn more about agritourism in Ohio, you can contact Christie Welch, Direct Marketing Specialist via email welch.183@osu.edu or via telephone 740-289-2071 ext. 234.

The OSUE Direct Food and Agriculture Marketing Program is supported by the OSU College of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Science and OSU Extension.

By: Dan Remley, MSPH, PhD, Assistant Professor and Field Specialist of Food, Nutrition, and Wellness

According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings, Pike County ranks 88 out of 88 counties. The rankings are based on obesity rates, health behaviors, healthy food access and other socio-ecological determinants of health. Pike County also ranks low in terms of students who complete post-secondary education training. Many of Pike County’s health problems mirror those of the larger Appalachian region and are attributed to socio-ecological determinants such as lack of healthy food access, food preparation skills, lack of awareness of nutrition science, traditional preferences for high calorie foods, food insecurity and poverty.

OSU Extension in Pike County and OSU South Centers developed and coordinated the Nutritional Sciences Field Day: The Story of the Strawberry to address some of the aforementioned challenges. The program was offered at OSU South Centers on May 25 to local high school agriculture and vocational, family and consumer science, and other science classes. The program objectives were to provide experiences and opportunities to increase awareness and interest in health science, food science, biotech, and ag science, basic and applied nutrition science and physiology and finally food production, local food resources. The students learned about opportunities from industry and academic leaders in various food and health sectors such as dieticians, biotech engineers, OSU faculty, and food processing. Students also participated in various hands on activities and discussion related to nutrition.

Around 60 students and teachers from 3 Pike County Schools attended the program. Before they had left, each student was asked to complete a program evaluation rating their awareness and interest on various topics before versus after program (results attached). Students were also asked what they had learned. Following the field day, students were more aware of the role that genetics play in play in fruit quality and nutrition, the daily recommendations for fruits and vegetables, and the nutritional benefits of small fruits. Students were also more interested in careers in agriculture, health and food sciences, and also more interested in buying local fruit.

When asked what they had learned, several remarked that they had learned much about research, strawberry properties, nutrition, and careers.

Two awards received during the annual Extension Conference

1st place- Epsilon Sigma Phi Team Teaching Award for More Than One Program Area- Recognizes Team Teaching that involved faculty and staff from more than one Extension program area including Family and Consumer Sciences, Community Development, Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Youth Development. The OSU South Centers team received the award during the annual meeting of Epsilon Sigma Phi held on the Ohio State University campus.

Epsilon Sigma Phi Distinguished Team Award- The award recognizes significant contribution to state Extension program planning and delivery.  Epsilon Sigma Phi is a professional organization dedicated to fostering standards of excellence in the Extension System, supporting the Extension profession, and developing the Extension professional.  Awards are presented annually to Extension professionals dedicated to fostering standards of excellence in the Extension System and developing the Extension profession and professional.

Both awards recognized team members:

Brad Bergefurd
Dennis DeCamp
Jeff Fisher
Gary Gao
Carol Hamilton
Thom Harker
Tammy Jones
Chelsea Peckny
Dan Remley
Karima Samadi
Vinayak Shedekar
Ryan Slaughter

By Ivory Harlow, Ohio Cooperative Development Center Program Specialist

Agricultural cooperatives have demonstrated steady growth and stable financial performance in recent years. They make strong contributions to the U.S. economy and create new employment opportunities for college graduates with degrees in agriculture. In 2015 there were 2,047 agricultural cooperatives in the United States, with a net income of $7 billion dollars and 136,300 full-time employees (USDA, SR79 Agricultural Cooperative Statistics). 

The Ohio State University has a long history of supporting cooperative education, including a long-offered undergraduate agricultural economics course that focuses specifically on the cooperative model. The Ohio Cooperative Development Center (OCDC) collaborates with Dr. Tom Worley and Dr. David Hahn of The Ohio State University Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Developmental Economics (AEDE) to facilitate components of the course. AEDE 3141 develops students’ understanding of the cooperative business model and cooperative principles as they relate to the organization and management of agribusinesses. 

OCDC works with teams of students to develop cooperative leadership multi-media projects. First, students choose a cooperative topic of interest on which to focus their project. Students may choose topics like the unique aspects of managing a co-op compared to investor-owned firms; the concept of the patronage refund and its role in the cooperative business model; or the roles and responsibilities of co-op members in the success of their business. Next, OCDC and course instructors are available to connect students with current cooperative managers, directors, or officers who share operational knowledge and real-world experience of the topic. Students interview the cooperative leader and compile interviews and background materials to create a 3-5 minute multimedia presentation. 

Students complete AEDE 3141 with a comprehensive understanding of agricultural cooperatives from coursework, lectures, and face-to-face discussions with cooperative leaders. The multimedia project helps students build skills in digital production and fosters meaningful connections with industry leaders.

“Access to engaging cooperative education materials for developers of new cooperatives, stakeholders of existing cooperatives, and students of cooperatives is one of the major challenges OCDC faces when providing education and technical assistance to the public and start-up cooperatives,” said Program Manager Hannah Scott. The benefit of the student multi-media projects reaches far beyond their personal learning, providing public education in an accessible and engaging format.

 The Center showcases students’ multimedia projects on the Ohio Cooperative Development Center’s website and utilizes students’ videos in OCDC’s cooperative education and outreach efforts. Past student projects can be viewed at southcenters.osu.edu/cooperatives/cooperative-resources. 

The center also plans to feature student projects in OCDC’s upcoming online training, Co-op Mastery: Beyond Cooperatives 101. The training will be housed in the public access version of Canvas, The Ohio State University’s online learning management system. The course will be available to the public in 2018.

Reference: Agricultural Cooperative Statistics SR79, 2015, USDA Rural Development. Retrieved April 10, 2017 from https://www.rd.usda.gov/files/publications/SR79AgriculturalCooperativeSt...

By Hannah Scott, OCDC Program Manager

Participants in the Ohio and West Virginia Food Hub Network learned first-hand the ins and outs of aggregating, distributing and even processing fresh produce when they toured multiple central Ohio produce companies during their recent quarterly meeting. Food hub stakeholders and support organizations from across the region were welcomed at Sanfillipo Produce Co., DNO Produce, LLC and DNO, Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, which have roots in produce wholesale and distribution spanning 100 years.

The tours of operational facilities gave participants the chance to observe working facilities, learn from employees about how produce is sources from growers, protocols for aggregating and distributing products to restaurants, grocers, institutions and other customers, as well as the importance of high quality and safe produce throughout aggregation, processing and distribution.    

The Ohio Cooperative Development Center (OCDC) at The Ohio State University South Centers leads the Ohio and West Virginia Food Hub Network. The program is a peer exchange network of representatives from new and emerging food hubs and incubator training farms as well as technical assistance providers from a various organizations. The regional effort began in early 2014 and participants now come together four times a year for programs that address the challenges of developing food hubs and training farms. Meetings also create a space for stakeholders to learn from one another. Past programs have focused on financial planning and finance resources, examining successful models, and quality and safety assurance. The network also incorporates other activities throughout the year, including educational webinars.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines regional food hubs as, “a business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of source-identified food products primarily from local and regional producers to strengthen their ability to satisfy wholesale, retail, and institutional demand.”[1] Efforts to create food hubs in Ohio and West Virginia have gained a great deal of interest recently; the businesses can create a variety of community benefits, including market access for local and regional producers.

The Ohio and West Virginia Food Hub Network will continue the learning about successful aggregation and distribution models at their upcoming August meeting in Davis, West Virginia. If you are interested in learning more about the meeting or registering, please visit the following link http://southcenters.osu.edu/cooperatives/ocdc-non-profit-local-foods-network-inc

If you are interested in learning more about cooperative food hubs or the Ohio and West Virginia Food Hub Network, please contact Hannah Scott, scott.1220@osu.edu or 740-289-2071 x227.

By: Christie Welch, OCDC Program Manager and Brad Bergefurd, Horticulture Specialist and Extension Educator

2014 was a year of growing cooperatives in Ohio and West Virginia. The Ohio Cooperative Development Center (OCDC) at the OSU South Centers worked with new and emerging cooperatives related to local foods, farmers’ markets, the wood industry, and others to help improve the economic status of cooperative members. The clients that received technical assistance and training from OCDC in 2014 reported that they created 26 jobs, retained 34 jobs, invested $1.7 million in capital, and increased sales by $98,000. These new and emerging cooperatives are having positive economic impacts on their local communities. Following are some highlights from a few of these cooperatives.

The Ohio Hop Growers Guild officially incorporated in 2014

With the assistance of Brad Bergefurd, Horticultural Specialist at the OSU South Centers, Christie Welch and Tom Snyder of OCDC provided expertise and guidance to Ohio hop growers to determine the feasibility and lead the formation of the Ohio Hop Growers Guild (OHGG). OCDC provided technical assistance and information about the cooperative model for a group of hops producers looking to cooperatives to help grow the hops industry in Ohio. The group is working to plan for and meet the needs of the rapidly expanding Ohio craft brewing industry. The mission of the Ohio Hop Growers Guild is to unify, grow, educate, and protect the Ohio hops growing community; to increase sales of Ohio-grown hops through cooperative promotions, marketing, and increasing industry awareness; and to monitor and assure a sustainable hops industry within the state of Ohio. The Guild is committed to the following objectives:

1) Advocating for Ohio-grown hops under an OHGG Seal of Quality, cooperatively marketing and promoting the OHGG brand to increase awareness of and demand for Ohio-grown hops.

2) Improving product quality, grower efficiency and profits through education and collaboration.

3) Leveraging combined purchasing power through voluntary joint-purchasing programs and access to resources.

4) Representing the independent producers, which include both general members and the board of directors. The interim Board of Directors includes Dave and Nina Volkman of Ohio Valley Hops, Maineville, Ohio; TJ Merrill of Paradune Brewing Farm, Belle Center, Ohio; Joseph Pellegrino of Mankato Farms, New Carlisle, Ohio; and Brad Bergefurd, OSU South Centers Horticultural Specialist, an ex-officio director representing academia. The Guild will be presenting at the 2015 Ohio Hops Conference on future Guild opportunities.

The Ohio and West Virginia Food Hub Network

Many local communities want to significantly increase the production, processing, and marketing of locally-grown fresh food for their residents. However, to meet this growing demand, the production of locally-produced foods must increase. The question then becomes: How should we support the growing or expansion of growers and facilitate the local food-related value chain business expansions or start-ups in order to have major impact? To help address this need, Tom Snyder of OCDC worked with partners to form a food hub networking group. This group supports the development of growers and value chain businesses to meet the increasing demand for locally-produced foods.

The Food Hub Network is:

• Supporting regional food hub planning and executive boards/leaders

• Providing and/or connecting individuals to the needed technical assistance

• Developing and sharing grower training resources and business model templates

• Providing regional, state, and national networking opportunities

This food hub network group was formed in 2014. Participants include representatives of sixteen new and emerging food hubs and incubator farms, technical assistance providers, funding agencies, business development service centers, and educational institutions. The network’s goal is to develop successful food hub models that produce, process, and market significantly more locally grown and/or locally processed food while creating new businesses and jobs for local communities.

Sharing Best Practices with Policy Makers

In addition to assisting new and emerging cooperatives in Ohio and West Virginia, OCDC has been working with WVU College of Law to help research cooperative statues throughout the United States. The results of this research will be shared with policy makers in West Virginia to consider when looking to update the state’s statues on cooperatives. While the WV state legislature made some updates to the regulations in 2014, the types of groups that can choose the cooperative model are limited to agricultural based enterprises. Expanding the cooperative model to other industries would encourage the formation of additional cooperatives in West Virginia.

By: Brad Bapst, SBDC Director and Counselor

The District 7 Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at The Ohio State University South Centers is an eight-person team including a Regional Director, six Certified Business Advisors® and an administrative program assistant. The District 7 SBDC Center also utilizes a unified delivery model to incorporate resources from other programming affiliated with the Ohio State University South Centers, including an International Trade Assistance Center, Manufacturing and Technology Small Business Development Center, Ohio Cooperative Development Center, Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and OSU Extension programs.

Regional partnerships are the primary source of referrals for the District 7 SBDC. The South Centers maintains formal agreements with three local universities for regional economic development collaboration. The SBDC also utilized formal Memorandums of Understanding with the Southern Ohio Procurement Outreach Center, the district’s PTAC, and Pike County Community Action. These relationships help the region’s entrepreneurs, business owners and small manufacturers with technical assistance and training.

The OSU South Centers SBDC Center also participated in multiple entrepreneurial focused events throughout the year such as: Aquaculture Boot Camp, Business Blog Talk, From Dream to Reality, and the Southern Ohio Agricultural and Community Development Foundation tobacco diversification initiative.

Aquaculture Boot Camp was a year-long training program serving the entire state of Ohio to develop new farmers and ranchers in the aquaculture industry. The program couples business planning and scientific technical assistance for the potential new aquaculture producers. The SBDC provided all-encompassing counseling to the business aspects of aquaculture operations.

Business Blog Talk is a weekly podcast that incorporates business resources and highlights entrepreneurial successes in our region. Over 10,695 listeners have tuned in from around the globe. This is a unique and innovative approach to communicate with our clients and partners about the services available and to share success stories that help market the businesses of OSU South Centers clients.

From Dream to Reality is a five-week course that meets twice a week and is designed to provide an opportunity to learn a variety of skills needed to own and operate a business. This course is offered two times per year through a partnership with the Pike County Community Action Agency.

The SOACDF tobacco diversification initiative is an annual program for agribusiness and next generation farmers to diversify from tobacco production into another profitable agricultural venture.

The OSU South Centers SBDC acted as a champion for the businesses in District 7, advocating on behalf of clients to help them attain their business goals. The counselors often assisted with open house planning, flyer development and new product launches for our clients. Assistance with press releases and advocating with local chambers and economic development organizations on the client’s behalf continues to be a common practice.

The staff of the OSU South Centers SBDC continues to engage community organizations to maintain awareness of changing entrepreneurial needs in the region and develop solutions to combat any negative impact to the economy. Counselors volunteered time to serve as board members on several chambers of commerce, a regional board established to support economic development, and advisory boards for business organizations to increase awareness of business issues and identify solutions to problems.

SBDC Achievements

The SBDC won the top performing center in the Columbus SBA District and was nominated for the multi-state 2014 SBA Small Business Development Center Service Excellence and Innovation award by the State Lead Center located within the Ohio Development Services Agency. The center was notified that it won this six-state regional award in April and was recognized by the SBA at the 2014 Small Business Awards Dinner in Grove City, Ohio.

In 2014 the OSU South Centers SBDC provided 4,509 one-on-one consulting hours to 378 clients. As a result, the clients started 25 new businesses, obtained $22,094,068 in loans and other capital, helped create 179 jobs and increased sales by nearly $20,387,492. The SBDC also provided 18 training sessions with 237 attendees. Training topics included general business management and growth principles, Microsoft Office products and social media outlets.

By Dr. Rafiq Islam
SWBR Program Leader

Healthy soil is the foundation of climate-smart (sustainable) agriculture. 

Rafiq Islam, the director of the Soil, Water, and Bioenergy Resources program at The Ohio State University South Centers delivered an in-depth research presentation titled  “Healthy Soils, Healthy Food, Healthy People” at the Cover Crops, No-Till, and Soil Health session of the Conservation Tillage and Technology Annual Conference (CTTC) at Ohio Northern University in Ada on Tuesday, March 5. 

In his presentation, Islam discussed how climate-smart agriculture, based on novel and holistic approaches of continuous no-till, cropping diversity with multi-species cover crops or blends, precision chemigation, soil amendments and chemical inducers, helps to improve soil quality and health to provide healthy and nutritious foods in the support of public health. 

Using long-term experimental data, Islam showed that healthy soils produce foods enriched and balanced with diverse amino acids and protein contents. Moreover, food grains produced on healthy soils are fortified with both macro- and micronutrients (higher nutrient density) especially nitrogen, protein, calcium, sulfur, iron, zinc, and others. Foods enriched and fortified with optimum and balanced concentrations of diverse amino acids and nutrients are expected to improve food quality to support better public health.

By Dr. Rafiq Islam
Soil, Water, & BioEnergy Program Leader

The Ohio State University is actively involved in capacity building of the research, education, and Extension activities at the Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences-Jiamusi located in the Peoples Republic of China. 

Dr. Rafiq Islam and Ken Ford (Fayette County Extension Educator) from The Ohio State University; Drs. Ismail Dweikat and Oscar Rodriguez from University of Nebraska-Lincoln; and Drs. Sougata Bardhan and Safiullah Pathan from University of Missouri and Lincoln University-Missouri visited China at the invitation of the Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences during August-October of 2018. 

Dr. Islam led the visit. All of the experts from the United States delivered professional presentations on climate change and crop productivity, corn and soybean breeding, soil amendments, bio-fertilization, and Extension outreach activities.
Based on their acquired experience with Chinese agricultural management practices, Dr. Islam and others have developed an applied research and Extension outreach coordination with scientists at the Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences–Jiamusi Branch in 2014. As a part of their effort, they have established a long-term applied research project entitled “Tillage and Cropping Systems Impact on Soil health and Agroecosystem Services.” 

Several of the OSU Extension Educators, scientists, and faculty members visited the Chinese academy to further strengthen the bridge of collaboration. Likewise, several exchange scientists and students from the Chinese academy visited The Ohio State University to acquire science-based knowledge on 21st century climate-smart agriculture.

By Dr. Rafiq Islam
Soil, Water, & BioEnergy Program Leader

Dr. Sergiy Lavrenko, an assistant professor with the Department of Agriculture, Faculty of Agronomy at Kherson State Agricultural University in Kherson, Ukraine has completed his two-month fellowship in our Soil, Water, and Bioenergy Resources Program at The Ohio State University. 

He came to South Centers as one of the visiting scholars sponsored by the Civilian Research Defense Foundation-Ohio State University US-Ukraine Competitive Research Program for his professional development to teach and conduct research and disseminate information on climate-smart agriculture.

During his two-month fellowship period at The Ohio State University, he played a significant role in our program’s teaching, research, and Extension activities. He was actively involved in lab and field research and learned several new techniques to collect, process, and analyze biological, chemical, and physical indicators of soil quality associated with enhanced ecosystem services under climate-smart agriculture.

He is a very responsible and highly motivated individual who worked hard to fulfill his training program goal. We were very impressed with his research work and educational activities.

By Rafiq Islam, PhD
Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources Program

Several members of our Soil, Water, and Bioenergy Resources Program staff and The Ohio State University Extension educators recently organized a field day on “Hands-on Soil Health” for farmers and two-day “Advanced Soil Health Systems” workshops for USDA-NRCS personnel in Indiana.

The field day and workshops were held in Wenning Farms, Greensburg, and Brocksmith Farms, Vincennes, Indiana, respectively from July 24 to 26, 2018.

On the first day (Field day), topics covered included: “What Insects where? Analysis of pit fall trap (insect trap) contents from fields in a soil health management system vs. conventionally tilled/managed fields”; “How healthy is my soil? In-field use of OSU Soil Health Test Kits to measure CEC, Active carbon, Aggregate stability, and other key assessments of soil health and function”; “What is working? What is in the plots? Reports on Wenning’s current experimental plot work”; and “What can I change? How different cropping practices can positively (or negatively) affect soil health and function?”

Dr. Rafiq Islam and Alan Sundermeier from The Ohio State University, Barry Fisher from USDA-NRCS National Soil Health Division, Stephanie McLain from USDA-NRCS Indiana State Soil Health Program, 

Joe Rorick from Conservation Cropping Systems Initiative, and Roger Wenning, Host and Soil Health Farmer of the Wenning Farms, spoke to the farmers and demonstrated several soil health field tests.

On the second and third day (Advanced soil health systems) workshop, the training provided opportunities to build applied soil health systems knowledge and skills. In-Field Soil Health Assessment Worksheet, Pit Fall Trap Assessments, Soil Health Test Kits - CEC, Active Carbon, Aggregate Stability, Rainfall Simulator - Getting full use of the demo, and Soil Health Test Kit for Interpretation of Results and Management suggestions to improve soil health. Topics are selected based upon training needs and current cropping concerns. Target audience for this training included ICP staff, farmer-mentors, agronomists, and other Ag professionals who have completed Core Trainings and/or previously attended Advanced Soil Health Systems Trainings. 

More than 100 people including farmers, educators, consultants, state and federal personnel, students, and non-profit personnel attended the field day and workshop. The participating educators received CCA credit for their professional development. Dr. Yogi Raut attended both field day and workshop to demonstrate the soil health test kit.

Vinayak Shedekar
Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources Program

The Second International Conference on Food and Agriculture was held at Dhanbad, Jharkhand (India) during March 29-31, 2018.

Dr. Vinayak Shedekar, Research Associate-II with the Soil, Water, and BioEnergy Resources (SWBR) Program was among the three Ohio State University delegates who organized a 2-day special session on “Climate-smart Agriculture” (CSA). Dr. Bryan Mark, State Climatologist of Ohio and Dr. Asmita Murumkar, Post-doctoral Researcher in the Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering joined Shedekar. 

The session featured talks from experts, educators, and representatives from non-profit organizations relating to the development of climate-smart agricultural systems, tools, crops, and communities. 

The speakers presented topics such as role of youth in climate change adaptation, climate change assessment, and climate-smart technologies, among others. The session kicked off with Dr. Bryan Mark’s presentation that highlighted the framework for climate change assessment, adaptation, and mitigation in USA and India. Dr. Asmita Murumkar delivered a talk on assessing climate change impacts. Vinayak presented use of decision tools for climate-smart agriculture. Two presentations on developing climate-smart crops were another highlight of the session. 

Dr. Ismail Dweikat, Professor in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, presented his research on developing drought tolerant crops in response to changing climate. The presentation highlighted sorghum and pearl millet as alternative crops that can be grown in deficit-irrigated or water scarce regions. 

The CSA session concluded with an expert panel question-answer session, which ranged from scientific queries to extension and outreach related questions.

By Rafiq Islam and Wayne Lewis
Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources Program

Recently, OSU South Centers farm manager Wayne Lewis and Dr. Rafiq Islam visited Ukraine to establish a long-term CLIMATE-SMART agricultural research experiment. 

The goal of our research is to develop climate-smart agricultural management practices based on novel and holistic approaches of crop diversification (rotation and cover crops) with plant stress alleviator (salicylic acid) under continuous no-till that helps improve soil quality, water- and nutrient-use efficiency, reduced greenhouse gas emission, and economic crop productivity with enhanced agroecosystem services. 

Soil, crop, water, greenhouse gas emission, input, and climatic and economic data will be collected and analyzed to deliver the project outcomes and outputs. Proven traditional and electronic outlets will be used for outreaching Ukrainian clientele (both educators and farmers) to show agriculture is not the problem, but a part of the environmental solution.

The project was funded though the Civilian Research Defense Foundation under US-Ukraine Research Collaboration. Rafiq Islam the US Principal Investigator and Dr. Natalia Didenko is the Ukrainian Principal Investigator for the project. 
The Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources Program is conducting the field research in conjunction with scientists from the Institute of Water Resources and Land Management (Ministry of Agriculture), Institute of Irrigated Agriculture, Askaniya State Agricultural Experimental Station, and Brylivske state farm. Professor Vozhehova R. Anatoliivna (Director), Dr. Maliarchuk M. Petrovich (Main Scientific Researcher), Maliarchuk A. Sergiivna (Senior Researcher), and Biliaeva I. Mykolaivna (Department Head) from the Institute of Irrigated Agriculture; Melnik Andrej (Chief Agronomist), Nadia Reznichenko (Scientific Secretary), Vira Konavalova (Junior Scientist), Natalia Galchenko (Director), Victor Naydenov (Director), Oleksandr Knyazev (Chief of Laboratory of Agrotechnology), Tetyana Levenec (Junior Scientist), and Sergij Roj (Junior Scientist) from the Askaniya State Agricultural Experimental Station; and Cherevychnyj Yurij (Head of the Research Fields) and Kiberlenko Ivan (Director) of the state farm Brylivske, will be working with us as members of the team.

As part of the research activities, both Rafiq Islam and Wayne Lewis delivered presentations and conducted interactive discussions on no-till system, mono-cropping with corn or soybeans, corn-soybean-wheat cropping diversity with summer and winter cover crop blends maintain soil moisture, control weeds, provide home-grown nitrogen, reduce soil compaction, and improve soil quality. They also discussed the effects of salicylic acid on improving the drought tolerance capacity of crops. Both demonstrated to their Ukrainian collaborators how to measure compaction, soil pH, moisture content, and soil quality in the field using simple equipment and the OSU Soil Quality Field Test Kit. 

Finally, the field experiment was established to test 2 tillage systems x 2 cover crops x 2 salicylic acid treatments with three replications on 45 acres of irrigated lands at the “Askaniya” State Agricultural Experimental Station and state farm “Brylivske” under in Kherson Oblast, Southern Ukraine.

By Yogendra Raut 
Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources Program

While high-input conventional agriculture produces greater amounts of food, feed, energy, and fiber in developed countries, subsistence agriculture in Africa is one of the factors responsible for chronic food shortages. Current practices in both situations are associated with soil health degradation and food insecurity, and contribute to diminished agroecosystem services.

As the threats of climate change are constantly increasing, and in fact, its impact has already shown devastating effects in Africa. The looming prospect of reduced agroecosystem services demands a knowledge-based solution to support sustainable agriculture in Africa.

In light of some of the management practices for developing sustainable agriculture in Africa, Drs. Yogendra Raut, Vinayak Shedekar and Rafiq Islam visited Burkina Faso, West Africa in February and March 2018. Dr. Alimata A. Bandaogo, a Research Scientist from the Institute of Environment and Agricultural Research (INERA) and a former USDA-FAS Borlaug Fellow (mentored by Rafiq Islam) facilitated our visit to Burkina Faso. 
We organized two workshops jointly organized by The Ohio State University, INERA, and USDA-FAS Norman Borlaug Fellowship Program; first in Bobo-Dioulasso on February 27  and the second in Ouagadougou (Capital of Burkina Faso) on March 1.  Opening remarks were made by the Director-General of INERA-Burkina Faso and a briefing about INERA mission by Drs. Ouedraogo Ibrahima (Regional Director) and Alima Bandaogo, respectively. 

The overall methodology of the workshops was based on participatory action research.  Interactive presentations were delivered at each workshop highlighting: Rethinking agriculture in the 21st century, Sustainable agriculture decision tools, Soil health test and interpretation, and Forage/pasture and animal grazing – challenges and opportunities in Burkina Faso. Several demonstrations of the soil health test/soil organic matter (SOM) calculator were performed. A participatory brain storming session was conducted at both locations to identify current agricultural problems in Burkina Faso, which were: lack of knowledge of delivery systems (Extension), climate-change and soil quality management practices, water quality and irrigation, and availability of suitable equipment. About 30 participants from INERA, local government, private companies, international donor agency (JICA), and farmers’ representatives at each location participated in the workshops.

By: Rafiq Islam, PhD, Soil, Water, and Bioenergy Resources Program Director

Several program specialists and scientists at the Ohio State University (OSU) South Centers have received USDA-Capacity Building, NCR-SARE Partnership, and CRDF US-Ukraine collaborative research grants in recent months.

The Ohio State University joined in a collaborative partnership with Central State University (CSU) through a project ($592,493) funded by the USDA National Institutes for Food and Agriculture under the 1890 Land Grant Institution Capacity Building Program. Rafiq Islam, Brad Bergefurd, and Matthew Smith are the OSU investigators, who will help to guide CSU’s capacity building to provide academic education, conduct applied research, and disseminate Extension outreach on water chemistry of aquaponics production system over a 3-year period. Both CSU and OSU will jointly disseminate findings from the study to urban youth, and disadvantaged farmers, environmentalists, and other stakeholders.

Rafiq Islam and Natalia Didenko (a former USDA-FAS Borlaug fellow from Ukraine) received a 1-year collaborative grant proposal funding ($107,000) from the CRDF Global* 2017 U.S.-Ukraine Agricultural Research Competition. The goal of the project is to develop suitable agricultural management practices based on novel and holistic approaches of crop diversification with plant stress alleviator (salicylic acid - aspirin) under continuous no-till that help to improve soil quality, water- and nutrient-use efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emission, and increase economic crop productivity with enhanced agroecosystem services.

The research team members from the Institute of Water Problems and Land Reclamation, Kyiv, the Institute of Irrigated Agriculture, Kherson State Agrarian University, Dnipro State Agrarian University, and The Ohio State University. Funding for year one of this project will help to establish the test plots for what is hoped to be a long-term effort to identify the most promising agronomic combinations to maintain and/or improve soil health and agroecosystem services in dry conditions in Ukraine.

Proven traditional and electronic outlets will be used for outreaching Ukrainian clientele to show agriculture is not the problem, but a part of the environmental solution.

Rafiq Islam and Vinayak Shedekar in collaboration with Alan Sundermeier from The Ohio State University Extension - Wood County has received a collaborative grant funding ($29,980) from the USDA NCR-SARE Partnership Program. The goal of the project is to develop soil health testing, interpretations, management recommendations for farmers by the team of soil scientists, and extension educators. Farmers growing grain and vegetable crops in Ohio, and representing a wide range of practices such as no-till, conventional tillage, cover crop, and crop rotations will be reached by the program.

*CRDF Global is an independent non-profit that was originally named the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation for the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (CRDF) and was funded by the U.S. Government under the Freedom Support Act.

By Dr. Rafiq Islam, Soil, Water, and Bioenergy Resources Program Director

Recently, Drs. Tom Worley, Director of the OSU South Centers and Rafiq Islam, Borlaug mentor have visited Ukraine to meet the USDA-Borlaug mentee, Dr. Natalia Didenko. Dr. Didenko organized and managed the mentor follow-up trip very professionally based on the skills she acquired during her Borlaug fellowship period at the Ohio State University in 2016. As part of our program schedule, we visited (1) Institute of Water Problems and Land Reclamation, National Academy of Agrarian Sciences in Kyiv, Ukraine; (2) Agro-ecology and Forestry Research Institute in Zhytomyr; (3) Kherson State Agrarian University, Kherson; (4) Institute of Irrigated Agriculture, Kherson; and (5) Dnipro State Agrarian and Economic University, Dnipro.

We met Director Dr. Romashchenko Mykhailo and his division specialists at the Institute of Water Problems and Land Reclamation. They discussed accelerated salinity and degraded soil quality, droughts, and soil compaction issues in response to climate change effects. In response, Dr. Tom Worley delivered a presentation on Ohio State University and South Centers for possible research, academic and extension and outreach collaboration to address some of the issues raised by the director and specialists. Dr. Rafiq Islam also gave a research and Extension presentation on sustainable management of soil quality and water resources in response to climate change effects on Ukraine.

We were accompanied by Dr. Didenko to visit Kherson State Agrarian University and Institute of Irrigated Agriculture in southern Ukraine. We met Rector Dr. Yuriy Kryylov, deans, and senior professors to discuss collaborative research and Extension outreach on sustainable soil and water management practices in the Kherson region.

As part of our program, we visited several private farms (e.g. Freedom Farm International) as well as State farms (Askaniyskoe). We met a pioneer no-till farmer (Stefanov) in Kherson, who is currently managing 12,000 ha lands (30,000 acres) with no-till, cover crops and crop rotation for the last 12 years to improve soil health, reduced soil compaction and minimize water-use for irrigation. Visiting that farm was amazing to see the results being achieveable using sustainable agriculture methods.

By the initiation of Drs. Natalia Didenko and Iryna Volovyk, Chief of International Affairs Dept., Dnipro State Agrarian and Economic University), we met Rector Anatoly S. Kobets, vice-rectors, deans, several professors, and international program officials of the Dnipro State Agrarian and Economic University and discussed collaboration. Later, Professors Olexandr Mironov and Mykola Kharytonov from Soil and Ecology Dept. of the Dnipro State Agrarian and Economic University took us to visit reclaimed and abandoned mine-lands currently under phytoremediation process to generate bio-feedstock production for energy. With Professor Olexandr Mironov, we also visited “Agro Soyuz” one of the largest private Ag-enterprises in Dnipro, who promotes no-till and cover crops use in Ukraine.

Throughout our visit, we had several discussions with our Ukrainian counterparts to develop academic courses, conduct applied research, and initiate Extension outreach programs with their specialists. We also discussed initiation of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with The Ohio State University. Accordingly, Dr. Tom Worley signed the MOU with the Institute of Water Problems and Land Reclamation institute, as the MOU was approved by the OSU Office of International Programs earlier.

Currently, we are working to develop a “Visiting scholar exchange program” to bring scientists from several universities and institutes in Ukraine to work in Soil, Water, and Bioenergy Resources Program of The Ohio State University South Centers, starting May 2018.

Dr. Alima Arzouma Bandaogo, a new USDA-FAS Borlaug visiting scholar from Burkina Faso in West Africa has recently joined our Soil, Water and, Bioenergy Resources Program. Currently, she is employed at the National Institute of Environment and Agronomic Research as a senior Soil Scientist since 2014. Alima has focused her research on integrated soil fertility management because accelerated soil degradation is one of the major problems that is affecting smallholder farmers in Africa, including Burkina Faso. Agriculture in Burkina Faso is characterized by minimum investment, poor crop yields, and low farm income as the soils are poor quality with low soil organic matter and nutrient contents, especially nitrogen and phosphorus. Almost 85% of the population in Burkina Faso is involved in agriculture for growing rice, corn, sorghum, and millet as staple food crops.

Alima received the highly competitive prestigious USDA-FAS Borlaug fellowship to work in the Soil, Water, and Bioenergy Resources Program of The Ohio State University South Centers for her professional development under the mentorship of Dr. Rafiq Islam. Her training focus is to acquire science-based knowledge to address integrated soil fertility management practices for economic crop production in Burkina Faso under climate change effects. She is eager to learn more about new soil and crop analytical techniques, soil quality, cover crops and nutrient recycling, crop rotation and tillage systems, greenhouse gas emissions, field experiments, sampling procedures and multivariate statistics, manuscript and grant writing techniques.

Since her arrival in September to the United States, she has attended the World Food Prize Award Conference in Des Moines, Iowa in October 2017. As part of her research achievement, she has delivered a scientific presentation at the American Society of Agronomy /Crop Science Society of America/Soil Science Society of America Annual International Meeting in Tampa, Florida in October 2017. Moreover, she has been selected as one of the invited scholars to deliver a poster presentation at the International Scholar J-1 Research Exposition on November 17, 2017, at The Ohio State University President’s Office. She will attend and participate at the Licking County Field Day on November 16, 2017 and the Ohio No-Till Conference on December 6, 2017 in Plain City to learn more about no-till farming, crop rotation, cover crops, and nutrient and manure management practices.

By Rafiq Islam, PhD, Soil Program Director

The Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources (SWBR) Program of the OSU South Centers, in conjunction with International Programs in Agriculture (IPA) and USDA-Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA-FAS), hosted six delegates from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture under the Crop Rotation and Soil Quality Monitoring and Detection sector of the US-China Scientific and Cooperative Exchange Program (SCEP). Dr. Rafiq Islam was the primary trainer and principal investigator of the Crop Rotation and Soil Quality Monitoring and Detection project. The program was coordinated by Beau Ingle, Program Manager of the OSU International Programs in Agriculture. The SCEP delegation was led by Dr. Yuguo Liu, Deputy Director-General of the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture’s Farmland Quality Monitoring and Protection Center. 

As maintaining a healthy and productive soil is the foundation of sustainable agriculture, the goal of the project was to expose senior officials from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture to the layered cross-sectors of the U.S. agricultural system for interaction and understanding, supporting and strengthening the Chinese agricultural sector in preserving and improving farmlands.

As part of the SCEP, the delegates visited the U.S. Capitol Building, Supreme Court Building, Library of Congress, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). They met officials from USDA-Foreign Agricultural Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Washington, DC. In addition, they visited several national labs and programs at the USDA-Agricultural Research Service facilities in Beltsville, Maryland to understand the importance of publicly funded agricultural research in priority areas of crop production, soil quality monitoring, and sustainable agriculture.

At OSU, the SCEP participants had a series of meetings with the Vice President for Agricultural Administration and Dean, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, and leadership from Ohio State University Extension to learn more about the land-grant university system, Ohio agriculture, and OSU Extension services. Mike Estadt, Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension Educator in Pickaway County, led a very productive meeting between the Chinese delegation and Pickaway County Extension, Soil and Water Conservation District, NRCS personnel, and representatives from local farm and banking communities. They were really impressed with the mission and vision of the OSU and the national 4-H programs.

To know and learn more about state agricultural programs, the SCEP fellows visited the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) to meet Director David Daniels and ODA administrators from the Division of Soil and Water Conservation, Division of Plant Health, and Office of Farmland Preservation.

The SCEP delegates visited OSU South Centers to learn about nationally and internationally collaborative applied research and Extension programs of Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources, especially with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Heilongjiang Province (Jiamusi branch). As part of the SCEP schedule, the delegates toured several showcase farms in Ohio, including the Brandt Family Farm (Fairfield County), John Fulton farm (Pickaway County), and Aaron Lemaster farm (Jackson County) to discuss and learn more on sustainable agricultural practices such as no-till, crop rotation, cover crop blends, soil health and field test, compaction and drainage.

We believe that the Chinese SCEP participants had a good understanding of how OSU Extension facilitates and delivers the exchange of science-based knowledge and tools between agricultural producers and other agricultural and natural resources stakeholders as it pertains to the promotion of conservation and the protection of farmlands.

By Vinayak Shedekar, PhD, Soil Research Associate

The OSU Extension Healthy Soil Healthy Environment signature program has launched a new monthly video series through the OSU South Centers’ live streaming service. This monthly series aims to educate farmers, youth and the general public about the importance and management of soil health. The hosts are Alan Sundermeier, Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, Wood County Extension and Vinayak Shedekar, Research Associate at OSU South Centers. The series will feature farmers and experts on various topics surrounding soil health as guests.

One of the recent guests, Dr. Steve Culman, OSU Soil Fertility Specialist spoke about making sense of soil health testing. In another episode Jim Hoorman, regional soil health specialist with the Northeast Region NRCS-Soil Health Division of NRCS, explained the role of cover crops in soil health management. He also discussed topics such as selection, mixing, planting times, and seeding/planting equipment for cover crops. The “Soil Health Series” will air live on OSU South Centers live stream available at: www.youtube.com/southcenters at 10 a.m. on the second Thursday of each month. Past episodes are available to view at: soilhealth.osu.edu/video. Contact Vinayak Shedekar (shedekar.1@osu.edu) for any queries or more information.

By Yogendra (Yogi) Raut, PhD, Soil Research Associate
The information provided in this report is based on a visit March 14-17, 2017 at University of Illinois Extension, Chicago. This meeting was sponsored by the NIFA-North Central IPM Centers and Great Lakes Urban Agriculture IPM Working Group that includes The Ohio State University Research Foundation, The University Director’s Fund, and Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE).  There were almost thirty participants attending this meeting from Ohio and Illinois.  Each participant was requested to have two oral presentations; one status report and two about the future strategies about the problems and issues with Urban Agriculture Farming. Each day, an educational tour was scheduled visiting successful urban farming operations in the area to discuss one-on-one about the problems and issues pertaining to the operation, maintenance, and marketing aspects of the system.  The objective of the meeting was to synthesize issues, problems, and learn about successes as well as measures to resolve some of the issues facing urban agriculture to guide future planning, monitoring, and evaluation systems. 

While environmental advocacy groups are protesting urbanization and real estate development mainly because of shrinking farmland, and when the efforts are being made in favor of using these urban lands for agricultural purposes, they go hand-in-hand and serve the interest of both these groups.  Urban agriculture can be defined as the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around the village, town, or city. Urban agriculture can successfully incorporate several components.  As suggested by the subject matter specialist during the meeting, these components must be cautiously undertaken on a small scale at the outset to be on the safe side financially.  However, most of the sites we visited had over several million dollars invested, indicating that Chicago has successfully developed several urban agriculture enterprises.  

Components of Urban Agriculture

• Aquaculture: The farming of finfish, shellfish and other aquatic animals has become big business during the past 20 years.  Recent developments include production of aquatic plants, and fish/plant integrated systems.
• Aquaponics: A combination of fish and plant production using aquaculture and hydroponics systems, aquaponics is moving from the realm of experimental to commercial.
• Hydroponics: It is an enterprise growing plants in a nutrient solution root medium, is a growing area of commercial food production and also is used for home food production by hobbyists.
• Livestock Production: Grass-based livestock systems for meat and dairy production (i.e., grass-to-glass production system), raising free-range chickens and turkeys and pasturing hogs have become viable alternatives for U.S. farmers, as reported by the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association  (APPPA).  The system concept is based on biodynamics, an ancient practice developed in 1920s.
• Horticulture: Vegetable and fruit production
• Beekeeping: well-known to all of us
• Vermiculture: A practice of using earthworms for making compost.  Hundreds of small farms across the country are raising poultry on pasture, producing high quality meat and eggs and improving profitability because of low feed costs.  However, productivity on these farms is typically limited by seasonal climate and waste management. In most U.S. climates, the chickens can be outdoors only in spring and summer, creating indoor production challenges during cooler months.  At the same time, red worm composting, or vermiculture, has been shown to be an effective way to break down organic materials. The worms can eat 50 to 100% of their body weight in decaying wastes per day.  A combination of pastured poultry and vermiculture provides a synergistic effect in the integrated small scale farming system; the worms providing a natural digester of chicken manure and a source of food for the chickens.
• Fundamental and Key Resources: Based on level of investment, energy and capital (i.e., fixed and liquid) are found be the key fundamental resources.  Depending on the locality, the level of investment, and personal suitability, the following energy alternatives can be chosen.

Needs: 

• Education and Research: As long as urban agriculture is limited to small garden scale, the need of research and education is somewhat limited.  However, once the individual acquired basic understating and moved toward an urban agricultural farming system, the education and research sector becomes inevitable. The Chicago Urban Agriculture Meeting 2017 envisaged the need of this sector more than before.  The policy makers (i.e. Federal, States, and Municipalities including cities) need to rethink and reshape understanding about urban agricultural farming systems since there may be multiple areas of research and education systems including needs assessment, program/planning, monitoring and evaluation.
• Subject Matter Specialists: Programs in urban agriculture are being guided by the Extension Educator personnel. Despite their knowledge, creativeness, and receptiveness, they disclosed the need for more subject matter specialists in the urban agriculture network, especially entomologists, pathologists, and soil scientists.

Potential impact of urban agriculture:  It is an emerging enterprise which would be a win-win situation for both environmental advocacy and urbanization and real estate development groups.  It is also envisaged to have a multiple positive impacts on social, health, economic, and environmental issues in urban areas.

By Dr. Rafiq Islam, Soil Program Director

Since 2002, the Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources Program at the Ohio State University South Centers has developed a graduate research and educational collaboration with numerous universities across several continents. Currently, two graduate students are visiting scholars working in the Soil, Water and Bioenergy resources Program on their Ph.D. research work. Heba Said Ali El Desouky El Abd, Assistant Lecturer, Botany Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Benha University, Egypt is funded by the Government of Egypt for a 2-year research scholarship. Emmanuel Amoakwah, Research Scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) - Soil Research Institute, Kwadaso – Kumasi, Ghana, is funded by USDA Norman E. Borlaug Leadership Enhancement in Agriculture Program (LEAP).

Heba is working on her Ph.D. thesis work entitled “Plants Response to Nano- and Chelated Nutrients” under the supervision of Professor Hosny Mohamed Abd-El Daym, Plant Physiology, Botany Dept., Faculty of Agriculture, Benha University, Egypt (principal supervisor) and Rafiq Islam, Program Director, Soil, Water, and Bioenergy Resources at The Ohio State University South Centers, Ohio, USA (host supervisor). Her research work focuses on using iron-based nanotechnology (nano-fertilizer) on the physiological processes, growth and yield of greenhouse grown tomato and cucumber production, compared with conventional and chelated Fe fertilizers. So far, she has generated tremendously high quality data to observe that precision technology such as Nanotechnology is far superior to the conventional systems to modify the plant root, stem, and leaf cell structures to improve water and nutrient uptake by plants and consequently, increase plant growth and economic yields. Some of her research slides on modified plant cell structures and fruit quality are shown below:

Photo 1: Chemical iron fertilizer effects on tomato stem cell

Photo 2: Nano iron fertilizer effects on tomato stem cell

Photo 3: Conventional iron fertilization (7), chelated iron fertilizer (8) and nano iron fertilizer (9) effects on tomato fruits  

Photo 4: Heba Said Ali El Desouky El Abd

Emmanuel Amoakwah, a Ph.D. student in the Dept. of Soil Science, University of Cape Coast, Ghana is funded by the USDA-Borlaug LEAP program for a 10-month scholarship to complement his Ph.D. research work in Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources. This is his second time to visit and study at OSU South Centers. The first time, he came in 2013 as a USDA-Borlaug short-term scholar to learn more about newly developed lab and field research techniques. That work experience he acquired at the OSU South Centers persuaded him to enroll in the Ph.D. program at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. His Ph.D. research study is titled “Biochar Effects on Nutrient Recycling, Mitigation of Pollution and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Crop Productivity.” Specific objectives of his research are to: (1) Characterize physico-chemical characteristics of biochar, (2) Determine the effects of biochar greenhouse gas emissions, (3) Measure the effects of biochar on soil quality, and (4) Determine the effects of biochar on crop productivity. Some progress of his work is illustrated below.

By Yogendra Raut, Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources

Five research presentations were made at the American Society of Agronomy/Crop Science Society of America/Soil Science Society of America International meetings by Rafiq Islam, Yogendra Raut, and Vinayak S. Shedekar in Phoenix AZ, November 6 to 9, 2016.

The OSU Soil Organic Matter Calculator - a Decision Tool to Manage Soil Health was presented by Vinayak S. Shedekar with Rafiq Islam, Randall Reeder, and Jerry Grigar (USDA-NRCS Michigan) as co-authors.  This presentation in the Graduate Student Competition was selected for second prize based on intellectual quality and merit. This is a simplified version of the computer model designed as a user-friendly decision support system to be used by producers to manage their farm operations and farm profitability. This is free software and can be downloaded from the Soil, Water, and Bioenergy Resources program website go.osu.edu/somcalculator.

Yogendra Raut delivered a scientific presentation entitled “Bioenergy Production and Carbon Sequestration Dynamics under Conservation Reserve Program Management System” based on his Ph.D. thesis work with Drs. Warren Dick and Vinayak Shedekar, as co-authors. The long-term study has shown that harvesting of aboveground biomass from Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land would be a win-win situation in terms of bioenergy feedstock production, carbon credit and improved soil quality.

Rafiq Islam delivered three presentations, two on soil quality and one on soil organic matter quality and storage.  His first presentation, “Soil Organic Matter Quality and Storage under Different Land-Use Systems Following Primary Deciduous Forest Conversion” featured USDA-Borlaug scholar Emmanuel Amoakwah from Ghana as the primary author. The study showed that the temporal land-use changes at the OSU South Centers Research farm at Piketon affect the land quality in terms of carbon source and sink. He delivered the second presentation entitled “Evaluating Anthrone Reactive Carbon as a Measure of Soil Quality” as a new approach based on soil health core indicator properties functionally associated with soil quality that are largely controlled by labile organic carbon in soil.

Rafiq delivered his third presentation during the Soil Health Assessment and Management session on “A New Active Carbon Test to Evaluate Agricultural Soil Health Globally.” This is a modified version of the earlier soil quality test, based on active carbon. In general, the earlier procedure is suitable for mineral soils and not consistently desirable for soils with high carbon content, mine reclaimed soil, muck soil, Ca-rich soil, Fe- and Al-rich red soils, and submerged or rice soils. This new soil quality test can be successfully used to measure soil quality of various soils on a global scale.

Drs. Tom Worley, Larry Brown and Rafiq Islam, along with Alan Sundermeier from Ohio State University visited the People’s Republic of China at the invitation of the Chinese National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Heilongjiang and Jiamusi Branches). The Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources program at the Ohio State University South Centers has established and coordinated research, education and extension activities with the administration and scientists of the Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences – Jiamusi Branch in 2014. Dr. Worley, Director of the Oho State University South Centers, accompanied by Rafiq Islam and Alan Sundermeier to further strengthen the bridge of collaboration.

They visited Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and discussed future on collaboration possibilities to develop exchange scientists and students to conduct applied research and educational programs on 21st century sustainable agricultural management practices with especial reference to climate mitigation and adaptation. 

Rafiq Islam and Wayne Lewis visited the Peoples Republic of China at the invitation of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Heilongjiang and Jiamusi Branches) from July 18 to 29, 2015. Rafiq Islam, the program director for Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources at OSU South Centers, established an agricultural research, education and extension collaboration with the scientists at the Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences – Jiamusi Branch in 2014. Wayne Lewis, the Farm Manager of the OSU South Centers, accompanied him to further bridge the collaboration. Dr. Larry Brown at the OSU Department of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering, facilitated our collaborative research and educational trip to China.