Posts Tagged“Cornell Cooperative Exrension”

New Survey Shows Why 2014 was the Worst Winter in the Finger Lakes in Years

The most devastating winter in more than a decade has left behind millions of dollars of damage to the Finger Lakes wine industry. Thanks to a survey from the Cornell University Cooperative Extension Finger Lakes Grape Program, we’re learning just how serious the winter losses could be. Over the last two weeks of March, researchers cut more than 14,000 buds and collected more than 100 samples of vinifera. Teams visited 20 different sites, from vineyards on Seneca, Keuka, Cayuga, Canandaigua, and Skaneateles Lakes. The staff attempted to collect buds from a variety of locations even within single vineyard sites — buds from high up, buds from…

Will Changes in the Cornell Cooperative Extension Program Leave Some Out in the Cold?

Questions about the pace of global climate change and its effect on viticulture have been frequent topics of conversations in vineyards and wineries around New York. A less talked about, and even less understood change also taking place with another force that has significance to the industry.  The Cornell Cooperative Extension is on a path of reorganization, that while still in the definition phases, might ultimately change the way that folks in the field interface with its services. The Cooperative Extension service of the USDA has for nearly 150 years followed a mission to “help people use research-based knowledge to improve…