Dr. George Antonious of the KSU Land Grant Program, in collaboration with Western Kentucky University through the statewide Kentucky Mesonet Consortium Project grant, has completed the installation of a new weather station at the KSU Research Farm. The new weather station connects the KSU Research Farm to a series of weather stations in Kentucky to ensure short- and long-term monitoring for various natural and man-made hazardous conditions. Kentucky Mesonet is a network of automated weather and climate monitoring stations in different locations throughout Kentucky. It was developed by the Kentucky Climate Center at WKU to serve researchers and students monitoring environmental quality as well as to serve the diverse needs in communities across the Commonwealth.
Dr. Kirk Pomper, Principal Investigator of Horticulture in the Community Research Service, recently had a journal article published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, “Loss of Ripening Capacity of Pawpaw Fruit with Extended Cold Storage.” The article was the result of a collaborative research project with Drs. Federica Galli and Douglas Archbold, who are researchers in the Department of Horticulture at the University of Kentucky.
Dr. Michael Bomford of KSU's Land Grant Program was one of 20 world "visionaries" invited to present at a two-day summit on rooftop farming in Berkeley last week. The summit was featured in Friday's New York Times article, "Visionaries Work to Get Rooftop and Vertical Farming Off the Ground." Dr. Bomford's presentation on greenhouse energy use will be posted at http://www.skyvegetables.com.
Sheila Stuckey, Director of Blazer Library, Sharon McGee, KSU Records Manager, and Betsy Morelock, CESKAA Archivist have received a grant of $60,000 through SOLINET for the use of CESKAA and Blazer Library to improve the condition of KSU's historic photographs. The grant is an integral part of the HBCU Photograph Preservation Project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in response to a proposal submitted by the Art Conservation Department of the University of Delaware and SOLINET in partnership with the HBCU Library Alliance and the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia.
A three-day photographic conservation workshop was conducted by Barbara Lemmen, Senior Conservator of Photographs at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia in October. Ms. Stuckey, Ms. McGee and Ms. Morelock took part in the full three days, along with three students, who took part or observed as their class schedules allowed. The workshop involved cleaning and rehousing historic photographic collages and humidifying, flattening and rehousing photographic panoramas. Kentucky State University students will assist in completing the photograph conservation projects between now and November 2009. Of the ten participating HBCU's, Kentucky State has moved further at this time in accomplishing the goals of the grant.
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