Talk

This talk will not be recorded. Whether in person or via Zoom, you must be present "live".

Anthropogenic change of environments is altering habitats worldwide, often to the detriment of organisms and ecosystems. Assisted migration, the intentional movement of organisms by humans to more suitable locations, has been proposed as a conservation tool to safeguard species, communities and ecosystems in the face of climate change.

Agroforestry consists of 5 practices: Silvopasture, alleycropping, forest farming, windbreaks, and riparian buffers. Agroforestry systems seek to intentionally integrate trees and shrubs into other crop and livestock systems and vice-versa, and can focus on one or all of these practices across a landscape. Increased biodiversity is a key outcome of agroforestry practices; biodiversity, and genetic diversity, help keep systems resilient to challenges of pests, disease, and climate impacts.

Speaker order and approximate location on the recording:

The Finger Lakes Native Plant Society is hosting an in-person winter solstice event to bring a little mid-winter light into the lives of Finger Lakes plant lovers. In the spirit of the season, we’ll gather in a festively decorated space to share the company of plant-minded people. Since many of the decorations of the season are plants themselves, we’ll turn our attentions for a bit to a friendly competition to identify as many of the native plant decorations in the room as we possibly can. There will be door prizes! There will be good food!  There will be free seeds!

For at least 40 years land managers, ecologists, and many others have struggled to produce or secure native plant materials for their use. Ed will reveal much of that history, describe its progress and set-backs, and discuss how we seem to be finally breaking through with new developments equal to the challenges.

The concept of converting lawns to meadows has existing for decades yet has enjoyed a recent surge of interest in the US.  Compared to typical lawns, meadow plant communities support orders of magnitude more biodiversity, contribute more valuable ecosystem services to the surrounding landscape like protecting water quality, building soil and sequestering carbon, and can generate direct dollar value through harvest of flowers and other materials.  For over a dozen years Sam Quinn, Private Lands Conservation Biologist at SUNY ESF's Restoration Science Center, has been restoring and managing h

The New York State Parks Plant Materials Program provides native, regionally appropriate seed and plants for environmental stewardship projects in New York State Parks. The program works directly with State Parks land managers - often on projects that require re-planting after invasive species removal. The program fulfills a need for specialized plant materials, with a focus on species diversity and localized genetics.

Arieh Tal is a botanist, botanical photographer and botanical educator, with over 30 years of experience as a field botanist. He has taught many classes on field identification of plants, conducted numerous workshops, and led countless field trips for groups. Arieh has created a number of easy-to-use online, photo-illustrated keys to plants found in the Finger Lakes region and this program will include a demonstration of his visual key to Violets.