Leucaena leucocephala (leucaena) is an important agroforestry tree of tropics and subtropics due to its protein rich foliages, ability to grow on poor soils, and high level of tolerance to various stresses including drought and diseases. We hypothesized that leucaena have a unique set of genes which confer tolerance to various abiotic and biotic stresses and these genes are either absent or not expressed in other legumes that...

Riparian areas are diverse ecotones that provide numerous, valuable ecosystem functions. However, many riparian delineation methods use a fixed minimum width to create a riparian buffer or setback that may not adequately protect actual riparian function. A method for riparian area delineation across landscapes is presented that incorporates riparian function and moves beyond the fixed-width buffer approach. Using geospatial da...

Preliminary studies have suggested that the Amish-based furniture and related products manufacturing cluster located in and around Holmes County, Ohio, uses sizeable quantities of hardwood lumber. The number of firms within the cluster has grown even as the broader domestic furniture manufacturing sector has contracted. The present study was undertaken in 2008 (spring/summer) to develop lumber use estimates specific to Amish m...

The maple syrup industry in Ohio, which ranks fifth in total production in the United States, is comprised primarily of small family owned operations that are served by The Ohio State University (OSU) Extension system. We evaluated the effectiveness of OSU Extension educational programming designed to improve sugarbush and sugarhouse management through a survey administered at the three 2004 Ohio Maple Days workshops. Most sur...