I am fairly sure when I discussed my relationship with Peter for this year, I am confident he imagined I would contribute more than 1-2 entries per month in my "Frankly Speaking" section. Well here I am almost one-month from my last entry and if I were Peter, other than being frustrated with me, I'd be wondering where I've been.

Well here goes:

A few years ago I was asked by my department chair and senior faculty to assume the leadership of the Introduction to Horticulture class here at Cornell. This is the "gateway course" to our department for most plant and agricultural science students. It is best characterized as an inch deep and a mile wide view of horticulture in NY, US and around the world.

It is a class between 50 and 60 students each year with 60 percent freshman and 40 percent upper class folks and more than 50 percent of them are non-science majors! Classics, hotel school, food science, etc. I serve as instructor, facilitator, colleague, and "in-loco parentis". One of the coolest parts of the class is the diversity of students from other countries and states. this year we have 4 countries and 13 states.

Each week we explore fruit production (NY is 2nd in apples), vegetable production (NY is 5th in production), wines and vines (NY is 3rd in grape production) and of course ornamental, nursery and landscape management (#1 in my eyes!), as well as invasive species, urban forestry and even the art of horticulture with natural dyes.

The first six weeks of class I live and breathe horticulture to the exclusion of almost everything else. I did sneak in a little video shoot with our TurfNet version of Anthony Bourdain, our own Jon Kiger.

Now here is what this all means.....

I am a better turfgrass scientist because I have these experiences. My thinking is enriched about turf  because I am constantly explaining to many what we do who cannot think of a reason why we even have turf! Furthermore when you explore other growing systems, you see possible influences that might benefit turf.

I had this crazy idea the other day when we were studying small-scale organic market gardening techniques and they used tillage radish. Why couldn't we plant these on very compacted fields and have them help with soil compaction? Well of course there are many reasons why, but have you ever thought that we think about turf with a very narrow focus?

As summer is giving way to Fall this year, especially for the northern guys find some down-time to recharge. Southern turf guys have the summer!  But even more important than down time is time spent thinking about other things not related to turf. You might find it makes you a better turfgrass manager.

In the meantime:

Peter - I promise I am gonna figure this blogging thing out and be more regular.