Better cherry blossoms.
An App to fight food waste.
And fishing for energy savings.
Those stories and more in U-S-D-A Week In Review.
The cherry trees around the Tidal basin in Washington are a yearly spectacular.
But their blossoms are with us for such a short period of time.
Research geneticists with U-S-D-A’s Agricultural Research Service are studying ways to give
us more blossoms during the year.
We’re trying to extend the bloom time of flowering cherries.
Not necessarily in a single variety but to get a number of varieties that will bloom
from everything from the really early ones, such as First Lady that we’ve already released,
but also trying to get some that will bloom later in the season, and that way you will
have a flowering cherry that will bloom anytime during the Spring.
And Pooler says some varieties can be coaxed to bloom again in the Fall.
Too many cherry blossoms?
No way.
Pooler says people need more cherry blossoms in their lives.
It kind of makes them stop.
And, you know, you have to look up from your hand held device and just experience it.
It’s not really something that you can experience digitally.
By the way, the cherry trees around tidal basin were gifts from Japan in 1912.
Each American wastes thirty six pounds of food per month according U-S-D-A’s Food
Safety and Inspection Service.
But a new app from U-S-D-A F-S-I-S will let you look up how long you can keep food so
you don’t throw away what’s still okay to eat.
Many products might have a sell-by date of say April first, but they could be good in
your pantry for another twelve or eighteen months.
And by throwing those out what you’re doing is you’re contributing to food waste in
the United States.
And the app will remind you to eat food before you have to throw it away.
Say you buy a box of fresh pasta , which is good for a limited amount of time, you can
have your calendar tell you a couple of days before that fresh pasta is going to go bad
that you should think about eating it.
The new app also has cooking tips and information to prevent food borne illness.
It can be found at the Google Play store and the iTunes store.
Simms Fishing Products in Bozeman Montana is a fly fishing friendly place to work.
We have many employees that fish, some even fish at lunch - they go right to the Gallatin
River which is about a half-mile from here, and test out our products.
But Simms was hoping to reel in some energy savings when designing their new headquarters.
So they looked to U-S-D-A’s Rural Development Agency for help.
With some of the funding they helped provide we were able to do solar panels to generate
electricity, we have a solar hot water system, we re-did all the lighting in the building
to do energy-efficient lighting.
And frankly on some of these items we wouldn’t have done them without the USDA.
Reducing energy costs definitely helps our bottom line, but we’re really focused on
helping the environment.
And, you know, fishing - you need to be in a great outdoor spot and if we can help the
environment and reduce our carbon footprint, we're very interested in that.
U-S-D-A Rural Development offers loans, grants and other programs to help grow jobs and opportunities
in America’s smaller communities.
And in this week’s Photo of the Week, U-S-D-A Rural Development Cooperative Programs Rural
Sociologist Doctor Thomas W. Gray makes a purchase and listens to Glut collective member
Shauntrice Martin talk about the dynamics of this worker-owner store, serving the Mount
Rainier, Maryland community.
Its motto is "Still Cheap, Still Funky!"
Glut is a collective managed and operated by its workers.
It supports local and/or organic enterprises whenever possible.
For more photos go to the U-S-D-A Flickr site.
That’s all for U-S-D-A Week In Review.
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