On behalf of PLT:

• Next PLT Meeting and Training – Jan Carroll
• 4-H – Jean Glowacki
• Community Development – Greg Felsen
• Cropping Systems – Ron Meyer
• Energy – Cary Weiner
• Environmental Horticulture – Alison O’Connor
• Family and Financial Stability – Gisele Jefferson
• Food Systems – Becca Jablonski
• Livestock & Range – Retta Bruegger
• Natural Resources – Robin Young
• Nutrition, Food Safety & Health – Jessica Clifford

Next PLT Meeting and Training – Jan Carroll

PLT next meets on August 13, 1 – 2 p.m. by Zoom.   Meeting notes will be posted on line at http://extension.colostate.edu/staff-resources/#progplan.

A training for PRU leaders in planning and reporting (specifically CPRS) is tentatively scheduled Thursday afternoon during Extension Forum (10/25, noon – 4 p.m.)  Current and potential PRU leaders please plan to attend.

4-H – Jean Glowacki

The CSUE 4-H Military Partnership planned and is in the process of implementing and hosting 200 military teens from around the world for Rocky Mountain Adventure Camp.  Camp is held at the CSU Mountain Campus at Pingree Park and focuses on teaching strength-based leadership, mindfulness and teamwork.  Youth partake in world class hiking, high and low ropes courses and white water rafting.  Four, week-long camps are possible thanks to a grant from Purdue University and the Department of Defense.

The Colorado 4-H Shooting Sports program was represented by 9 teams at the 2018 4-H Shooting Sports National Championships held in Grand Island, Nebraska the week of June 25-29.  The Colorado 4-H Shooting Sports National teams consisted of Air Rifle, Air Pistol, Small bore Rifle, Small Bore Pistol, Compound Archery, Recurve Archery, Shotgun, Muzzleloader and Hunting / Outdoor Skills teams each consisting of 4 team members and one coach.  The competition is only a part of the experience while attending the 4-H Shooting Sports National Championships.  Colorado 4-H members, volunteers and their families all made new friends and networked with other 4-H members and volunteers from across the United States while taking part in the Championships opening ceremonies, meet and greet teen mixers and an afternoon at a local water park.  The Colorado 4-H Shooting Sports National teams represented Colorado well and placed 4^th overall in the National Championships Sweepstakes category.  Congratulations to all the Colorado 4-H Shooting Sports National Team members, coaches and volunteers on a job very well done!

Due to an internal shut down of a server, the 4-H website has transitioned over to a new location, please be patient as all resources are updated on the new website location. Resources for fairs (score sheets, judges books, etc.) are still accessible at http://co4h.colostate.edu/program-areas/  location.

County Fairs have begun and State Fair is right around the corner. Exhibit check- in for State Fair is Wednesday, August 15, 8:00 a.m.-12. The complete State Fair reference list and packet can be found at: http://co4h.colostate.edu/program-areas/state-fair-information/

Many Colorado 4-H members are getting their Horse and Livestock projects ready to exhibit at their County Fair and possibly the Colorado State Fair later this summer.  Exhibiting a 4-H Horse or Livestock project is an opportunity for 4-H youth to showcase the life skills they have learned and developed while caring for their project animal.  Good Luck to all Colorado 4-H members this summer as they exhibit their projects and show off their hard work!

The National 4-H Equity and Engagement for All committee meets later this month. The committee aims to support and increase the capacity of 4-H to reach its National 4-H Grows Vision: of involving diverse youth; that youth in the program and adults who support them reflect the demographics of their communities; that the learning products and programs represent diverse needs, interests and social conditions. This work will continue to inform the Colorado 4-H Strategic plan and actions.

Community Development – Greg Felsen

At our last meeting, Rusty Collins from the Denver County Extension office gave our members a presentation on Facilitation skills.  For our upcoming meeting, Geniphyr Ponce-Pore from the Office of Engagement has been organizing a meeting/training to be presented by Tom Johnson.  Tom is the new CSU Associate Director for Community and Economic Development.  His presentation will focus on Economic Development and Community Building Blocks.  It has not yet been finalized, however this zoom video meeting will be held in late July or early August.  CD PRU chair, Greg Felsen – La Plata County Extension, contributed to the CSU’s online degree program class AGRI 546 – Principles of Cooperative Extension.  He provided a video podcast that introduced students to our CD PRU.  Greg shared the broad range of both disciplines and programs CD PRU members contribute to in their communities.

The CD PRU team will look to meet at annual Forum and once again engage campus faculty in building partnerships across the State.  We will plan a final meeting of the year in late Fall.  We are seeking to transition leadership to a new chair or two new co-chairs beginning in 2019.

Cropping Systems – Ron Meyer

The Cropping Systems PRU hosted Extension professionals at Burlington from 4 states.  Participating in this Extension Roundtable were agronomists from Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas.  These Extension Agronomists provided updates on agronomic activities and methods from their state’s operations.  Currently, this PRU is in the middle of wheat test plot harvesting.  We have approximately 50 different on-farms trials within Colorado’s borders.  Trials consist of variety, fertility, herbicide, fungicide, and entomology testing with crops such as wheat, corn, sunflower, millet, canola, cover crops, and others.  All are located on farmers’ fields.  This PRU is currently brainstorming for the next training opportunity.

Energy – Cary Weiner

• Some Energy PRU affiliates are busy planning the inaugural Local Government Energy Academy in Eagle on August 29-30. Promotion of the program to local government contacts around the state would be appreciated – contact Cary Weiner for a flyer/media release.
• We continue to facilitate Xcel’s Partners in Energy program along the Front Range, with an initial stakeholder meeting for Centennial in June. Energy goals for the City are being set. Four residential outreach events will be held in Englewood this summer, including one this Thursday at the Summer Concert Series. Tim Aston is also coordinating an electric vehicle workshop for Centennial, Littleton and Englewood.
• Other PRU affiliates have completed the first set of economic feasibility assessments for solar at feedlots. Results are promising, with ROIs averaging 7% and only three years of negative cash flow.
• A graduate student will be conducting a needs assessment for energy resources this summer and fall. The assessment will be available online, but she will also be traveling to events around the state to capture a diversity of responses in person. The results will inform energy efforts in the future. Please contact Cary Weiner if you would be willing to put out 5×7” postcards advertising the needs assessment at your office, county fair, or otherwise.

Environmental Horticulture – Alison O’Connor

The Master Gardener State Conference will be held in Steamboat Springs July 25-27. Registration has closed. A big thanks to Todd Hagenbuch and his active committee for making this conference happen!

Several Master Gardener Coordinators will be attending the National Master Gardener Coordinator Conference in Madison, Wisconsin August 7-10, 2018.

Family and Financial Stability – Gisele Jefferson

• 7 youth ages 11 to 16 attended the All My Money Financial Series on June 27^th and July 11^th from 6 to 8 pm at the Phillips County Event Center in Holyoke.  Participants engaged in discussion and hands-on activities about money decision-making, saving, budgeting, credit and debt.   They were served dinner and received give-a-ways from Extension partner, First Pioneer National Bank of Holyoke.  Tracy Trumper
• Financial Wise – Sheila Gains, Mary Snow, and Anne Zander are still answering questions from Cottage Food Producers related to taxes, what portable devices to use in order to take credit cards at farmer’s markets, pricing products, determining how much to make for a market when you are just starting off, what to do with leftovers when a market gets canceled due to weather, etc.  They do refer the cottage food producers to the Small Business Centers if they have one in their area, to see if they can work with someone from SCORE, etc.
• Joy Akey of Yuma County/Golden Plains Area is working on…
  • June 19 – ServSafe Food Handler’s Training
  • July 12 – Babysitter Basics Training
  • July 26 – Outdoor Cooking Class
  • On-going – 4-H and County Fair programs and preparation
• Abby Weber and Debbie Chapman are co-facilitating Powerful Tools for Caregivers – 6-session series- in La Junta beginning August 29.
• Diana Juarez Sanchez in Adams County is planning a  4-week financial series on budgeting (Dollar Works 2 curricula), Tuesdays July 17-August 7, 2018 partnering with Almost Home, a homeless shelter in Brighton, 10-15 people.
• Also in Adams County — Managing debt (Dollar Works 2 curricula), July 24, 2018 (English) and July 26, 2018 (Spanish) partnering with Adams Co. Human Services (TANF, SNAP recipients), 10-15 people.
• Mary Snow in Jefferson County is doing a monthly “Manage My Money’ class with Jefferson County DA office, their first time felons program. The class is on budgeting, credit, collections, community resources, and lately I’ve been including preparing for emergencies & the need for renters’ insurance.

Food Systems – Becca Jablonski

As part of accomplishing the Food Systems PRU’s 2017/2018 winnable goal (developing curriculum to support food businesses), a sub-committee of the PRU met in Fort Collins on May 17^th. The meeting focused on two key priorities: 1) developing a survey to better understand needs of beginning food businesses, and 2) planning a late-fall training to support beginning food businesses. The survey is in the process of being finalized, with the hope of sending it to targeted businesses in October. Further, we will be holding a MarketReady/business development training on November 5^th in Aurora.

As a related activity, members of the food systems PRU are participating in meetings on the future National Western Center redevelopment to guide discussion of how business development goals could be integrated into programming at that site. More details coming soon!

Poultry Issues: (1) Marisa Bunning’s team and CSU Vet Extension will develop a hard copy piece listing CSU educational links for poultry producers and consumers that will be distributed at Farmer’s Markets. (2) On May 4, 2018, Governor Hickenlooper signed HB18-1235 which allows the Custom Processing of Meat Animals Act to continue for another 5 years.  The biggest change in the Meat Act is that poultry producers licensed by CDA that raise and self-process less than 20,000 poultry per year will be able to sell the poultry to retail food handling establishments.  A stakeholder meeting was held June 8 to develop rules pertaining to poultry processing. CSU Extension and CSU Custom Meats Lab will be providing input on those rules. The partnership continues!

The next quarterly Food Systems PRU zoom call will be Wednesday, August 22^nd from 2-3:30pm. All are welcome!

Livestock & Range – Retta Bruegger

The Livestock and Range PRU had a successful meeting on campus April 2018. We learned about the recent Beef Needs Assessment, and other recent needs assessments, and discussed how these could make our coordinated programming more targeted and effective.

At the end of the meeting, we discussed action items for future work. Our next meeting (over Zoom) is Wednesday, July 18 at 11. If you would like to join and are not on list already, the Zoom is https://zoom.us/j/384654957 or contact Retta Bruegger.

We will meet any new staff, summarize the meeting for those not able to attend, and revisit our short and long term action items.

Natural Resources – Robin Young

The CSU Natural Resources Partners’ Annual Consortium is taking place this week. We will be discussing climate change and drought at the US Air Force Academy, and  looking at projects from the Center of Environmental Management of Military Lands.  We will be meeting with Senator Bennet’s office for a Climate Change Focus Group. Stay tuned…….

We’re close with the Woody Plant App, there were a few changes we are still in the process of making. We are working hard to have the first beta version out to our test group at the end of the month. As soon as we get feedback from our testers we will be going live with this new app.

From the Warner College of Natural Resources:

1. Davis is working with B. Fahey (CSU Extension, Jefferson County) and S. Panjabi (CNHP) to integrate a ‘pollinator volunteer track’ into the NPM program. We delivered a training and seminar in Jefferson County and currently have approximately 25 volunteers working to make observations of pollinators in the Front Range region, and volunteers are uploading these observations into the “iNaturalist” platform for preservation and crowdsourcing of identifications. This effort was funded through NRC mini-grants program last fall.
2. Davis is also working with Rainbow Treecare Scientific (contact: Toni Smith) to assist in experiments aimed at the development of new treatment methods for control of Emerald Ash Borer (EAB).
3. Davis is participating in a manager training event on Aug 9-10 (Tree Health Diagnostic Workshop) in collaboration with the Emerging Pests in Colorado and Colorado Tree Coalition working groups, as well as CSFS.  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tree-health-care-workshop-tickets-46999395457
4. We are launching a new study (funded by McIntyre-Stennis appropriations) to monitor disease vectors of the pine wilt nematode disease throughout the Front Range, focusing on sampling ponderosa pine and sawyer beetles (Monochamus species). This project will help us to develop models of disease exposure and provide us with information to inform land managers and landowners about treatment timing and disease frequency on the landscape.
5. We are in the second year of a Front Range-wide pollinator sampling effort to determine the effects of cheatgrass invasion and grazing on bee biodiversity and abundance. This project will help us to make recommendations about land use activities that may be related to conserving ecosystem services such as pollination.

Nutrition, Food Safety & Health  – Jessica Clifford

1. The NFSH PRU held a spring workshop April 18 and 19, 2018. Workshop components included training on the updated National Dining with Diabetes curriculum and updates on preparing food at elevation.

2. Mediterranean Diet Toolkit Pilot Study completed January 2018-May 2018
   • 4 Counties/Agents Participated (Yuma, Arapahoe, Washington, Pueblo)
   • 12 Classes Completed
   • 197 Participants Attended
   • 172 Post Surveys Collected  (+ a Few Pending Post Surveys)
   • Follow-up Surveys in Progress/TBD

3. Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior Annual Conference takes place July 21-24, 2018. Jessica Clifford (Campus) will present a poster titled “Assessing Need for Changes in State-based Extension Nutrition and Food Safety Websites.”

4. Glenda Wentworth (Eagle County) will be conducting three food preservation workshops in July. One at the Basalt Public Library and two for Walking Mountain Science School, Sewing Seeds camp for 5th and 6th graders.