Area of study with the fewest international students had a big increase during the last school year. Part 33 of our Foreign Student Series. Transcript of radio broadcast: 06 May 2009
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Gitek Schoene, a graduate student at the University of Florida, measures the growth of landscape plants in 2004
In the United States, the area of study with the fewest international students is agriculture. The number was about nine thousand during the last school year. More than ten times as many studied business or engineering.
But the crop of foreign students in agriculture and natural resources was twenty percent bigger than the year before. The Institute of International Education in New York says that was the biggest increase of any area of study. So this week in our Foreign Student Series we look at agriculture programs in the United States.
About one hundred colleges and universities began as public agricultural schools and continue to teach agriculture. These are known as land-grant schools.
In eighteen sixty-two, Congress passed legislation that gave thousands of hectares to each state. States were to sell the land and use the money to establish colleges to teach agriculture, engineering and military science. A congressman from Vermont, Justin Smith Morrill, wrote the legislation.
The state of Michigan already had an agricultural college. But that college was the first to officially agree to receive support under the Morrill Act. It grew into what is now Michigan State University in East Lansing.
Today, Michigan State has more than forty thousand students. More than four thousand of them are international students. They come from one hundred twenty-five countries.
The College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University offers sixty programs of study. Richard Brandenburg is the associate dean for graduate programs. He says foreign agriculture students this year are from countries including Japan, the Netherlands, Rwanda, El Salvador, Turkey, Sri Lanka and India.
In all, the college has four hundred thirty-three foreign students in East Lansing. It also has eleven students at a campus in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. The only agriculture program currently offered in Dubai is construction management.
Michigan State opened its Dubai campus in August. It has only about fifty students now, but the university says it has received about ninety applications for admission this fall. We’ll talk more about foreign campuses of American universities next week.
And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our series is online at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Bob Doughty.
Another in a series of reports for home vegetable gardeners. Transcript of radio broadcast: 09 March 2009
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True or false? Potatoes are root vegetables.
False. Potatoes are underground stems called tubers.
Most kinds of potatoes can be planted during cool weather. But John Masiunas of the University of Illinois Extension says it may be best to wait until after the last winter freeze.
The extension service says the best formation happens when the soil is between fifteen and twenty-one degrees Celsius. Tubers will not form if the soil temperature reaches twenty-seven degrees.
Potatoes are started from “seed pieces.” These are either small whole potatoes or potatoes cut into pieces. Each piece should weigh about forty to sixty grams. The experts at the University of Illinois say pieces that weigh less than thirty grams may not produce as much.
Each piece must have at least one good “eye,” the small dark spot where a sprout will grow. Soon after the pieces are cut, plant them twenty-five to thirty centimeters apart. Cover them in a furrow between two and one-half and seven and one-half centimeters deep. The rows should be spaced about sixty to ninety centimeters apart.
For potatoes, the best soil is fertile and well drained, not wet. To improve clay soils, mix in garden waste or other organic matter and turn the soil deeply in the fall. If possible, in the year before you plant potatoes, plant a cover crop to improve the soil and the potato production. The extension service suggests a crop such as clover, buckwheat or winter rye.
After the potato plants appear, organic mulch can be spread around to hold moisture, help suppress weed growth and cool the soil. John Masiunas says water management is extremely important. Potatoes do not grow well in very dry conditions.
Some gardeners plant potatoes under straw, or stems of dried grain. Instead of burying the seed pieces, place them at the surface. Then spread loose straw ten to fifteen centimeters deep over the seed pieces and between the planted rows. The potatoes should send up sprouts through the straw cover.
You can wait till the fall to harvest potatoes, or harvest them during the growing season as new potatoes. But whatever you do, make sure to handle potatoes carefully. They can bruise easily, and damaged potatoes can quickly go bad.
And that’s the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. For more advice about growing potatoes and other vegetables, go to voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Bob Doughty.
