In the course, which started in May, 16 undergraduate and two graduate students spent three and one-half weeks on the 100-acre Spring Valley Farm near Athens, Ga., also the site of a CSTAF-sponsored alley cropping research. A second group of students is taking the course this fall.

The course is a component of a distance-learning program developed by CSTAF and funded by U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES) higher education grant of more than $241,000.

The field course included lectures, discussions, field experiences and laboratory exercises involving various approaches to organic farming and alley cropping.

CSTAF collaborator Carl Jordan with the University of Georgia directed the course, with other University of Georgia faculty providing lectures on microbiology, ecological economics, soil ecology, information, water policy and environmental history.

Students participated in field demonstrations by specialists in entomology, weed ecology, biodynamics, and nitrogen fixation.

Dennis Shannon, a CSTAF collaborator from Auburn University, visited the farm in June and taped scenes for a video production highlighting agroforestry research. This video will be used in other distance learning courses.

Students were enthusiastic about the course, and three students spent the summer at the farm to carry out internships. Several students from the course plan graduate studies in environmental science or management.

Other components of the distance learning project include the development of a new course, Agroforestry in the Southeastern U.S., to be offered at UF/IFAS in the spring, and a distance education version of an existing course, Forests for the Future.

A component of the course is a series of CD-ROMs containing videotaped interviews with researchers and landowners practicing agroforestry.

The grant also supports an agroforestry demonstration site at the Austin Carey Memorial Forest that will be a component of agroforestry courses at UF/IFAS.