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Needs Assessment For Promoting Livestock And Equine Safety For Diné Youth, Karah L. Shumway

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This project was funded through the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Safety and Health as part of the pilot study program for 2011-2012 fiscal year. The project team proposed a one-year, $19,991 project to conduct a formative needs assessment of Diné parents for the prevention of agricultural injuries to children who are helping farm or ranch. The assessment utilized a survey constructed of closed and open ended questions to gauge Diné farmers' and ranchers' perceptions of injury risks to children who live or work on an agricultural operation. Additional questions were asked to gauge Diné acceptance of an …

Effects Of Sow, Boar, And Semen Traits On Sow Reproduction, Sungwon Park

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The objective was to estimate the effect of traits recorded in females and in boars and their semen on farrowing rate (FR), total number (TB) and number of stillborn pigs (SB) at birth. Results of 20,569 inseminations in 4,468 sows on 4 farms with semen from 856 boars in 2 AI centers were analyzed. Records on sows included farm, dline parity and brdeeding interval (Brdint). Records on boars included number of days rest between collections, and 26 characteristics (e.g., volume, sperm concentration, motility, abnormal heads and tails plus 16 traits that described velocity and path of sperm cell movement). At …

Studies On Nitrogen And Silicon Deficiency In Microalgal Lipid Production, Curtis Adams

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Microalgae are single celled plants that inhabit aquatic and terrestrial environments across the planet. Many species are oleaginous, which means they are capable of producing oils, similar to many higher plants we are familiar with like canola, safflower and coconut. Different from higher plants, however, algae have simple structures that allow them to grow at very high rates. Due to these characteristics—oil production and rapid growth rates—algae are considered a promising future source of oil. Algal oils could be useful for production of food for people, feed for animals, biodiesel, detergents, and many other applications.

Algae have not been heavily …

Agricultural Research Magazine, April 2013

Agricultural Research Magazine

Table of Contents

4 Irrigation Wastewater: Waste Not, Want Not

6 Two Approaches for Optimizing Water Productivity

8 Compounds in Whole-Grain Rice Varieties

10 New Discovery Makes Detecting Johne’s Disease Easier

12 House Fly Virus Stops Flies from Reproducing

14 Improved Vitamin B12 Test May Help Young and Old Alike

16 Rooting Out a Novel Stress Syndrome in Pigs

18 A Modeling Milestone for Soil Phosphorus Management

20 New Technologies for Studying Crops and Crop Diseases

23 Locations Featured in This Magazine Issue

New Technologies For Studying Crops And Crop Diseases, Dennis O’Brien

Agricultural Research Magazine

Agricultural Research Service scientists in New York and California have developed very different technologies that share a common thread. They offer scientists new, innovative ways to probe what happens when a crop is threatened by drought or disease.

Michelle Cilia and Stewart Gray, ARS scientists at the Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health in Ithaca, New York, and their colleagues at the University of Washington have found a way to map the structure of an elusive protein that gives certain plant viruses the ability to travel from plants to insects, through the insects, and back into plants.

Andrew …

New Discovery Makes Detecting Johne's Disease Easier, John Bannantine, Sandra Avant

Agricultural Research Magazine

Before a disease can be treated, it must first be identified. But that’s not always easy, especially in the case of Johne’s disease, which affects cattle, sheep, goats, deer, and other ruminants.

Johne’s disease—also known as “paratuberculosis”— is a costly, contagious disease that causes diarrhea, reduced feed intake, weight loss, and sometimes death. Annual estimated losses to cattle producers range from $40 to $227 per infected animal. For the U.S. dairy industry alone, losses exceed $220 million each year.

For years, scientists have been hampered by the fact that any antibody—a protein produced by the immune system to fight infections …

House Fly Virus Stops, Christopher J. Geden, Sandra Avant

Agricultural Research Magazine

The house fly is often considered merely a nuisance. But these flies are capable of transmitting animal and human pathogens that can lead to foodborne diseases, including Escherichia coli, Salmonella, and Shigella bacteria.

Insecticides are important for control, but house flies are particularly good at developing resistance, and their larvae tend to stay deep enough within their gooey food to avoid exposure to sprays.

Scientists at the Agricultural Research Service’s Center for Medical, Agricultural, and Veterinary Entomology (CMAVE) in Gainesville, Florida, are looking at new methods that target adult flies. A promising biological control agent—salivary gland hypertrophy virus …

Challenge For Sustaining Agriculture, Mark Walbridge

Agricultural Research Magazine

With the climate changing and the world’s population expected to rise in the coming decades, supplying a hungry planet with food and fiber will become more of a challenge. By some estimates, food production will have to increase by up to 70 percent to feed the world over the next 40 years. Perhaps no resource is more critical to meeting that challenge than water.

How essential is water to agriculture? An estimated 17 percent of all harvested U.S. cropland is irrigated, accounting for about 56.6 million acres. Worldwide, more than 40 percent of the world’s food is grown on irrigated …

April 2013- Locations Featured In This Magazine Issue

Agricultural Research Magazine

The Agricultural Research Service has about 100 labs all over the country.

Locations Featured in This Magazine Issue

Davis, California 3 research units ■ 117 employees

U.S. Salinity Laboratory, Riverside, California 2 research units ■ 39 employees

U.S. Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center, Maricopa, Arizona 3 research units ■ 80 employees

Small Grains and Potato Germplasm Research Unit, Aberdeen, Idaho 1 research unit ■ 57 employees

Conservation and Production Research Laboratory, Bushland, Texas 2 research units ■ 55 employees

Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, Clay Center, Nebraska 6 research units ■ 117 employees

Grassland Soil and Water Research …

Rooting Out A Novel Stress Syndrome In Pigs, Dan Nonneman, Sandra Avant

Agricultural Research Magazine

Undergoing surgery, even a minor procedure, can be stressful for anyone. But for people who have malignant hyperthermia, a hereditary disease that’s triggered by certain drugs used for general anesthesia, it can also be dangerous.

Research into this rare, life-threatening condition, which causes a fast rise in body temperature, severe muscle contractions, and sometimes death, was limited until the discovery of a similar disorder in pigs, referred to as “porcine stress syndrome.” The classical syndrome is associated with poor response to stressors like transport and with poor-quality pork. It has been eliminated from commercial herds in the United States, but …

Compounds In Whole-Grain Rice Varieties, Ming-Hsuan Chen, Karen Bett-Garber, Rosalie Marion Bliss

Agricultural Research Magazine

Whole-grain brown rice contains 15 vitamins and minerals, including B vitamins, potassium, magnesium, and iron—all nutrients the body needs to grow and develop normally. In addition to these essential nutrients, there are bioactive phytochemicals in rice, as well as in other whole grains, vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, and seeds. Although the role of these plant chemicals in terms of human health has not been proven, a body of evidence suggests that some phytochemicals could be nutritionally beneficial.

Now, studies headed by chemist Ming-Hsuan Chen, who is with the Agricultural Research Service’s Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center in Stuttgart, Arkansas, …

A Modeling Milestone For Soil Phosphorus Management, Peter Vadas, Ann Perry

Agricultural Research Magazine

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is looking for ways to upgrade the Phosphorus Index, a simple management tool developed during the 1990s to gauge the risk of phosphorus losses from agricultural fields. In developing a national nutrient-management policy, NRCS allowed states to modify the original index—a matrix of source and transport factors that contribute to phosphorus loss— with inputs to account for local variations in soils, climate, management, and water quality goals.

But this resulted in widely different state-by-state phosphorus indices that often didn’t agree with each other on how to manage phosphorus. “We’d put …

Two Approaches For Optimizing Water Productivity, Dennis O’Brien

Agricultural Research Magazine

Agricultural Research Service researchers in Bushland, Texas, are helping farmers make the most of their water supplies in a region where they depend on the Ogallala Aquifer, a massive underground reservoir under constant threat of overuse.

Steve Evett, Susan O’Shaughnessy, and their colleagues at the Conservation and Production Research Laboratory are developing and testing soil-water and plant-stress sensors and automated irrigation systems that will irrigate fields only as necessary. Automated systems are considered key to sustainable use of the aquifer and to helping growers reduce water and labor costs.

“As water becomes more precious and the costs to pump it …

Irrigation Wastewater: Waste Not, Want Not, Dennis Corwin, Ann Perry

Agricultural Research Magazine

Agricultural producers on the west side of California’s San Joaquin Valley (WSJV) used to drain irrigation wastewater into Kesterson Reservoir, a series of holding ponds that were part of the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge. But selenium levels in the water became hazardous to waterfowl, so the storage facility was closed in 1987. Since then, farmers have been keeping the wastewater—which also contains salt and traces of arsenic, boron, and molybdenum—in evaporation ponds on their own land, which takes around 10 percent of the crop land out of production.

Agricultural Research Service soil scientist Dennis Corwin and his colleagues had …

Improved Vitamin B12 Test May, John W. Newman, Lindsay H. Allen, Marcia Wood

Agricultural Research Magazine

Vitamin B12 helps your body perform many vital chores, including forming healthy red blood cells; keeping your brain functioning smoothly; and processing (metabolizing) the fats, proteins, and carbohydrates in foods that you eat.

Like all vitamins, B12 is a micronutrient, meaning that we need it in only very small amounts. We get B12 from animal products— meats, fish, poultry, eggs, cheese, and yogurt, for instance—or from B12-fortified foods, notably breakfast cereals. We can also obtain it from nutritional supplements, such as B12 tablets or multivitamin pills. People who need to boost their B12 levels quickly may do so via shots …

Judging Market Goats, Matthew M. Marshall

Agricultural Education and Communication

The purpose of this project was to develop a judging guide for FFA members who participate in Livestock Judging Contests. One of the classes to be judged is Boer goat market wethers. Resources from breeders, industry judges, and handouts were utilized. The PowerPoint that was created can be used as a tool for students to learn the basics of market goat judging. This can also be a useful guide for students who are interested in selecting market goats as a supervised agricultural experience project.

El Proceso De La Certificación Orgánica En Cerro Punta, Panamá: Cómo Promover Cambios Sostenibles, Michelle Velez

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

A pesar del desarrollo de agricultura orgánica al nivel mundial en los últimos años, Panamá falta su propia certificadora nacional. Por eso el proceso de certificación es un reto para los productores entrandoen este mercado creciendo. Cerro Punta, en la provincia de Chiriquí, está ubicado entre dos parques nacionales y produce alrededor de 80 por ciento de las hortalizas del país. Es el lugar del nacimiento de GORACE (Grupo Orgánico de Agricultores Cerropunteños), una organización local sin fines de lucro dedicado al desarrollo de la agricultura orgánica. GORACE esel único grupo de productores en el país con la certificación orgánica. …

Transmission Of Traditional Agricultural Knowledge: Intergenerational Or International? Examining Youth’S Involvement In Agriculture, Georgia Elgar

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the Earth’s changing ecological and economic climates, traditional, ecosystem-specific, culture-specific systems of agriculture has more value than ever before for rural India. Children’s involvement in agricultural work is an important variable in the preservation of such systems. With urban migration of young people and increases in formal education leading to non-farm employment, detailed agricultural knowledge such as soil and water conservation, non-chemical methods of pest control, and are rapidly fading with each generation. This descriptive study aimed to explore and understand the ways in which youth participation in farm work contributes to the preservation of traditional agricultural knowledge in …

A Portrait Of A Farm: A Short Film Documenting Small-Scale Livestock Production On Hayters Hill Farm In Byron Bay, Noah Throop

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Over the past two-hundred years, the industrialization and mechanization of agriculture has slowly dissolved the centuries-old bond between human beings, the land and their food. Today, this disconnect threatens to exacerbate wide scale environmental degradation and a wide array of chronic diseases. However small, local farms that sell their produce directly to consumers are in a position to reverse this trend and reconnect consumers with their food. Small-scale farmers are able to see the health of the environment as instrumental to their economic and personal wellbeing and are able to be held accountable for their farming practices by their customers. …

Can Yamhill County Feed Itself?, Katie O'Brien, Katharine Holm, Kourtney Bailey, Suzannah Klaniecki, Zach Lea, Madison Sanchez

Papers from ENVS 485 (Environmental Problem-Solving Seminar)

In this paper, we considered the following question: If Yamhill County in northwest Oregon were to become isolated, would the population be able to survive off the agricultural products grown within its boundaries? We looked at what the farms in Yamhill County grow and how large of a population they could support. Essentially, this looked at the feasibility of a purely local food system within the borders of Yamhill County. We hypothesized that Yamhill County would not be able to feed itself without outsourcing; stemming from this hypothesis, we examined the maximum amount of food that can be produced locally …

Cultivating Resistance: Food Justice In The Criminal Justice System, Caitlin M. Watkins

Pitzer Senior Theses

This Senior Thesis in Environmental Analysis seeks to explore the ways in which certain food-oriented programs for incarcerated women and women on parole critically resist the Prison Industrial Complex and the Industrial Food System by securing social and ecological equity through the acquisition of food justice. It focuses on three case studies: the Crossroads’ Meatless Mondays program, Fallen Fruit from Rising Women: A Crossroads Social Enterprise, and Cultivating Dreams Prison Garden Project: An Organic Garden for Women in Prison. Each project utilizes food as a tool to build community, provide valuable skill sets of cooking and gardening, and educate women …

Louisiana Agriculture Spring, 2013

Louisiana Agriculture

No abstract provided.

Nebline, April 2013

NEBLINE Newsletter Archive from Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County

Feature: Landscapes in Drought

Farm Views

Urban Agriculture

Food & Fitness

Home & Family Living

Horticulture

Environmental Focus

4-H & Youth

Community Focus

Extension Calendar

Nutrition Education Program

Family and Community Education (FCE) Clubs

and other extension news and events

Weed Awareness Special Pullout Section

A Guide To The Pomona College Organic Farm: An Introduction To The Farm’S History And Basic Gardening Skills And Techniques, Adam J. Long

Pomona Senior Theses

It was almost four years ago when I first visited the Pomona College Organic Farm and since then I have learned everything from the basics of gardening to the complex steps required to organize students for events and activities. As I learned more and saw so many students come and go, I saw a need for written documentation that would allow future generations of students to benefit from the skills that my peers and I have learned in our time at the Farm. The value of the Farm is grounded in having a vibrant physical space, and right now the …

School Gardens: Reconnecting Children With Nature And Food, Alyssa M. Boyle

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis discusses the importance of school gardens. First, two current environmental and societal problems are highlighted: the industrialized food system and what Richard Louv has termed, "Nature Deficit Disorder," in children. School gardens are then presented as an effective tool that can address and remedy such issues. Lastly, a how-to manual for implementing such projects in schools is provided as well as a few sample lesson plans to be used in conjunction with the garden in each subject across the curriculum.

Food Security On Maui: Reinventing Agriculture In The Aloha State, Jade Silver

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis focuses on the past, present, and future of food sustainability on Maui. It begins by explaining ancient Hawaiian agriculture and how this complex system of agriculture was deeply rooted in the customs and traditions of the Hawaiian people. The second section explores how this sustainable agricultural system changed after the arrival of Captain Cook in 1778. After western settlement, land that was once a communal resource became privatized. As land ownership shifted, the traditional subsistence agricultural system of Hawai’i began to change. Export crops such as sugar cane and pineapple became more widespread. As these crops shifted the …

Livelihood Decisions “Choosing” Protein Deficiency: Relationship Between Meat Consumption, Livestock Production, And Globalization In The Bangatan Household, Corey Wood

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study examines the protein deficiency in Tanzania from a livelihood, decision based perspective, by looking at household decisions concerning meat protein consumption and production, in the Bangatan village area. More specifically it examines decisions regarding selling livestock rather than consuming it, the purpose of this cash generation, and globalization’s effects on these livelihood decisions. Predictions included: 1) no correlation or possibly a negative correlation between amount of livestock owned and meat protein consumed 2) families with more cash wealth eat more meat and 3) globalization has effected livelihood decisions regarding the direction of cash over the last 10 years …

Production, Culture, And Representation: An Anthropological Exploration Of Food In Kathmandu, Nepal, Blair Brady

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper explores various food-­‐related narratives, including meat production in Kathmandu, organic farming, the separate experiences of American researchers and American missionaries, "haute cuisine" in a luxury hotel, and a nutritional rehabilitation clinic for malnourished children. Accompanying these narratives are my own experiences that are made communicable through making, or watching food being made. The result of these narratives is a growing picture of the various roles food plays within our lives-­‐ generated by what was communicated by the people who source, cook, and eat food, but also infused by my own observations. Included narratives primarily concern food's ability to …

Chiriquí, Panamá: Una Investigación Del Esfuerzo Multi-Nivel Que Aspira A Mejorar La Alimentación En Escuelas Primarias De Zonas Rurales Y Urbanas, Ni Cole Sofia Smallwood

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study aimed to discover how external organizations, teachers, and parents impact primary student health in rural and urban areas in the Chiriquí Province of Panama. The objectives were to analyze the role of the stated variables in student nutrition and to evaluate the effectiveness of the food programs implemented at the schools. With permission and help from MEDUCA I chose two urban and two rural schools in the David, Chiriquí area. I conducted semi-structured interview with four parents and five teachers in the rural area; three parents and five teachers in the urban area; and one government official. Panama …

Livestock Marketing And Risk Management, Dillon M. Feuz, Bridger Feuz, Ryan Feuz

All Current Publications

Ranching has always been a challenging and risky operation. Producers deal with production risk on a daily basis. A late winter storm during calving or lambing season can result in sickness and even death for many new born calves and lambs. Drought can reduce available grazed forages and increase feeding costs. Sickness or disease may limit weight gain or be detrimental to reproductive performance