Life Sciences Commons^™

Commercial Land Grabs Threaten Global Food Ecosystem, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

An Asian Origin Of Virulent Aeromonas Hydrophila Responsible For Disease Epidemics In United States-Farmed Catfish, Mohammad J. Hossain, Dawei Sun, Donald J. Mcgarey, Shannon Wrenn

Faculty Articles

Unlabelled: Since 2009, catfish farming in the southeastern United States has been severely impacted by a highly virulent and clonal population of Aeromonas hydrophila causing motile Aeromonas septicemia (MAS) in catfish. The possible origin of this newly emerged highly virulent A. hydrophila strain is unknown. In this study, we show using whole-genome sequencing and comparative genomics that A. hydrophila isolates from diseased grass carp in China and catfish in the United States have highly similar genomes. Our phylogenomic analyses suggest that U.S. catfish isolates emerged from A. hydrophila populations of Asian origin. Furthermore, we identified an A. hydrophila strain isolated …

Biodiversity: A Guide To Agricultural Wildlife, Rebecca Ozeran, Elaina Cromer

Animal Science

We have compiled a list of the birds and mammals that we documented at selected locations on campus. Through this document we aim to offer an easily accessible resource that students, faculty, and visitors can utilize to not just satisfy their curiosity but also spark further contemplation. For each species and for each location, we have also summarized the possible implications of our observations from a holistic perspective. The purpose of this is to get people to think about the way land is managed and what may indicate that it is being mismanaged or that the certain aspects of current …

Your Organic Farm: Community Supported Agriculture, Usu Student Organic Farm

USU Student Organic Farm Newsletter

As you know gardens can come with challenges, however being prepared with knowledge and tools can help prevent a challenge from becoming a serious problem. This spring some of our challenges have been pests. It is important to be aware of the their signs and then take the proper active action to apply barriers that prevent problematic pests from causing too much damage.

Your Organic Farm: Community Supported Agriculture, Usu Student Organic Farm

USU Student Organic Farm Newsletter

First off, we want to thank you for your support this season. Without it this farm and our internships would not be possible. As students, we are just beginning to break the surface of our passions and with your support we have opportunity to grow. We would like you to know that we appreciate and feel fortunate for what we have here at the farm. This season you will see all five of your student farmers have a true passion for buying local, growing organic produce, and connecting the community. We pledge to give our best this season and provide …

Effect Of Monetary Policy On Agricultural Sector In Nigeria, Elias A. Udeaja, Udoh A. Elijah

Economic and Financial Review

The study examinee the effect of monetary policy on agricultural sector in Nigeria, utilizing time series data for the periods spanning from 1970 to 2010. The study captures both monetary and non-monetary policy variables such as lending rate, commercial banks credit to agriculture, exchange rate, government expenditure in agriculture and inflation rate in examining the effect of monetary policy on agricultural output. The methodology adopted is the Auto- Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bound Testing Approach. The results obtained shows that exchange rate and government expenditure had positive and significant effect on agricultural output and, hence agricultural sector in Nigeria. It …

Benefits Of Exposing Animals To Poor-Quality Foods Early In Life, Beth Burritt

All Current Publications

This fact sheet provides research examples of how exposure early in life to poor-quality or high-toxin forages can increase intake and preference for certain forages and improve the productivity of livestock.

Farming: It's Not Just For Farmers Anymore, Jennifer Schmidt

Pomona Senior Theses

Agricultural education, originally the province of land grant institutions, has recently entered the liberal arts curriculum. This represents a profound shift from the origins of agricultural education, when it was intended primarily as vocational training for future farmers, and has important implications for the future of the American food system. The first chapter of this thesis addresses the history of agricultural education: what was it originally like, and why did it come to be heavily criticized in the late twentieth century? Formal agricultural education changed significantly in response to these criticisms, making it more environmentally sustainable and bringing it into …

Biodynamic Agriculture: A Valuable Alternative To The Industrial Farming System, Eden K. Olsen

Scripps Senior Theses

Since the Scientific and Industrial revolutions, advancing technologies and cutting-edge science have enabled our society to continually promote a growing global economy. Industrial growth has increasingly become a top priority for most governments, notably in the agricultural realm. The advances towards agricultural industrialization began in the 17^th century and escalated during the Green Revolution, which examined the possibility of using synthetic fertilizers and mechanization in farming to decrease labor and improve yields. Although seen as economically beneficial, the shift from an agrarian lifestyle to industrial farming has created an ecological, economic, and ideological crisis to our modern world. This …

Post-Secondary Student's Perception Of College Readiness Skills Developed During Secondary Education Careers, Loren Gross

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This study is designed to collect information from participants in the AGRI 175 University Experience Agriculture course. The data collected will be focused on the college readiness and career preparedness of students coming from a secondary school system by being broken into the subcategories of: FFA/ 4-H/ Extracurricular, Classroom, Outside of Classroom Educational Obligations, and Miscellaneous. The study will use these four sections as primers for responses for the participants. The four areas will utilize questions to attain attributes in knowledge, skill, and abilities from the subjects with their experiences in secondary education. The goal of this study is to …

Palatability Of Teff Grass By Horses, Rachel R. Cummins

Animal Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Most forages commonly used to feed horses have potential detriments including blister beetles or excessive fiber concentrations. Teff grass (T), a warm-season annual forage, has the potential to be a good alternative for horses because of its lack of observed disorders. Our objective was to compare preference by horses for T harvested under different conditions with that of bermudagrass (B) harvested at two maturities. Six different forages were evaluated: T harvested at the late vegetative stage (TLV), at late bloom but that incurred 33 mm of rainfall between mowing and baling (TLBR), with caryopsis visible (TES), or at soft dough …

Should Ranchers Value Sagebrush? Why We Need Sagebrush, Beth Burritt, Thomas Monaco, Eric Thacker

All Current Publications

This fact sheet describes the value of sagebrush to ranchers. Big sagebrush is beneficial to grasses and forbs growing under its canopy by supplying them water, nutrients,organic matter and protection from overgrazing. It provides food and cover for a number of birds, reptiles, small mammals and beneficial insects. It can provide winter forage for both wildlife and livestock. Lastly, it is an important plant for revegetation efforts in the West.

Nutritional Value And Toxins In Various Noxious Weeds, Beth Burritt, Rae Ann Hart

All Current Publications

Teaching animals to eat noxious weeds may be a solution to reducing noxious weeds. Grazing animals often avoid eating weeds due to novelty even though weeds are often as nutritious as many of our planted pasture and rangelands species. This fact sheet provides livestock producers with the nutritive values of many common weeds. These values were summarized from a variety of peer-reviewed journal articles.

Economic And Soil Quality Impacts From Crop/Rangeland Residue Burning, Lyle Holmgren, Grant Cardon, Clint Hill

All Current Publications

This fact sheet describes the practice of burning crop residues and the impacts of it on economics and soil quality.

Unpermitted Urban Agriculture: Transgressive Actions, Changing Norms And The Local Food Movement, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Roberta keeps four chickens in her backyard. Bob snuck onto the vacant lot next door, which the bank foreclosed upon and now owns, and planted a vegetable garden. Vien operates an occasional underground restaurant from his friends’ microbrewery after beer-making operations cease for the day. The common thread tying these actions together is that they are unauthorized; they are being undertaken in violation of existing laws and often norms. In this Article, I explore ideas surrounding the overlap between food policy and land use law, specifically the transgressive1 actions that people living in urban and suburban communities are undertaking to …

Csa Shares, Usu Student Organic Farm

USU Student Organic Farm Newsletter

Your student farm is super excited for the 2014 CSA season and with this excitement comes our commitment to produce and ensure an amazingly bountiful year. So far we are well on our way to achieve this goal. We have put in a lot of work planning our season’s produce through farm maps and efficient seed purchases. Our planning has been extensive and Nathan Staker, your new farm manager, has done a spectacular job preparing and organizing everything and everyone. Spring seeding and planting has also begun. Our cool season hoop house is nearly full and our greenhouse is overfull …

Agriculture, Environmental Restoration And Ecosystem Services: Assessing The Costs Of Water Storage On Agricultural Lands In South Florida, Kayla Ouellette

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A large part of the environmental restoration required by the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan calls for more water-storage on lands south of Lake Okeechobee in order to restore the natural water flows of the Everglades watershed. The Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) can be used for increased water storage in order to relieve coastal estuaries of excess water in the rainy season. This water storage can deliver additional ecosystem services of soil retention and reduced CO2 emissions that could compensate farmers for the cost of water storage by increasing long term farm profitability. The goals of this study were 1) to …

Genome Wide Association Mapping Of Grain Arsenic, Copper, Molybdenum And Zinc In Rice (Oryza Sativa L.) Grown At Four International Field Sites, Gareth J. Norton, Alex Douglas, Brett Lahner, Elena Yakubova, Mary Lou Guerinot, Shannon R.M Pinson, Lee Tarpley, George C. Eizenga, Steve P. Mcgrath, Fang-Jie Zhao

Dartmouth Scholarship

The mineral concentrations in cereals are important for human health, especially for individuals who consume a cereal subsistence diet. A number of elements, such as zinc, are required within the diet, while some elements are toxic to humans, for example arsenic. In this study we carry out genome-wide association (GWA) mapping of grain concentrations of arsenic, copper, molybdenum and zinc in brown rice using an established rice diversity panel of ~300 accessions and 36.9 k single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The study was performed across five environments: one field site in Bangladesh, one in China and two in the US, with …

The Cooperative Solution, Shawn Stolworthy

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Cooperatives can work! Among the many cooperatives that have been organized, only a handful are successful commodity marketers. These successful cooperatives provide examples of how growers can work together to market their commodities profitably. Agricultural commodities have volatile markets. Farmers compete in perfectly competitive markets. Their individual decisions will not affect the market. Growers don’t know what commodity supplies will be when they plant. The determinants of supply are set before growers know what the supply will be. Agriculture can’t turn on and off the spigot of production like other Industries. Once the factors determining supply have been established they …

The Ten Most Common Mistakes In Using No-Till, Earl Creech, Phil Rasmussen, Robert Newhall

All Current Publications

Interest in no-till (NT) crop production practices has increased greatly among Utah farmers and ranchers in recent years. This publication highlights 10 common mistakes that are often made by producers that are new to NT.

Agricultural Conversion Without External Water And Nutrient Inputs Reduces Terrestrial Vegetation Productivity, William Kolby Smith, Cory C. Cleveland, Sasha C. Reed, Steven W. Running

Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences Faculty Publications

Driven by global population and standard of living increases, humanity co-opts a growing share of the planet's natural resources resulting in many well-known environmental trade-offs. In this study, we explored the impact of agriculture on a resource fundamental to life on Earth: terrestrial vegetation growth (net primary production; NPP). We demonstrate that agricultural conversion has reduced terrestrial NPP by ~7.0%. Increases in NPP due to agricultural conversion were observed only in areas receiving external inputs (i.e., irrigation and/or fertilization). NPP reductions were found for ~88% of agricultural lands, with the largest reductions observed in areas formerly occupied by tropical forests …

Cultivate Fall/Winter 2014, Utah State University

Cultivate Magazine

No abstract provided.

Cultivate Spring/Summer 2014, Utah State University

Cultivate Magazine

No abstract provided.

Beta Diversity Of Urban Floras Among European And Non-European Cities, Frank A. La Sorte, Myla F.J. Aronson, Nicholas S.G. Williams, Laura Celesti-Grapow, Sarel Cilliers, Bruce D. Clarkson, Rebecca W. Dolan, Andrew Hipp, Stefan Klotz, Ingolf Kühn, Pter Pyšek, Stefan Siebert, Marten Winter

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Aim- Cities represent an ideal study system for assessing how intensive land-use change and biotic interchange have altered beta diversity at broad geographic extents. Here we test the hypothesis that floras in cities located in disparate regions of the globe are being homogenized by species classified as invasive (naturalized species that have spread over a large area) or as a European archaeophyte (species introduced into Europe before ad 1500 from the Mediterranean Basin). We also test the prediction that the global influences of European activities (colonization, agriculture, commerce) have supported this outcome.

Location- One hundred and ten cities …

2014–2015 Agricultural Situation And Outlook, Kevin Heidemann, William M. Snell

Agricultural Situation and Outlook

No abstract provided.

Nitrogen And Carbon Dynamics In Prairie Vegetation Strips Across Topographical Gradients In Mixed Central Iowa Agroecosystems, Marlin Perez-Suarez, Michael J. Castellano, Randall Kolka, Heidi Asbjornsen, Matthew J. Helmers

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Reductions of nitrogen (N) export from agricultural lands because of changes in specific N stocks andfluxes by incorporation of small amounts of prairie vegetation strips (PVS) are poorly understood. Theprimary objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of the presence and topographical position of PVSon soil and plant carbon (C) and N stocks relative to annual crop and native prairie vegetation. The studywas implemented within three small adjacent watersheds, treated with one of the following cover types:(1) 100% row-crop agriculture (CROP); (2) 20% prairie vegetation (PVS) distributed along the contouracross three topographical positions: upslope, sideslope and footslope position; …

Encouraging Teacher Change Within The Realities Of School-Based Agricultural Education: Lessons From Teachers’ Initial Use Of Socioscientific Issues-Based Instruction, Amie Wilcox, Catherine W. Shoulders, Brian E. Myers

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Calls for increased interdisciplinary education have led to the development of numerous teaching techniques designed to help teachers provide meaningful experiences for their students. However, methods of guiding teachers in the successful adoption of innovative teaching approaches are not firmly set. This qualitative study sought to better understand how school-based agricultural education teachers decide to adopt or discontinue a teaching innovation when introduced through ready-made lesson plans, which is currently a common practice of teaching method integration in school-based agricultural education (SBAE). Constant comparative analysis unveiled themes within the reactions to the teaching method’s use, as well as how teacher …

Economics Of Food And Agriculture, David L. Debertin

Agricultural Economics Textbook Gallery

This is a heavily‐revised version of an introductory agricultural economics textbook, Economics of Food and Agriculture, that was originally published by Kendall Hunt in 1990. The material is intended for use as a series of classroom presentations for an introductory agricultural economics course. No mathematics prerequisites other than basic algebra are required.

Wetland Issues Affecting Waterfowl Conservation In North America, Heath M. Hagy, Scott C. Yaich, John W. Simpson, Eduardo Carrera, David A. Haukos, W.Carter Johnson, Charles R. Loesch, Fritz A. Reid, Scott E. Stephens, Ralph W. Tiner, Brett A. Werner, Greg S. Yarris

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

This paper summarises discussions by invited speakers during a special session at the 6th North American Duck Symposium on wetland issues that affect waterfowl, highlighting current ecosystem challenges and opportunities for the conservation of waterfowl in North America. Climate change, invasive species, U.S. agricultural policy (which can encourage wetland drainage and the expansion of row-crop agriculture into grasslands), cost and competition for water rights, and wetland management for non-waterfowl species were all considered to pose significant threats to waterfowl populations in the near future. Waterfowl populations were found to be faced with significant threats in several regions, including: the Central …

Origins Of The Classical Gene Concept, 1900–1950: Genetics, Mechanistic, Philosophy, And The Capitalization Of Agriculture, Garland E. Allen

Biology Faculty Research

In the period of “classical genetics” (roughly 1915–1950), the common view of the gene was mechanistic—that is, genes were seen as individual, atomistic units, as material components of the chromosomes. Although it was recognized early on that genes could interact and influence each other’s expression, they were still regarded as individually functioning units, much like the chemists’ atoms or molecules. Although geneticists in particular knew the story was more complex, the atomistic gene remained the central view for a variety of reasons. It fit the growing philosophy of mechanistic materialism in the life sciences, as biologists tried to make their …