The Ag e-Dispatch

Not too late to donate

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:11:54 -0500

The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences chalked up $1,565 in donations to take first place in the competition among the SAES’s four academic departments to see which of them could raise the most money for students’ out-of-pocket higher education costs and departmental instructional resources in the weeks leading up to Homecoming 2009. The Department of Agribusiness, Applied Economics and Agriscience Education finished second with $1,220; Animal Sciences was third with $689; and Natural Resources and Environmental Design was fourth with $300.

Dr. Donald McDowell, the interim SAES dean, and his administrative team want to send along a note of thanks to all members of the faculty and staff who were able to make donations. For those who were so busy with professional or personal obligations that the Cash for Thinkers fundraiser slipped by, it’s still not too late to give. Donation protocol is still accessible at the SAES website.

SAES International Trade Center to help offer guidance to stimulus funding

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:08:06 -0500

The SAES’s International Trade Center is collaborating with the North Carolina Coalition of Farm and Rural Families in organizing a forum for presenting insights into “The American Recovery Reinvestment Act of 2009: Implications for Small Farms, Cooperatives, and Small Businesses.” The forum will be Friday, Nov. 13, at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel in Durham. Among the featured speakers are business, marketing and grants specialists from USDA Rural Business Development, and entrepreneurs with success stories that include dos and don’ts for funding support.

Dr. Osei Yeboah, an SAES associate professor who also serves as the interim director of the SAES’s International Trade Center, says that: “In the last two years, small producers, cooperatives, and small businesses have been facing historic energy, economic and environmental challenges. To address these issues, we are inviting program managers from USDA and state agencies to give an overview of their programs and funding opportunities available for producers and businesses.”

Members of the Cooperative Extension field staff, and professionals from other small-farm and rural business support agencies who are interested in registering to attend the forum should contact Yeboah.

Yeboah was part of a 100-member review panel selected to evaluate applications in September for the Department of Energy Biomass Energy Program at the agency’s Colorado field office. The DOE will be directing $500 million in stimulus funding to commercial-scale production of gasoline, jet fuel, and ethanol from corn, sugar, woody biomass and other feedstocks.

Application deadline for vet school prep program is Nov. 13

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:04:45 -0500

The application deadline is Nov. 13 for SAES undergraduate students majoring in one of the animal sciences who are interested in following the Food Animal Scholars Program’s academic pathway to N.C. State’s College of Veterinary Medicine in the fall of 2011. Up to six students and two alternates from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State and the SAES and are chosen for the Food Animal Scholars Program each year. Their progress toward achieving the admission requirements for State’s College of Veterinary Medicine is then closely monitored and well mentored. To be eligible for the program, Animal Sciences majors should be on schedule to complete their bachelor’s degrees within two or three semesters following submission of their November application.

Dr. Willie Willis of the Department of Animal Sciences serves as the SAES’s program representative and he requests that any A&T students interested in the application process begin their quest by first contacting him, either by e-mail or with a call to his office, 336.334.7786.

Animal Sciences students’ research work gets public review

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:57:46 -0500

Two SAES Animal Sciences undergraduate students and four graduate students put together poster presentations covering their research projects for North Carolina Alliance to Create Opportunity Through Education (NC OPT-ED) Alliance day in October. The SAES Alliance Day Animal Sciences student researchers making presentations were:
• Erin Barnes, an undergraduate whose research into “Isolation and Purity of DNA from Goat and Swine Blood Collected on FTA Cards” was guided by Dr. Millie Worku;
• Carresse Gerald, a graduate student working under the guidance of Dr. Jenora Waterman, whose research project was “Swine Confinement Facility Dust Induces NF-kB and iNOS Expression in Airway Epithelial Cells In Vitro”;
• La'Toya Lane, a graduate student whose research mentor was Dr. Millie Worku, whose research was into “Identification of the Putative Ligand-Binding Region of Caprine Toll-Like Receptor-4(TLR4) from a Spanish Goat”;
• Melody Robinson, a second year master's student advised by Dr. Radiah Minor, whose research was into "The Effect of B-glucan on the Allergic Immune Response to Chitin”;
• Savannah Schepis, a graduate student whose research advisor for a “Sequence Comparison of Human and Bovine Small Heat Shock Proteins” was Dr. Millie Worku;
• Dez-Ann Sutherland, an undergraduate whose research was an “Evaluation of the effects of Nutraceutical Grade of Colostrum on the growth of C.elegans” that was guided by Dr. Millie Worku.

Melody Robinson’s research NC OPT-ED Alliance day presentation was also accepted for presentation at the Annual Biomedical and Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in Phoenix, Ariz., the first week of November.

Thought for food

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:55:49 -0500

On Thursday, Nov. 19, the Department of Family and Consumer Science’s Food and Nutrition Club will host a free screening of the movie Food, Inc. at Coltrane Hall. The 94-minute film will begin at 4 p.m.

One reviewer sums up the critically acclaimed documentary as “concerned with the extent to which industrial food production has replaced farming in America,” that has become a “blunt instrument of civic, moral, and social responsibility.”

Following the movie there will be an interactive panel discussion led by some of the SAES’s experts in food sciences, sustainable agriculture, health and food activism. Panelists will be an SAES food scientist, Dr. Ipek Goktepe, Dr. Patricia Lynch of the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, and Dr. John O’Sullivan, farm management and marketing specialist for The Cooperative Extension Program.

Hats off

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:54:00 -0500

The SAES Ambassadors are collecting winter clothing (coats, hats, sweaters, jackets, gloves and scarves) for donation to Greensboro Urban Ministry. Boxes for donations are at Webb , Carver, Sockwell, Benbow, and the child development lab’s temporary location at the New Millennium Christian Center at 424 Fisher Park Circle. The drive will wind up on Dec. 4, when the Ambassadors deliver the donations they’ve collected to Greensboro Urban Ministry’s clothing bank for distribution to individuals who will be facing the upcoming winter homeless or without the financial resources to purchase winter clothing.

Each academic year, approximately 20 SAES students are selected as Ambassadors to represent the SAES at receptions and ceremonies, and to help out with community service activities such as the winter clothing drive. The student organization’s officers for the 2009-10 academic year are: Barry Donovan, president; Amber Lassiter, vice president; Shaniqua Smith, secretary; Andrea Gentry, historian; Sierra Burrell, public relations coordinator; Lindsey McNeil, parliamentarian; and Katrina Veney, treasurer.

Next seminar to cover environmental acronyms

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:58:08 -0500

The next installment in the Department Of Natural Resources and Environmental Design’s (NRED) seminar series will be Thursday, Oct. 22. Kristin Ling Smith, an ecologist with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service will discuss "Compliance with NEPA and Related Regulations: A Study of Environmental Acronyms." The seminar will be in Room 205 of Carver Hall, and it will get under way at noon.

Most of the seminars in the NRED series are on Thursdays in Carver and begin at noon. Featured speakers include postdoctoral research associates and guest scholars not affiliated with A&T, as well as NRED teaching and research faculty. Seminar topics will include all areas of research carried out in the NRED and related areas. Many topics will open up lines of collaboration with other departments, the private sector and other partners.

Egg production research gets fungal boost

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:55:39 -0500

A team of SAES researchers has had its evaluation of the potential for using sorghum inoculated with mushrooms to induce molting in laying chickens published in the journal Poultry Science. Their research into an alternative to withholding feed to induce molting in poultry has significant potential for egg production. Research faculty on the team that submitted the A&T-based study of “Utilizing fungus myceliated grain for molt induction and performance in commercial laying hens” are Drs. Willie Willis, Omon Isikhuemhen and John Allen. Filling out the team were Andrea Byers and Kristen King, SAES research assistants, and a former Animal Sciences student now at the College of Veterinary Medicine at N.C. State, Carla Thomas. Thomas was a member of the project team while taking undergraduate courses taught by Willis.

SWAT slots remain

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:51:10 -0500

Dr. Manuel R. Reyes of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design is working with colleagues at Texas A&M and N.C. State to coordinate a comprehensive SWAT (Soil & Water Assessment Tool) training program for water quality professionals in November. There will be a two-day training program for those unfamiliar with the watershed modeling (which predicts the impact of land-use practices on water runoff and sedimentation) at Sockwell Hall Nov. 16 and 17. Then on Nov. 19 and 20, there will be training for more advanced SWAT users at McKimmon Center on the N. C. State campus. Texas A&M is hosting the online registration form on its website.

Endear yourself to high quality high school seniors headed to the SAES for 2010-11

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:35:42 -0500

The Ron Brown Scholar Program — named to honor the former U.S. Secretary of Commerce who died in a plane crash in 1996 — has two application deadlines. Those applications received by Nov. 1 will be evaluated for the Brown Scholar Program and forwarded along to other scholarship programs that seem appropriate. Applications received between Nov. 1 and Jan. 9 will be evaluated for the Brown Scholar Program alone.

The Ron Brown Scholar Program awards recipients $10,000 a year for four years at the college or university of their choice. (Students who have graduated from high school and started college are not eligible.)

SAES research shows up on far side of Pacific Rim

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:42:49 -0500

Dr. Omon Isikhuemhen, the SAES mycologist who coordinates the Mushroom Biology & Fungal Biotechnolgy Laboratory at the University Farm, has been invited to give a poster presentation on his research work and to serve as a session co-convener at the 5th International Medicinal Mushroom Conference in Nantong, China, the first week in September. Isikhuemhen is serving as co-convener for a conference session covering “Physiology, Biochemistry and Genetics.” In another of the conference’s eight sessions, one devoted to Taxonomy, Ecology, and Germplasm Depositories,” he is scheduled to present research that he and a colleague have conducted into “Mating Pattern and Preliminary Studies on Strain Selection in the Tropical Mushroom Lentinus Squarrosulus Mont.”

The 5th International Medicinal Mushroom Conference in Nantong was organized by many of the same scientists who have established the International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms. The conference brings medical doctors and immunologists together along with mycologists for research updates and subsequent technical developments. Isikhuemhen served on the International Scientific Committee for the 5th International Medicinal Mushroom Conference.

Evergreen research presented at international forum

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:47:29 -0500

At the 2009 annual meeting of the Plant Growth Regulation Society of America (PGRSA), Dr. Guochen Yang, an SAES plant biotechnologist, and an SAES research associate, Zhongge “Cindy” Lu, presented findings from research into
“In Vitro Galax Seed Germination Under Different Plant Growth Regulator, Culture Medium Strength and pH Factors.”

After holding its 33rd meeting in Quebec City in 2006, its 34th meeting in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in 2007 and the organization’s, 36th annual get-together in San Francisco in 2008, the the PGRSA chose Asheville for its 2009 annual meeting in early August. At the conference, Yang received an invitation from the PGRSA’s executive director to serve for three years on the organization’s steering committee, an advisory body that addresses most of the organization’s basic management decisions.

The PGRSA has been giving scientists from many areas of specialization a central agency for collecting and disseminating information on plant growth regulators, plant tissue culture and other propagation techniques since the organization was established in 1973. The organization publishes reference books and a quarterly journal of technical articles.

Biotech research proposals due Sept. 23

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:45:39 -0500

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center will be taking grant applications until Sept. 23 for proposals, with cost projections of less than $75,000, for projects that will strengthen biotechnology research and development at academic institutions and other non-profits involved in research. Among the specific areas on the Biotechnology Center’s wish list this fall are biotech applications for food safety, nutritional and natural products, and also projects that will have specific applications in agriculture.

To give researchers at lower profile institutions an inside track, scientists at the main campuses of Duke, N.C. State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are ineligible for this funding program. Among the grant recipients in 2008 was the SAES’s Dr. Omon Isikhuemhen, who was awarded $75,000 to investigate potential applications for biotechnology methods in mass propagation, inoculation and screening of truffle-inoculated seedlings.

Last day in August is last day for student research abstracts

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:38:28 -0500

The North Carolina Alliance to Create Opportunity through Education is working to increase the number of minority students receiving doctorates in science, technology and engineering. One of the organization’s major projects is an annual Alliance Day, where students showcase their research work, meet with grad school recruiters and attend professional development workshops. The 2009 Alliance Day will be Oct. 2 at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex Special Events Center. The deadline for submitting abstracts is Monday, Aug. 31. An abstract of 300 words or less describing the research is required for both poster and oral presentations.

Global gusto

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:29:34 -0500

A&T students who have been toying with notions of spending a summer or semester studying abroad will have an opportunity to pick up some new ideas to bounce around at the University’s Study Abroad Fair on Wednesday, Sept. 2, from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in Stallings Ballroom at the Memorial Student Union building.

The SAES has three international programs that will be highlighted at the Study Abroad Fair:
• The Peace Corps Master’s International Program , which is now accepting applications —combines graduate school with Peace Corps service to give students a resume that includes both a master’s degree and two years of work experience in international development.
• Dr. Terrence Thomas has openings to send two more students to Ege University in Turkey next fall as part of an exchange program made possible by a USDA grant.
• Dr. Anthony Yeboah and John Paul Owens of the Dept. of Agribusiness, Applied Economics and Agriscience Education are project co-directors for a Capacity Building Grant that is providing SAES students with scholarships for study abroad. The grant also provides funding to help defray the costs of airfare, passports, visas, vaccinations, health insurance, and other costs associated with international travel. Applications are now being accepted from SAES students who would like to apply for study abroad scholarships for spring and summer of 2010.