The dedication, which welcomed Nagel’s wife Bea, son Rob Nagel, daughter Trish Niehl, and son-in-law Bob Niehl, was held Friday, Aug. 11, at the Richland-based center. CAHNRS Dean Ron Mittelhammer, Viticulture & Enology Director Thomas Henick-Kling and Academic Vice Chancellor Martin Klotz attended. A lunch celebrating Bea’s 89th birthday followed at Anthony’s Restaurant at Columbia Point.
Nagel, who died in 2007 at age 80, was a WSU scientist and a giant in the Washington wine industry, helping to prove that fine wine could be produced and marketed in this state.
“The science, winemaking practice, and wine tasting expertise that Chas brought to Washington helped lay the foundation for our modern wine industry,” said Henick-Kling.
The lab will help the Wine Science Center study the microbes that affect vines and wines, ultimately improving the Washington industry for years to come.
Yoder named to Washington State Academy of Sciences
Jonathan Yoder, professor in the School of Economic Sciences and director of the State of Washington Water Research Center, has been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences.
Yoder, an internationally renowned economist whose applied economic approaches provide an evidence-based foundation for environmental and natural resource policy, was among four WSU faculty members named to the academy this summer, bringing the university’s total to 267. He will be inducted during the academy’s tenth annual symposium Sept. 14 at the Seattle Museum of Flight.
Plant Pathology’s du Toit named VP of Phytopathological Society
Lindsey du Toit was named Vice President-elect of the American Phytopathological Society, during the organization’s annual meeting, held August 5-9 in San Antonio.
Since 2014, she has served as councilor-at-large to the society, which is made up of nearly 5,000 plant pathologists in higher education, government, industry and private practice. The society advances high-quality, innovative plant pathology research and the sharing of scientific innovations worldwide.
As vice president, du Toit will work with the society’s council, boards, committees and staff to expand membership, promote diversity, encourage communication and awareness, set priorities, and guide growth.
“My role in APS will help bring a better national and international perspective to my program at WSU,” she said, “At the same time, my role at WSU, a land grant institution, will help keep my contributions to the society grounded in developing real solutions for plant disease management.”
For the third year in a row, the WSU Department of Animal Sciences has claimed the national ice cream trophy, the “Big Scoop.”
The department’s dairy students and faculty, partnering with the WSU Creamery, won their third American Society of Animal Sciences Ice Cream Competition.
Attendees at the Society’s annual meeting, held July 9 in Baltimore, Md., voted with their spoons to declare WSU’s creamy Huckleberry Ripple the winner.
The American Dairy Science Association presented Fox with award in June, at the ADSA Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, Penn. The award was created to recognize outstanding teaching of undergraduate students in dairy science.
A WSU faculty member for more than three decades, Fox developed the university’s Advanced Dairy Management course, teaching students how data-based management programs and projection and analytical programs could be incorporated into dairy management systems. He has been lead instructor for Dairy Cattle Traits and Selection for 15 years, Introductory Dairy Production Laboratory for more than 25 years, and the senior-level Dairy Production class for more than 25 years. Fox has also advised the award-winning WSU Dairy Club for 32 years. The club is one of only two teams that has won the Quiz Bowl competition more than once.
Black is a Pesticide Education Specialist and Urban Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Pesticide Safety Education Program Director.
The award recognizes Black’s contribution to the profession, and her abilities and dedication. She will be presented with her award at the 2017 Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting in Denver, Colo., in November.
Association leadership roles, awards for Economic Sciences faculty
Faculty members from the School of Economic Sciences received awards and were elected to leadership roles at the Western Agricultural Economics Association’s annual meeting, held July 9-11 in Lake Tahoe.
Randy Fortenberry, professor and Small Grains Endowed Chair, was named president of the association for 2017-2018.
Named directors of the association were Jo Ann Warner, assistant director of WSU Extension’s Western Extension Risk Management Center, for 2017-2020, and Karina Gallardo, associate professor and Extension specialist, WAEA director through 2019.
Vicki McCracken, SES professor and chair of the Department of Apparel, Merchandising, Design and Textiles, was elected a Fellow of the association. The Fellow Award honors enduring contributions to agricultural and other applied economics in the western states and the association.
Pacific NW Canola Association begins first steps
Canola acreage in Washington, Montana, and the Pacific Northwest has reached record levels this year, and interest from producers who have never grown the crop continues to increase as well.
The Northwest is the only canola production region in the U.S. without a canola association, so a concerted effort to form one began earlier this year during WSU Washington Oilseed Cropping Systems workshops. The first major step towards the formation of the Pacific Northwest Canola Association (PNWCA) was achieved in July when a certificate of incorporation was received from the Washington Secretary of State. A steering committee comprised of canola producers, industry members, and university faculty has been working on bylaws, and is now seeking nominations for producer members for the board of directors.
Financial support for completing the legal side of the association was secured from the U.S. Canola Association last year by Anna Scharf, a canola producer in the Willamette Valley. Extension Specialist Karen Sowers has taken the lead on working through the process, and reports the steering committee hopes to see the PNWCA become finalized by the end of the year. Updates will be posted on the WOCS website and on Facebook.
Compared with fossil fuels, biofuels made from trees and other crops may lead to considerably less net carbon emissions. In a new paper in “Energy Economics,” researchers with the School of Economic Sciences reveal that the effectiveness of a carbon tax for reducing carbon emissions may be greater than previous studies suggest.
Doctoral graduate Boying Liu, Professor Jonathan Yoder, and Emeritus Professor Richard Shumway developed a life-cycle analysis of the production of biofuels with a unique economic component. Their analysis accounts for production process changes in response to how carbon taxes affect the prices of inputs like raw materials or the energy used to produce biofuels. They showed that under the stimulus of a carbon tax, biofuel companies would adjust their conventional input combinations and switch to low-emission energy sources for production and transportation, significantly lowering life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions.
“Our new model shows how firms are likely to change their behavior based on incentives,” Yoder said. “We’ve added flexibility in our model for people and businesses to respond to policy in ways that conventional life-cycle analysis does not.”
“Carbon taxes are more effective at reducing emissions than most previous studies suggest,” he added, “because they haven’t accounted for the way firms are likely to choose to change their input mix toward less carbon-intensive production processes.”
Food scientists Bernhard, Nguyen promote texture study at Down syndrome convention
Ben Bernhard, doctoral candidate in the WSU/UI School of Food Science, and postdoctoral researcher Thuy Nguyen attended the National Down Syndrome Congress Convention in Sacramento in July.
Working with his advisor, Professor Carolyn Ross, Bernhard is conducting research on texture perception in children with food texture sensitivities, with an emphasis on children with Down syndrome. Making the leap from purees to more complex textures such as meats, vegetables and grains is important for children’s oral motor development and nutrition during critical developmental years. Bernhard and Ross will ultimately develop products that can make this transition easier for children with texture sensitivities.
At the conference, Bernhard and Nguyen helped promote his research project, which is now recruiting nation-wide for children with texture sensitivities.
Innovation honor for Ostrom
Marcia Ostrom, WSU Small Farms Program Leader and Extension Educator with the School of the Environment, was selected by her peers to receive the inaugural Excellence in Innovation Award by the Agriculture, Food & Human Values Society at their 2017 Annual Meeting, held in June in Los Angeles.
The awards committee recognized Ostrom for her collaborative approach to designing inclusive, sustainable farming education programs that engage a wide range of people, from immigrant farmworkers to academic students to conventional farmers.
At the awards presentation, her nominators commended her work to pair innovative local farmers with scientific experts from her university to co-create and share knowledge about sustainable farming strategies.
Grants
CSANR, BSE researchers seek sites to grow tomorrow’s produce
Thanks to a changing climate, production of fruits and vegetables may be more challenging in some regions of the country in the future.
At WSU, Chad Kruger, director of CSANR; Claudio Stöckle, Biological Systems Engineering professor; and Kirti Rajagopalan, assistant research professor with CSANR, received more than $490,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
“The fruit and vegetable industries make very significant investments in infrastructure and logistics to produce, process, pack and distribute products,” said Kruger. “Having better information to understand future risks to these investments is critical to the sustainability of fruit and vegetable production in the U.S.”
“The Pacific Northwest has growing advantages and opportunities that we want to explore,” added Rajagopalan. “We’re excited to help chart new strategies to sustain the fruit and vegetable value chain, while maintaining our nutritious, reliable and environmentally-sound food supply.”
Norberg to study alfalfa fertilizers
Steve Norberg, Extension specialist for Adams, Benton, Franklin, and Grant counties, received a $40,000 grant in the first-ever farmer alfalfa checkoff program to develop practical phosphorus and potassium tissue test recommendations, and to investigate use of struvite in modern alfalfa growing systems.
Norberg’s work will help growers know when to fertilize their alfalfa crops, and how to use struvite, a fertilizer made from processed dairy manure, with Columbia Basin alfalfa.
Co-investigators include Crop and Soil Sciences faculty member Steve Fransen, Animal Sciences faculty members Don Lewellyn and Joe Harrison, and WSU Puyallup researcher Liz Whitefeld.
Researchers funded for hops, beneficial plants in vineyards, butterfly studies
Congratulations to recent Entomology grant awardees, who received funding for research into insect pests and beneficial insects:
• Extension Entomologist Doug Walsh received a $12,279 Washington Wine Advisory grant to survey Washington vineyards for potential insect vectors of Red Blotch virus. From the Hop Research Council, Walsh also received $14,763 for the study of Integrated Pest Management of arthropods on hops; $5,000 for the study of hop tolerance to the herbicide glufosinate; and an additional $82,000 for hop research.
• David James, associate professor and Viticulture & Enology faculty member, received $12,699 to establish and evaluate beneficial insect-attractive native plant groundcovers in wine grape vineyards. He also received $2,500 from the Bureau of Land Management and the Idaho State Botanist for Eastern Monarch butterfly research.
• Beverly Gerdeman, entomologist at WSU Mount Vernon, received $14,255 from the Washington State Blueberry Commission for research on root weevils.
Field Days, Trips and Tours
SDC students explore sustainable development on Jordan trip
Interior design faculty member Genell Ebbini visited Jordan in July with six students from the School of Design and Construction. The trip was part of Ebbini’s summer course, offering her students a hands-on, immersive look at Jordan’s green infrastructure development and environmental policies.
SDC students are building local partnerships with the design industry, non-government community groups and government agencies at the cutting-edge of sustainable development. Experts from leading institutions such as the Ministries of Environment, Public Health and Housing, and Water and Irrigation are engaging with students in the study of regional issues that impact natural resources, availability, ecology, and socio-economic inequality in the built environment.
Students toured projects that demonstrated collaborative strategies in sustainable development while working with the Jordan Green Building Council in the development of green infrastructure guidelines and governing policies.
Barley breeding field walk featured in Thurston Talk
A field walk exploring WSU Extension barley research was featured in Thurston Talk, a publication in Thurston County.
About 40 attendees gathered last month at Hidden River Farms near Montesano, site of a research project supported by funds from the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources BIOAg program, to evaluate germplasm in the WSU barley breeding program for craft malting, brewing and distilling.
One outcome of the work could be release of a barley variety specifically suited for these craft beverage markets. With a little work, market development, and a lot of supply chain teamwork, researchers also hope the work supports development of a high-value market for western Washington grain farmers.
Growers, agricultural industry professionals, crop consultants and researchers learned about the cutting edge agricultural technologies being researched by CPAAS affiliates. Through a dedicated plenary session and more than 30 posters, technology displays, and demos, the team showcased agricultural automation, robotics, and precision agriculture technologies. Highlights included focused talks on drones in agriculture by Lav Khot, assistant professor of precision agriculture; drone-based imaging for agriculture by Gabriel Torres of Seattle-based MicaSense; and precision agriculture by Troy Peters, Extension irrigation engineer and associate professor.
Peters and Khot’s team also demonstrated the Low Energy Spray/Precision Application (LESA/LEPA) irrigation technology and use of drone imagery in site-specific adoption of LESA/LEPA in irrigated row crops. The event also featured short demonstrations of automated robotic systems for weeding in vegetable crops and raspberry cane bundling, precision pollination, and a solid-state canopy delivery system in grapes.
More than 130 stakeholders interacted with the CPAAS team during the day. A networking social followed, sponsored by Wilson Orchard and Vineyard Supply, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates and Treetop, Inc. WA.
Biological Systems Engineering supports international meeting
Thirty-four BSE graduate students volunteered at the meeting, which was coordinated by Jonathan Lomber, BSE Scientific Laboratory Manager.
Attended by more than 1,700 students and professionals, the meeting helps expand awareness of current industry trends, promote and acknowledge innovations in design and technology, and provide opportunities for professional development.
Qin Zhang, BSE professor and director of the Center for Precision & Automated Agricultural Systems (CPAAS), received the John Deere Gold Medal Award in recognition of his engineering contributions. Two BSE graduate students were recognized for excellence in conduct and presentation of agricultural and biological engineering research, receiving the Boyd-Scott Graduate Research Awards. The competition includes a written competition and an oral presentation for the top three finalists in the master’s and doctoral categories.
Abhisesh Silwal, advised by Manoj Karkee, received second place in the doctoral student category for his presentation, “Design, Integration, and Field Evaluation of a Robotic Apple Harvester.” Chongyuan Zhang, advised by Sindhuja Sankaran, received third place in the master’s student category for his presentation, “Development of Automated High-throughput Phenotyping System for Controlled Environment Studies.”
BSE leads workshops on graduate education, collaborations
Prior to the ASABE Annual International Meeting, BSE led a workshop to promote graduate education and research. Chairs of peer departments from Iowa State University, Purdue University, Cornell University, Texas A&M University, and University of Illinois participated at this brainstorming workshop. Representatives from ASABE and USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) program leaders also took part.
Following the ASABE conference, BSE hosted a forum to highlight its ongoing advanced research and encourage international collaborations. In addition to USDA-NIFA program leader, Hongda Chen, research experts from China, Spain, Ireland, Brazil and Mexico, took part.
Communication Updates
New WSU Wine website launches
On August 18, WSU Viticulture & Enology launched its new wine website, wine.wsu.edu.
The site features easier to access events, news and updates, user-friendly research, Extension and education resources, information for industry partners and prospective students, and much more.
