Extension News from the West

Late in the last century scientists published reams of data about Earth’s climate derived from ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctic glaciers. By drilling down into the ice with hollow bits (think of using a spinning pipe as a drill) workers were able to pull columns of ice up to the surface. The material brought to light in this way was very special for several reasons.

First, the ice cores show annual layers going back in time. That means scientists can count backwards through time from the surface downward, a bit like school kids can count the rings of a tree, measuring out history year by year.

The ice in the cores had originally been snow at the surface, snow that was buried by later snows and slowly became compacted to form a coarse icy material called “firn” and then glacial ice itself. The ice has tiny bubbles of air in it, air that was trapped in the snow layers in times gone by. This means that scientists can analyze the small air samples that are sealed in the ice and determine the composition of the air that was blowing around the Earth in past millennia.

Chemical analyses of the air in the glacial ice show that our planet’s atmosphere has gone through cycles of changes over thousands of years. In particular, the concentration of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane (the main ingredient in natural gas) has varied over time. The specific dates of the changes can be determined by counting up the layers in the ice core – a pretty nifty trick.

If the only thing the ice cores told us was how much Earth’s air has changed, that would be interesting in itself. But scientists are also able to analyze the ice and from it infer a couple of things.

First, the ice is made of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, which together form the familiar water molecule of high school science class. But atoms are not all created equal. Some oxygen atoms weigh more than other oxygen atoms – we say that oxygen has different isotopes. The great thing about that fact is that using the ratios of the isotopes of oxygen found in the ice cores, scientists can calculate past temperatures. Again, by counting up the annual layers in the ice core, we can quite precisely date when temperature changes occurred. Beyond that, some other information about weather and climate can be deduced by things like how much dust is in a particular layer of ice. In short, the ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica have told us a lot about climate change going back hundreds of thousands of years.

As interesting as the ice core work in the polar regions has been, it’s been rather limited geographically. That is to say, we are interested in climate all over the Earth, and in particular where we live, more than we are interested in climate change just at the poles.

Now new information about climate is starting to be unearthed from two ice cores taken from Peru’s Quelccaya Ice Cap. These two cores have nearly 1800 annual layers in them. That means they are not anywhere near as long as the polar ice cores, but they are in an interesting place – at a low latitude rather than at high latitudes.

“These ice cores provide the longest and highest-resolution tropical ice core record to date,” said Prof. Lonnie Thompson in a press release from Ohio State University. Thompson is the lead author of a study of the Peruvian ice core. “In fact, having drilled ice cores throughout the tropics for more than 30 years, we now know that this is the highest-resolution tropical ice core record that is likely to be retrieved,” he said.

The Peruvian ice core appears to show the influence of El Nino changes at sea. This gives us a new way to study temperature fluctuations in part of the Pacific Ocean over nearly two millennia.

Climate is complex and a great deal of effort is required to learn how it has varied in Earth’s past. But step-by-step we are learning a great deal more than we knew when this Rock Doc first read about the Ice Age in elementary school.

Clark County Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners Howard Galin and Denise McConnell will be presenting gardening classes on July 13. Galin will present An Introduction to Desert Gardening at the Green Valley Library (2979 N. Green Valley Pkwy.) at Noon. McConnell will present Hummingbirds—Winged Jewels of the Desert at the Gibson Library (100 W. Lake Mead Pkwy.) at 2 p.m.

Registration is required for both classes. To register for Galin’s class call 702-207-4261 and for McConnell’s class, call 702-564-9261 #5 or you can register online.

The Master Gardener program has over 300 active Master Gardeners and is a University-trained community volunteer who shares knowledge and desert gardening skills via community projects. Master Gardeners Galin and Denise are university-trained in successfully growing plants in the harsh (hot, dry, windy) climate of the Mojave Desert. This is an environment unfamiliar to many newcomers. By teaching what to plant and how to properly care for their landscapes or gardens, the Master Gardeners save people money — on water, soil amendments, plant materials, etc.

For general gardening questions email the Master Gardener Help Line or call 702-257-5555. For gardening information and upcoming classes visit: FaceBook.

Greetings, fellow CAHNRS colleagues!

I’ve had the honor of serving as interim CAHNRS dean for a full week now and have enjoyed every moment! I sincerely appreciate the support so many of you have expressed. When asked to serve in this capacity, I accepted enthusiastically. I have been very proud to be associated with CAHNRS since before it was CAHNRS! Our college is a leader within WSU, and also leads regionally and nationally because of the excellent work of its faculty, staff, and students. We have made great strides in every area – academic programs under the innovative and highly capable leadership of Executive Associate Dean Kim Kidwell; WSU Extension under new Director and Associate Dean Rich Koenig’s steady hand; and research with Jim Moyer at the helm as the new Director of the Agricultural Research Center and the Associate Dean for Research. It is both an honor and a pleasure to work with such a talented leadership team.

Please know that my overriding goal is to maintain our strong forward momentum. Standing still is the same as going backward, and I know that is not acceptable to either you or me. The coming year will be one of action and progress. I am excited about the possibilities and look forward to working with all of you.

My door is open, and you are always welcome to stop by.

Best regards,
Ron Mittelhammer
Interim Dean, CAHNRS

Join us for Tonie Fitzgerald’s retirement gathering, June 19

After 28 years of service to WSU Extension, Tonie Fitzgerald will be retiring at the end of June. Tonie has been the dedicated leader of the Master Gardener program for the last several years and her deep commitment has enriched their mission of enhancing natural resources, sustaining communities and improving the health and wellness of residents across the state of Washington.

Please join us in celebrating her time at WSU and wishing her well in her next adventure at a reception on Wednesday, June 19th at 3:00 pm. The reception will be in Hulbert Hall, Room 409. If you are unable to attend and would like to send cards and wishes, please mail them to WSU Extension, PO Box 646248, Pullman, WA 99164-6248.

Photo ID

This man is reading a hundred years of history by examining a tree core, but his name is lost to our photo archive. Who is he? Where is he? Is he researching something in particular?

Need to see more detail? Just click the picture for a larger version.

WSU CAHNRS is seeking your help in cataloging its photo archive. We are scanning hundreds of old slides, negatives, and prints to put online. And we need your help to identify these images by telling us, as best you can:

• the contents
• the date
• and the identity of the photographer

Don’t spare the detail; we want you to share everything you know about this image. Don’t know anything about this image, but still want to help? We have more archival images posted. View our historical images.

For the most recent additions, go to the last page and work backwards. Please reminisce about your connection to this photo by using the “Comments” field at http://bit.ly/wsuphotoid. Want us to let you know when we post new photos? Send an email to photos.cahnrs@wsu.edu and we’ll add you to the list.

Kudos

Rita Abi-Ghanem from the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences was invited by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to attend the Agricultural Research Connections workshop, taking place this summer in Nairobi/Naivasha, Kenya. The goal of this workshop is to catalyze new international research partnerships among scientists with potential collaborations towards advancement of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Her immediate goals are to continue research and development work in sustainable agriculture and to help educate and enable people in developing nations to manage their lands more sustainably.

T. Randall Fortenbery, professor and Tom Mick Small Grains Endowed Chair of the Washington State University School of Economic Sciences, has been appointed chairman of the Agricultural Markets Advisory Committee of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an independent federal agency which regulates commodity futures and option markets in the United States. During the two-year tenure of his appointment as head of the commission’s agricultural advisory panel, Fortenbery’s primary responsibility will be to represent the views and interests of a wide range of U.S. agricultural product consumers. Read the full story here.

Gerrit Hoogenboom, director of AgWeatherNet and professor of agrometeorology, recently returned from the University of Agriculture in Faisalabad, Pakistan where he attended the “AgMIP-Pakistan Kickoff Workshop & International Seminar on Climate Change” June 4-6. WSU and the University of Agriculture Faisalabad have a long history of collaboration including the establishment of the university in Pakistan. A feature on the event at WSU’s involvement was recently published in Pakistan’s The Nation.

Mark Nelson, WSU-IAREC Plant Pathology, will be receiving the “International Order of the Hop Award” from the International Hop Growers Convention at the 2013 Congress to be held in Poperinge, Belgium.  The award charter outlines the procedure for award of the Order to all who have merited it by their services in the field of hop cultivation. The award of the Order of the Hop is designed to lead to further achievements and still greater advances in hop cultivation and protection.  Mark was nominated by the US hop industry and accepted as a recipient by the international group due to his record of research, outreach, and service excellence in the area of hop IPM.

Virginia Lohr has been invited by the Urban Landscapes unit of the City of Melbourne, Australia, to participate in a select meeting and consult on green infrastructure policy and knowledge related to adapting to climate change.

Sujeet Verma, final-year PhD student advised by Dr. Cameron Peace in the Department of Horticulture, received a Student Travel Grant of $500 to attend the 2013 American Society for Horticultural Science Annual Conference in Palm Desert, CA from July 22–25. He will be giving two talk, Genome-wide QTL analyses uncover SNP marker-based functional alleles for apple “fresh sensation” traits and QTL and QTL allele validation in apple. The first talk covers key aspects of Sujeet’s thesis work while the second talk will be on behalf of the apple research team of the multi-institution RosBREED project as part of an ASHS workshop called “RosBREED fruit quality QTLs: from publications to applications.”

The American Society of Animal Science is pleased to announce that a WSU animal scientist is the winner of the 2013 Western Section Distinguished Teaching Award. Dr. Kristen Johnson supports her students by teaching them about livestock and sharing her beef cattle research. Dr. Johnson will be honored June 20 at the Western Section, American Society of Animal Science meeting in Bozeman, MT.

Congratulations to the Spring 2013 Viticulture and Enology graduates.

Undergraduate students who graduated spring 2013:
Kyle Clifford – Asst Vineyard Manager, Gamache Vintners
Garrett Grover – Oasis Farms
Dave (Merf) Merfeld – Winemaker, Northstar Winery
Lora Morgan – Chateau Ste Michelle Winery
Brent Roberts – San Juan Vineyards for Summer / Harvest Intern at Hogue Winery for Fall
Scott Zediker – Tasting Room, Airfield Estates

Graduate students who graduated spring 2013:
Eileen Harbertson, MS – Working in lab at WSU IAREC with Markus Keller
Federico Casassa, Ph.D. – Returning to Argentina to work as a winemaker
Jesse Zuehlke, Ph.D. – Wants to get involved with scientific policy or regulatory work with some of the food industry trade associations or the FDA in Washington, DC
Lauren Schopp, MS – Returned to Colorado and wants to work in the food industry.

Upcoming Events Summer Field Days

Anaerobic Digestion Field Day: Anaerobic digestion, a biological process of breaking down organic waste material, and a suite of new tools that add value to the process will be featured during a WSU field day on July 10 near Lynden, Wash. Researchers at Washington State University, working with commercial partners, have transformed an environmental concern in agriculture into an environmental, economic, and social solution. Further information see http://csanr.wsu.edu/pages/2013ADFieldDay or contact Sylvia Kantor at skantor@wsu.edu.

WSU Potato Field Day celebrates 50 years of Washington Commercial Potato Seed Lot trials and a long-standing university partnership with the Washington State Potato Commission starting at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, June 27. The event begins with tours around the seed lots and an annual seed lot report from Mark Pavek. Lunch will also be served. The Othello Research Farm is located at 1471 Cox Road, Othello.

Bioenergy Field Day: GreenWood Resources Boardman Tree Farm, USDA-ARS, and Washington State University are hosting a field day featuring bioenergy innovations on June 20. Attendees will learn about approaches to producing bioenergy feedstocks from intercropping system resources. The field day takes place at Boardman Tree Farm and begins at 9 a.m. Contact Steve Fransen, fransen@wsu.edu for more information.

WSU Organic Farm on the Mall

Fresh-picked organic produce from WSU’s Organic Farm will be offered for sale at a farm stand on WSU’s Terrell Mall from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Wednesdays, running through early October. The farm accepts cash and checks only.

Winter Canola the Focus of Upcoming Tours

Croplan Genetics/Winfield Solutions cereal grain and canola Answer Plot® tour
June 27, 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., Carothers Rd. west of Pullman
Winfield Solutions established this long-term cropping systems trial in 2011-12, and it is the first Answer Plot® location in the Pacific Northwest, near Pullman. The test plots serve as an outdoor classroom to provide those attending with production results and help make planning decisions for their next crop. Please RSVP for the tour and lunch.
Contact: Beau Blachly, (509) 843-7334 or bpblachly@landolakes.com.

University of Idaho Parker Farm Field Day
Tuesday, July 9, 8:00 a.m., Parker Farm, Moscow, Idaho.
The PSES Department at University of Idaho is hosting a field day that will include tours of canola, mustard and rapeseed research trials as well as other agricultural research. The field day concludes with a hosted lunch at noon.

The Write Side

Whatever topic you are writing about for the citizens of Washington State, The Write Side brings you tips from experienced editors in CAHNRS. Check out the latest post featuring Washington State Magazine science writer Eric Sorensen in “The Complex Process of Simplification” (http://bit.ly/11YYX0r).

Recent News Releases 

May 11- WSU scientists make genomes available for research 

June 6- WSU researchers preparing bee semen bank

June 3- Dogs help improve moods among teens in treatment 

In eNews

The June 5 On Solid Ground has stories about the honey bee sperm bank repository, vegetable grafting in Nicaragua, and the newly named Lyon barley.

The June 12 issue of Green Times features stories about saving bees, fire-resistant plants, and anaerobic digestion (and some great new videos).  

Stay tuned for next week’s On Solid Ground on June 19 and the June 26 Voice of the Vine.

“LIKE” us on Facebook!  Our School of Food Science now has an official page on Facebook, so be sure to “like” the page to stay updated on activities here. Also, be sure to invite your Food Science friends and alums to like the page too! You can find the page here: https://www.facebook.com/SchoolofFoodScienceUIWSU

Check out the latest on the CAHNRS Facebook page: http://facebook.com/cahnrs 

Archives

CAHNRS News is archived at http://cahnrsnews.wsu.edu/category/cnews/.

Explain your research in a way that a 6-year-old could understand. And contextualize it to fit in their world—so they can relate and retain interest. If you think this is “dumbing down,” consider the benefit: you’ll actually get through to an audience that can use the information you’ve worked so diligently to communicate in response to an identified need. And this is definitely not dumb. Especially in the impact-driven world of research and outreach funding where the land grant university system is firmly planted.

This advice comes from Eric Sorensen, who has an impressive history of successful science writing, the most visible of which regularly appears in Washington State Magazine. Eric calls his job the “best at WSU,” and his enthusiasm is contagious.

As an editor, one of the most common questions I ask authors involves clarification of what they mean when referring to a technical topic or issue. Communication problems—especially those in writing, where we really only get one shot with our intended audience—generally arise when we fail to consider the perspective of that audience. The chasm widens when a specialist neglects to empathize with the everyday concerns of a non-specialist.

Another simple suggestion that Sorensen has to increase your likelihood of success with communicating complex ideas to lay audiences is to substitute Anglo-Saxon words for Latin words (such as “law” instead of “legislation” and “house” instead of “domicile”), or natural speech for technical terms. To give this a spin, take the Up-Goer Five challenge at http://splasho.com/upgoer5/, where you can get feedback on your explanation of a not-so-simple concept “using only the thousand most used words in the English language.”

For direction on winning this struggle from an even closer-to-home source, check out the Journal of Extension archive. Three articles particularly worth reading deal with overcoming counter-productive assumptions (http://www.joe.org/joe/2003october/tt1.php), “framing scientific information in a manner that is important and relevant to stakeholders” (http://www.joe.org/joe/2013april/iw1.php), and working with communication professionals with literary skills that can complement subject-matter expertise (http://www.joe.org/joe/2011october/tt1.php). See a WSU Extension publications editor for the last of these.

T. Randall Fortenbery has been appointed chairman of the Agricultural Markets Advisory Committee of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

PULLMAN, Wash. – T. Randall Fortenbery, professor and Tom Mick Small Grains Endowed Chair of the Washington State University School of Economic Sciences, has been appointed chairman of the Agricultural Markets Advisory Committee of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an independent federal agency which regulates commodity futures and option markets in the United States.

During the two-year tenure of his appointment as head of the commission’s agricultural advisory panel, Fortenbery’s primary responsibility will be to represent the views and interests of a wide range of U.S. agricultural product consumers.

“Chairing this committee, which provides oversight to ensure futures trading in agricultural commodities is conducted in a fair, open and objective manner – and is appropriately driven by market forces – is a highly important national responsibility, said R.C. Mittelhammer, interim dean of WSU’s College of Agriculture, Human, and Natural Resources (CAHNRS). “It attests to the substantial professional achievements and reputation of Dr. Fortenbery and reflects the very high quality of our faculty in CAHNRS.”

Fortenbery said the role of the Agricultural Advisory Committee is to bring input from the agribusiness and trading community before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to aid them evaluating their strategies for managing efficient and fair derivative markets.

“With an expected increased emphasis in the next farm bill on market-based risk management programs, including the use of futures and options prices in determining coverage levels and premiums for revenue-based producer insurance programs, insuring that the markets are, in fact, operating in the most efficient manner possible relative to price discovery becomes even more critical,” he said.

“Over the last few years several important issues related to agricultural markets have come to the forefront,” said Fortenbery. “These include understanding the relationship between futures and cash markets in this relatively new era of increased price volatility, examining the roles of speculative activity in overall price formation, and the appropriate level of regulation of market activity.”

Fortenbery earned his doctorate in Agricultural Economics from the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign. He served as a member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, Madison immediately prior to joining WSU in 2011.

His research currently focuses on agricultural price performance in local and national markets, examining the impacts of new information on relative prices, as well as overall price levels. He is also engaged in studying the impact of futures price action on the stability of cash prices.

Saving Honey Bees

Using liquid nitrogen tanks to preserve semen from imperiled subspecies, WSU researchers plan to develop a sperm bank repository for honey bees. Photo by Bob Hoffmann.

Honey bees face a lot of challenges, according to Steve Sheppard, professor of entomology at WSU. Invasive mites can sap a brood’s strength and vector viruses. Pesticides can build up in the brood comb and gradually weaken the bees. And while the agricultural practice of monoculture provides a lot of food, it offers little of the nutritional variety that bees need. Some of these threats may weaken or kill a hive on their own, but a combination of factors is thought to be the cause of colony collapse disorder, in which the worker bees abruptly disappear and the entire local population is doomed.

Concerns over honey bee safety in the United States are not new. In 1922, shortly after tracheal mites were identified as the likely cause of bee kills on England’s Isle of Wight, the United States restricted the importation of live honey bees.

“The ban was fairly effective,” said Susan Cobey, a WSU research associate working with Sheppard. “It prevented tracheal mites from reaching our shores until 1984.” Just a few years later a more serious threat, the Varroa mite, with the suitably ominous scientific name Varroa destructor, entered the United States. “The Varroa mite feeds on the developing bees, or brood, and also introduces bacteria and viruses that damage the health of the hive,” Cobey said.

“Varroa mites will normally kill a colony within two years without intervention by a beekeeper,” Sheppard explained. Intervention often comes in the form of chemical miticides, which are tolerated by bees in the short term, but cause harm over the long term as chemical residues accumulate in hives.

Creating Smarter, Stronger Bees

Plant and animal breeders often seek to overcome challenges by finding resistant specimens to selectively breed, incorporating the resistance into the overall population. However, for bees, U.S. entomologists must also contend with a limited honey bee gene pool because of the import ban.

“Honey bees, Apis mellifera, have 28 recognized subspecies in Europe, Africa, and Asia–the general vicinity of where honey bees are thought to have originated,” said Sheppard. Evaluation by U.S. bee breeders of this extensive genetic diversity (such as for genes that may help honey bees adapt to differences on our continent) was effectively halted by this country’s import restrictions.

In an effort to find and utilize the needed genes, the USDA granted WSU a permit in 2008 to import honey bee semen for breeding purposes, subject to strict screening for viruses. To meet the various goals of beekeepers in different climate zones across the U.S., Sheppard and his colleagues identified three subspecies for import.

Click to watch and learn more about challenges facing honey bees and WSU efforts to expand the gene pool.

Commercial beekeepers in southern states often want bees that reproduce quickly to provide maximum pollination of early blooming crops like almonds. WSU plant breeders have been collecting semen from Italian honey bees for this trait. Beekeepers in colder climates want bees that are more reluctant to reproduce during the first warm spell in spring, because a cold snap afterwards could kill the vulnerable brood.

To find appropriate genetic stock, Sheppard and colleagues have been collecting semen from Carniolan bees of the eastern Alps and Caucasian bees from the mountains of Georgia (formerly part of the Soviet Union). The semen is imported by special permit and tested for viruses. Queen bees inseminated with approved semen can then be released to queen bee producers.

The question of how to store honey bee genetic material for years, as is already the practice for other animals of agricultural importance, has been solved with the help of Sheppard’s graduate student Brandon Hopkins. While semen extraction and insemination of honey bees is known technology, preservation of the semen has always been a challenge. But Hopkins discovered that liquid nitrogen maintains the semen viability for decades, allowing the preservation of imperiled subspecies in a honey bee genetic repository.

Sheppard and Cobey discuss the challenges facing honey bees and the efforts to expand the U.S. honey bee gene pool in a video at http://youtu.be/Lm2kibnKYnU.

-Bob Hoffmann

Vegetable Grafting to Increase Nicaragua’s Crop Yields

Members of Nicaraguan farmer cooperatives can improve crop yields as a result of grafting techniques taught by Carol Miles (row 2, third from left) and Patti Kreider (row 2, second from right). Photo courtesy of Carol Miles.

Nicaraguan farmers may soon be able to double their produce yields thanks to a series of grafting workshops offered there this spring by a WSU vegetable horticulture team. “If they are able to get rootstock, they now have the potential to overcome the primary production-limiting issues, which are disease and heat,” said Associate Professor Carol Miles, who, with Technical Assistant Patti Kreider, recently returned from a two-week trip focused on teaching vegetable grafting techniques to 88 Nicaraguan farmers at seven sites around that Central American country’s capital city.

The series of workshops, held April 8—22, focused on women subsistence farmers, including many single mothers who rely on home-grown vegetables to feed their families. The mostly church-sponsored workshops were aimed at helping the women farmers improve production, increase nutrition, and create economic prosperity in their communities. “A conservative estimate would be that they now have the opportunity to increase their vegetable production by 50 percent,” Miles said, referring to the grafting techniques she and Kreider shared with the Nicaraguan farmers. “They’re very tech-savvy, even at the village level where they don’t have access to formal education.”

An Effective Pesticide Alternative

Grafting is the process of joining the scion (a live cutting) of a market-desirable variety to the stem of a rootstock variety that is in the same family as the scion but has disease resistance or another desirable trait. Grafting is used to create a healthier, more vigorous, disease-resistant plant that is able to thrive under difficult growing conditions. According to Miles, grafting is both more affordable and sustainable, as well as safer, than using agricultural chemicals–especially in a country such as Nicaragua where chemicals are very expensive and often misused because of label misinterpretation.

“In our research program here at WSU Mount Vernon, we have developed simple grafting techniques for tomatoes that have 98 percent success rates and don’t require high technology,” said Miles. “So this information is easily transferable to a country like Nicaragua, where subsistence farmers are the primary agricultural producers.”

Collaborative Education Opportunities

Miles is optimistic about the potential for increasing Nicaraguan subsistence crop yields. She thinks that the culture of farming cooperatives there will likely result in the spread of grafting knowledge beyond those who participated in the workshops. “Cooperative groups are a real part of their social system,” she said. “They share knowledge and information and organize work parties. They are extremely hard working; everyone works from dawn until dusk. And they are very good farmers who readily receive and adopt new information.”

Miles said she was encouraged by the farmers’ generosity and warm welcome in light of the difficulties they face on a daily basis. “Just getting through life for some of these women is hard, but there was no anger or discontent,” she added. “They often have to carry in firewood and water, even in the towns. And although Nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America, we found the people there to be wonderfully generous in spirit. Their reaction to our workshops was all positive. It was an amazing place to share our knowledge.”

The Florida International Volunteer Corps, under its Nicaragua Professional Exchange Program, sponsored the trip. The volunteer corps is funded through a Florida state appropriation to support missions to Central America and the Caribbean. Approximately 100 volunteer missions each year provide training and technical assistance to improve environmental, social, and economic conditions in the region.

For more about international research and agricultural development generated by WSU scientists, see http://ird.wsu.edu.

-Cathy McKenzie

Anaerobic Digestion: Beyond Waste Management

Click to watch the recently released video about how state-of-the-art anaerobic digestion systems can benefit the world. By Sylvia Kantor.

Organic waste, be it municipal or industrial solids and liquids or manure, has long been a source of air and water pollution as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Anaerobic digestion, a biological process of breaking down organic waste material, is no longer used only to reduce odors and produce electrical power. Anaerobic digestion centered within a system of complementary technologies offers much more. Working with commercial partners, researchers at Washington State University have transformed an environmental concern in agriculture into an environmental, economic, and social solution. WSU researchers have expanded the capacity of anaerobic digestion to address problems of nutrient management to produce transportation fuels, and much more.

A new 7.5 minute video shows how state-of-the-art anaerobic digestion systems can offer multiple benefits to society. The video is produced by the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources (CSANR) at Washington State University: http://youtu.be/Ei49Z4oeUtY.



Save the date! July 10, 2013 WSU CSANR will host an Anaerobic Digestion Systems Field Day near Lynden, WA for more information visit http://csanr.wsu.edu/pages/2013ADFieldDay.

-Sylvia Kantor

Imagining Tomorrow

Simply placing a water wheel in sewer pipes can generate energy, these students from Silverdale, Wash., demonstrated. Photo courtesy of WSU News.

The 2013 Imagine Tomorrow Competition recently brought more than 500 students to WSU from Idaho, Montana and Washington to find innovative ways to fuel the future. Students involved in the event teamed up to influence behaviors, rethink policy, reengineer technologies, and redesign communities, following the theme, “Redesign. Reform. Refuel.”

“All of you are doing such incredible things at such a young age,” said keynote speaker Robert Peters, Washington state president for Bank of America. “At a time when many kids are distracted by the prospect of getting their first car, you’re thinking of creating a carbon-neutral car.”

Teams were tasked with researching their ideas rigorously and presenting proposals to judges who hail from the top ranks of academia and industry. Students with interests in all subjects were invited to compete. First place winners in each of four challenge categories — behavior, biofuels, design and technology — raised the bar for presenting creative, thoroughly researched ideas to solve energy problems.

A team of students from Sentinel High School in Missoula, Mont., won the behavior challenge by designing a video game that influenced players to recycle—in real life. The top award in the biofuels challenge went to students from Henry M. Jackson High School in Mill Creek, Wash., who discovered that combining biodegradable plastic with cow manure in an anaerobic digester yields significantly more biogas than when manure is digested alone.

Students from STEM School in Redmond, Wash., conquered the design challenge with an affordable way to retrofit existing homes with renewable energy technologies. A team from Union High School in Camas, Wash., developed an easy, affordable way to control and monitor home energy usage and nabbed the top award in the technology challenge.

“This year we saw a number of projects that demonstrated extraordinary creativity,” said M. Grant Norton, Imagine Tomorrow co-chair and dean of the WSU’s Honors College. “Some of the students had ideas so innovative and so well-researched that they could even begin steps toward commercialization.”

- Marilyn Reed

Fire-Resistant Plants for Home Landscapes (PNW 590)


This month it’s hard to imagine our lush green yards and landscapes being fuel for fire, but now is a great time to replace junipers and other “fire fuelish” plants, and create defensible spaces around our homes. Fire-Resistant Plants for Home Landscapes (PNW590) is a publication for Washington, Oregon, and Idaho that shows homeowners how to plan a fire-resistant landscape and select plants to reduce the risk of damage from wildfires. Available for $3 (plus shipping) from WSU Extension, this booklet depicts over 100 trees, shrubs, and ground cover plants in full-color photos with descriptions of their size, shape, growing requirements, and more. For more details, including ordering information, visit http://bit.ly/16HMLKA.

Chockfull of science-based answers, this short book was written by experts specifically for home landscapers in the Pacific Northwest. It’s just one of hundreds of helpful publications available from the WSU Extension Online Bookstore: https://pubs.wsu.edu/Default.aspx.

PULLMAN, Wash. – Anyone who has bought a hard pear at the supermarket can probably attest to the fruit’s unpredictable ripening process. But that unpredictability, one of the many traits stored in the plant’s genetic code, could be a thing of the past now that Washington State University scientists have sequenced four new Rosaceae crop family genomes, including the Comice pear.

Amit Dhingra, a horticultural genomicist at WSU, led the researchers who sequenced the double haploid Comice pear, Golden Delicious double haploid apple, almond and Stella sweet cherry genomes.

Amit Dhingra, a horticultural genomicist at WSU, led the researchers who sequenced the double haploid Comice pear, Golden Delicious double haploid apple, almond and Stella sweet cherry genomes. (Double haploid refers to an organism with two sets of each chromosome created from a single grain of pollen).

Genomes house the DNA and determine, among other traits and functions, a plant’s appearance, health, productivity, color and taste of the fruit.

Ultimately, the results will provide researchers with a better understanding of the Rosaceae family and will be used to address challenges that fruit-tree growers and producers face from pests, drought, a plant’s stress response and lack of nutrients.

The new information sheds light on biochemical regulation pathways for disease resistance, ways of protecting the food supply from environmental conditions and, of course, understanding the fruit ripening process. The genomes will help scientists understand how the fruits’ functions have evolved – for example, why the peach and raspberry appear so different from each other when both are in the Rosaceae family.

“These crops have economic value, so understanding the genetics of these fruits dovetails perfectly with everything else WSU is doing to ensure the competitiveness of the industry,” Dhingra said. “Sustainability also means being able to grow food with minimal environmental impacts.”

The state of Washington accounts for approximately 60 percent of apple production in the U.S. Meanwhile, Rosaceae fruit production – which also includes crops like peaches, raspberries and roses – is a multibillion dollar state industry.

Draft assemblies of the four genomes are being made available to the research community prior to publication via the WSU Genome Portal http://bit.ly/13xXH7c. The data may be downloaded and used by those who agree to the terms of release.

Learn more about the genomics lab and research at WSU at http://genomics.wsu.edu/.

Varieties of quinoa grow in plots at WSU’s organic farm in Pullman. Photo by Brian Clark, WSU.

PULLMAN, Wash. – Online registration for the 2013 International Quinoa Research Symposium hosted at Washington State University Aug. 12-14 is now available through July 10.

Coinciding with the United Nations International Year of the Quinoa, the symposium brings together researchers, farmers, distributors and consumers from around the world to explore current research avenues and innovative farming practices. Farm tours will highlight field trial demonstrations on four Palouse farms. Keynote speaker Dr. Sven-Erick Jacobson from the University of Copenhagen will address the global potential of quinoa and Tania Santivanez from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization will also speak during the three-day event.

Quinoa has grown in popularity and is beginning to gain a foothold in the Pacific Northwest and other regions in the US with support from a $1.6 million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant recently awarded to researchers at WSU, Oregon State University and Utah State University. Earthbound Farm, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Clif Bar Family Foundation-Seed Matters, USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, FAIR, and WSU are the event sponsors.

Registration is available online and open to the public at: http://bit.ly/14wmBDs. Space is limited. For registration fee, a schedule of events, lodging and transportation information, and more, please visit the International Quinoa Research Symposium website: http://bit.ly/19ib90R.

Buster Brown, my big mutt from the dog pound, is now 10 years old. Perhaps because he’s a senior citizen it took him a full week to learn how to operate the dog door I had installed last winter. He was used to going to the back door and barking to be let in or out. Once the dog door was there, I held it open, showing him the great outdoors, and encouraged him to go through it. I had to repeat this maneuver many times, patiently making happy noises when he ultimately would hop through the small door.

I thought back to that week-long effort when I was reading Sean Senechal’s book Dogs Can Sign, Too. Senechal believes dogs can do much more than operate a simple dog door. Using signs a person can make coupled with ones a dog can make, the idea is that people and their dogs can communicate with one another in a much richer way than we are used to with basic commands like “come” or “sit.”

The system that Senechal has developed is called K9Sign language. Even with a young and willing dog, one teamed with a dedicated teacher, Senechal warns it takes a long time for a dog to learn signs he or she can make to communicate with a person. But of course it’s also true it takes humans years to learn language.

Although nothing about teaching animals a full language is uncontroversial, many people have thought that primates can learn sign language. Koko the gorilla and Washoe the chimpanzee are well known animals that mastered at least the basics of a sign-based language. But I hadn’t thought about a similar language for canines until I read Senechal’s book.

K9Sign language is taught to interested people and their dogs at the AnimalSign Center in California. Skeptics can joke that only in California would there be such an institution, but Senechal takes the approach that she will presume our canine friends can learn language until it’s proven that they can’t. And it seems to me pretty clear that whether or not dogs can be taught a “true language,” any signs they can give us of their thinking is useful – and quite fun!

Because dogs stand on their four feet, not having anything like hands available to make signs, the K9Signs have to differ quite a bit from American Sign Language. K9Signs are relatively few and simple. Foods are indicated by movement of the front left leg. Living animals are indicated by moving the rear left leg. Toys and other smaller movable objects are denoted by moving the front right leg. Large, inanimate objects are represented by movements of the hind right leg.

Teaching dogs to use the signs is an art Senechal tries to explain in her book. Maybe if I read it aloud to Buster Brown we could get started learning how to communicate better – and about a wider range of topics than the dog door.

Saving Honey Bees

Using liquid nitrogen tanks to preserve semen from imperiled subspecies, WSU researchers plan to develop a sperm bank repository for honey bees.

Honey bees face a lot of challenges, according to Steve Sheppard, professor of entomology at WSU. Invasive mites can sap a brood’s strength and vector viruses. Pesticides can build up in the brood comb and gradually weaken the bees. And while the agricultural practice of monoculture provides a lot of food, it offers little of the nutritional variety that bees need. Some of these threats may weaken or kill a hive on their own, but a combination of factors is thought to be the cause of colony collapse disorder, in which the worker bees abruptly disappear, and the entire local population is doomed.

Concerns over honey bee safety in the United States are not new. In 1922, shortly after tracheal mites were identified as the likely cause of bee kills on England’s Isle of Wight, the United States restricted the importation of live honey bees.

“The ban was fairly effective,” said Susan Cobey, a WSU research associate working with Sheppard. “It prevented tracheal mites from reaching our shores until 1984.” Just a few years later a more serious threat, the Varroa mite, with the suitably ominous scientific name Varroa destructor, entered the United States. “The Varroa mite feeds on the developing bees, or brood, and also introduces bacteria and viruses that damage the health of the hive,” Cobey said.

“Varroa mites will normally kill a colony within two years without intervention by a beekeeper,” Sheppard explained. Intervention often comes in the form of chemical miticides, which are tolerated by bees in the short term, but cause harm over the long term as chemical residues accumulate in hives.

Creating Smarter, Stronger Bees

Plant and animal breeders often seek to overcome challenges by finding resistant specimens to selectively breed, incorporating the resistance into the overall population. However, U.S. entomologists must also contend with a limited honey bee gene pool because of the import ban.

“Honey bees, Apis mellifera, have 28 recognized subspecies–in Europe, Africa, and Asia, the general vicinity of where honey bees are thought to have originated,” said Sheppard. Evaluation of this extensive genetic diversity (such as for genes that may help honey bees adapt to differences in the New World) by U.S. bee breeders was effectively halted by this country’s import restrictions.

In an effort to find and utilize the needed genes, the USDA granted WSU a permit in 2008 to import honey bee semen for breeding purposes, subject to strict screening for viruses. To meet the various goals of beekeepers in different climate zones across the United States, Sheppard and his colleagues identified three subspecies for import.

Click to watch and learn more about challenges facing honey bees and WSU efforts to expand the gene pool.

Commercial beekeepers in southern states often want bees that reproduce quickly to provide maximum pollination of early-blooming crops like almonds. WSU plant breeders have been collecting semen from Italian honey bees for this trait. Beekeepers in colder climates want bees that are more reluctant to reproduce at the first warm spell in spring, as a cold snap could kill the vulnerable brood.

To find appropriate genetic stock, Sheppard and colleagues have been collecting semen from Carniolan bees of the eastern Alps and Caucasian bees from the mountains of Georgia (formerly part of the Soviet Union). The semen is imported by special permit and tested for viruses. Queen bees inseminated with approved semen can then be released to queen bee producers.

The question of how to store honey bee genetic material for years, as is already the practice with other animals of agricultural importance, has been solved with the help of Sheppard’s graduate student Brandon Hopkins. While semen extraction and insemination of honey bees is known technology, preservation of the semen has always been a challenge. But Hopkins discovered that liquid nitrogen maintains the semen viability for decades, helping preserve imperiled subspecies in a honey bee genetic repository.

Sheppard and Cobey discuss the challenges facing honey bees and the efforts to expand the U.S. honey bee gene pool in a video at http://youtu.be/Lm2kibnKYnU.

-Bob Hoffmann

Vegetable Grafting to Increase Nicaragua’s Crop Yields

Members of Nicaraguan farmer cooperatives can improve crop yields as a result of grafting techniques taught by Carol Miles (row 2, third from left) and Patti Kreider (row 2, second from right). Photo courtesy of Carol Miles.

Nicaraguan farmers may soon be able to double their produce yields thanks to a series of grafting workshops offered this spring by a WSU vegetable horticulture team. “If they are able to get rootstock, they now have the potential to overcome the primary production-limiting issues, which are disease and heat,” said Associate Professor Carol Miles, who, with Technical Assistant Patti Kreider, recently returned from a two-week trip focused on teaching vegetable grafting techniques to 88 Nicaraguan farmers at seven sites around that Central American country’s capital city.

The series of workshops held April 8-22 focused on women subsistence farmers, including many single mothers who rely on home-grown vegetables to feed their families. The mostly church-sponsored workshops were aimed at helping the women farmers improve production, increase nutrition, and create economic prosperity in their communities. “A conservative estimate would be that they now have the opportunity to increase their vegetable production by 50 percent,” Miles said, referring to the grafting techniques she and Kreider shared with the Nicaraguan farmers. “They’re very tech-savvy, even at the village level where they don’t have access to formal education.”

An Effective Pesticide Alternative

Grafting is the process of joining the scion of a market-desirable variety to the stem of a rootstock variety, which is in the same family as the scion but has disease resistance. Grafting is used to create a healthier, more vigorous, disease-resistant plant that is able to thrive under difficult growing conditions. According to Miles, grafting is more affordable, safe, and sustainable than using agricultural chemicals, especially in a country such as Nicaragua where chemicals are very expensive and often misused because of label misinterpretation.

“In our research program here at WSU Mount Vernon, we have developed simple grafting techniques for tomatoes that have 98 percent success rates and don’t require high technology,” said Miles. “So this information is easily transferable to a country like Nicaragua, where subsistence farmers are the primary agricultural producers.”

Collaborative Education Opportunities

Miles is optimistic about the potential for increasing Nicaraguan subsistence crop yields. She thinks that the culture of farming cooperatives there will likely result in the spread of grafting knowledge beyond those who participated in the workshops. “Cooperative groups are a real part of their social system,” she said. “They share knowledge and information and organize work parties. They are extremely hard working; everyone works from dawn until dusk. And they are very good farmers who readily receive and adopt new information.”

Miles said she was encouraged by the farmers’ generosity and warm welcome in light of the difficulties they face on a daily basis. “Just getting through life for some of these women is hard, but there was no anger or discontent,” she added. “They often have to carry in firewood and water, even in the towns. And although Nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America, we found the people there to be wonderfully generous in spirit. Their reaction to our workshops was all positive. It was an amazing place to share our knowledge.”

The Florida International Volunteer Corps under its Nicaragua Professional Exchange Program sponsored the trip. The volunteer corps is funded through a Florida state appropriation to support missions to Central America and the Caribbean. Approximately 100 volunteer missions each year provide training and technical assistance to improve environmental, social, and economic conditions in the region.

For more about international research and agricultural development generated by WSU scientists, see http://ird.wsu.edu.

-Cathy McKenzie

A Lyon of a Cereal

Lyon barley, the latest and greatest variety out of WSU for eastern Washington.
Photo by Kim Binczewski.

After more than 22 years of breeding wheat for WSU, Steve Lyon never expected to make a name for himself in the barley field. But this spring’s release of “Lyon,” a new variety of barley christened by one of his colleagues in Pullman, is making a significant impact in the larger world of small grains research.

“As a graduate student in Stephen Jones’ winter wheat program, I worked with Steve Lyon on a daily basis,” said WSU barley breeder Kevin Murphy, who developed, and hence claimed naming rights, to the new variety. “There is no way I would have survived the harsh rigors of grad school without Steve’s help. He was always very positive, always sure things would work out fine–and he was almost always right. This is the best way I can think of to honor and thank him.”

Lyon found out about his barley namesake from Murphy earlier this spring when Murphy was leading a graduate student agriculture tour of classes at the WSU Mount Vernon Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center (NWREC). Lyon has been stationed there for the past three years.
“My first reaction was shock and disbelief,” Lyon said. “I am extremely honored, yet it is very humbling because I feel there are others much more deserving of such a rare distinction.”

Gene Improvements

Lyon barley, formerly known as 05WA-316.K, is notable for its higher yield potential than other varieties grown in eastern Washington, plump kernels, and resistance to stem rust, a disease caused by the fungus Puccinia graminis. The fungus attacks the above-ground parts of the plant, and if this occurs a few weeks before harvest, an apparently healthy crop can be reduced to a black tangle of broken stems and shriveled grains.

Although foundation seed can often take years for researchers to develop, Lyon will be available just one year after its official year of release. “Lyon is a (livestock) feed barley that is very high yielding across many dryland environments in Washington State,” explained Murphy. “It does especially well in areas that receive 16-24 inches of rainfall and are prone to stem rust. This variety is particularly well adapted to the Palouse region.”

The Man Behind the Grain

Senior Scientific Assistant Steve Lyon, shown with wheat plants maturing in a WSU Mount Vernon greenhouse, has been involved in WSU small grains research for more than 22 years. Photo by Kim Binczewski.

The same could be said of Lyon, a former wheat farmer who raised his family in Colfax, just north of Pullman, before heading west to the Skagit Valley. “I’ve worked with Steve since 1995,” noted Stephen Jones, director of the Mount Vernon NWREC and head of its plant breeding department. “He came into my program after time he spent with Ed Donaldson, a former WSU wheat breeder. Steve learned from one of the best–and when you add his farming experience, it made it possible for him to run a field program immediately.

“Steve was instrumental in developing highly successful wheat, such as Bruehl, the most widely grown club wheat in the United States,” Jones continued. “Lyon barley is the epitome of the variety-naming tradition: It is a great honor to have a variety named after you. Steve’s dedication to the grain growers in this state for nearly three decades is well worth this recognition.”
For more information about WSU’s plant breeding program, visit http://plantbreeding.wsu.edu.

-Cathy McKenzie

LYNDEN, Wash. — Anaerobic digestion, a biological process of breaking down organic waste material, and a suite of new tools that add value to the process will be featured during a WSU field day on July 10 near Lynden, Wash. Researchers at Washington State University, working with commercial partners, have transformed an environmental concern in agriculture into an environmental, economic, and social solution.

“The need to simultaneously produce renewable energy and assist growers in meeting nutrient management plans and mitigate air and water quality concerns is driving the development of these technologies,” said Craig Frear, a scientist in WSU’s Department of Biological Systems Engineering and a leader in the effort to expand a system of complementary technologies centered on anaerobic digestion.

At WSU’s Anaerobic Digestion Systems Field Day several dairy operations in Whatcom County that have worked with WSU to develop and test these technologies will open their doors to the public.

The event will showcase nutrient recovery mechanisms that result in useable biofertilizers, solids separation techniques, biogas production as well how to move from testing and demonstration into commercialization of value-added products.

“Biofertilizers that are produced through the nutrient recovery process can be used by farmers as replacements for fossil fuel-based fertilizers. It’s truly a win-win,” Frear said.

Beyond environmental benefits, anaerobic digestion systems present economic development opportunities both for dairy operations as well as local communities. In addition to income for producers and tax revenues, digester systems generate jobs during construction and for maintaining operations.

A new 7.5 minute video, Anaerobic Digestion: Beyond Waste Management, features commercial operators and Frear showing how state-of-the-art anaerobic digestion systems can offer multiple benefits to society. The video is produced by the WSU Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources and is available at http://youtu.be/Ei49Z4oeUtY.

The field day is sponsored by the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources with support from an NRCS Conservation and Innovation Grant, and WSU Ag Research Center Biomass Research.

Further information at http://csanr.wsu.edu/pages/2013ADFieldDay.

Did you have a glass of orange juice this morning? If so, you may want to know that the simple pleasures brought to us by citrus fruit are under attack from a disease called citrus greening or yellow dragon disease. It’s caused by bacteria that are not harmful to people, but cripple citrus trees by choking off their internal circulation system. The malady puts our $3 billion per year citrus industry firmly in the crosshairs.

Citrus greening evidently originated in China in the early 20th century. Once a tree is infected by the disease, there is no cure. The bacteria that causes the disease blocks the ability of the tree to circulate water and nutrients. Fruit doesn’t ripen, staying green and misshapen. There are three different strains of the bacteria in question, each plaguing different parts of the globe.

Citrus greening is attacking orange groves in Florida. It is also moving to groves in Texas and California, and threating those in Arizona. If it isn’t successfully combatted, citrus greening could wipe out the U.S. citrus industry. It’s already decimated citrus orchards in Jamaica.

The bacteria behind the disease is spread to the trees by an insect similar to aphids and whiteflies called the Asian citrus psyllid (the name is said like “SILL-id”). The insects feed on the trees and, when they do so, they transmit the bacteria to the plant. It’s a bit like infected mosquitoes can give you malaria when they feed on your blood. In time the bacteria in the citrus trees multiply and spread, causing the plant grave harm.

Citrus greening is believed to have reached the U.S. from China in the early 2000s. The insects that spread the disease are tough to control. Pesticides have been used with some success, but scientists are concerned that the psyllids will develop resistance to the chemicals. Another approach is to introduce into orchards “good” insects that prey on the psyllids. Using such biocontrols, however, has so far not met with much success because the psyllids reproduce faster than the predatory insects. Then again, you might think that researching around the globe for disease-resistant trees might help, but so far no such trees have been found.

Enter more sophisticated approaches to interrupting the disease cycle.

“We are using genomics to see what genes are being ‘expressed’ in the psyllids as they feed on the citrus tree,” explained Prof. David Gang to me recently. Gang is on the faculty at Washington State University and is one member of a large team of researchers at several institutions that is researching new responses to citrus greening disease. The multifaceted effort is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“If we know the genes and proteins involved in infection, we can try to interrupt the transmission of the disease,” Gang said.

Gang and others working with him have the goal of isolating and sequencing the genes expressed in the insects as they feed on citrus plants. Other scientists collaborating on the project can use the gene expression data in their work.

“We hope to ‘knock out’ genes that function in the transmission of the bacteria inside the psyllid,” Gang told me. “Then the insect won’t transmit the disease.”

One ultimate goal of the work is to create a new type of psyllid that will be unable to harbor or transmit the disease-causing bacteria.  The new insects would outcompete the old, disease-carrying ones because the bacteria weaken the insects in which they live. But Gang and his colleagues are very concerned with potential problems related to modified organisms, and they are looking at how best to mitigate potential problematic outcomes.

Responding to new threats to food crops is a never-ending task for agricultural scientists. Their work is complex, spans years, and is sometimes expensive. But it keeps us fed – and free to drink our orange juice in the morning.

“And it’s not just oranges that are at issue,” Gang told me. “Grapefruit, lemons and limes are also affected.”

Here’s hoisting a tangy glass of OJ or lemonade to the good work Gang and others are doing in defense of U.S. citrus trees.

BOARDMAN, Oregon — GreenWood Resources Boardman Tree Farm, USDA-ARS, and Washington State University are hosting a field day featuring bioenergy innovations on June 20. Attendees will learn about approaches to producing bioenergy feedstocks from intercropping system resources.

The field day agenda is as follows:

• 9 a.m.: Welcome and highlights of the day – Don Rice
• 9:15: Soil carbon sequestration of hybrid poplar & switchgrass – Harold Collins
• Intercropping of hybrid poplar and switchgrass – Steve Fransen
• Switchgrass growth responses over the growing season – Emi Kirmua
• Root cycling of switchgrass – Alex Crump
• 10:30 Break
• 10:45 to 11:30: Intercropping hybrid poplar – wood biomass – Grant Beauchamp

The field day is free and open to the public. Signs at Bombing Range Road in Boardman, Oregon, near the substation will direct attendees to the research locations. For direction to Bombing Range Road, use this map: http://bit.ly/ZpaCZT.

June 21 workshop in Reno offered via interactive video in several other counties

The University of Nevada Cooperative Extension will host a "How to Create a Successful Produce Business" workshop, addressing a variety of topics from production and harvesting to marketing and business. Nevada producers, and others interested in learning more about how to thrive in a produce business, are invited to attend the workshop.

The workshop is part of Cooperative Extension’s "Herds and Harvest" Program, a three-year program combining educational skill-building workshops and one-on-one mentoring to support Nevada agricultural producers. The program is supported by grant funds received from the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"This workshop will teach producers what the key steps are to creating a successful small, specialty produce farm," said Holly Gatzke, Lincoln County Extension educator. "The participants will learn directly from the real-life experiences of producers from successful long-term operating farms."

The workshop will be held 10 a.m. — 3:30 p.m., June 21 at the Washoe County Cooperative Extension office at 4955 Energy Way in Reno, and also via interactive video at Cooperative Extension offices in Caliente, Elko, Logandale and Pahrump. Workshop topics include:

• Steps to building a successful small specialty farm: production, harvesting/logistics, marketing and business
• Where is success found: In the market, or production?
• Creating profitable markets in restaurants, farmers markets and wholesale
• Top characteristics of a successful farm

The cost of the workshop is $30 per farm, and up to three individuals from one farm may attend. For an informational brochure or registration information, contact Jennifer Kintz at the Mineral County Cooperative Extension office at 775-945-3444, ext. 12.