CALS Online and Dean’s Message
June 17, 2024
Dean’s Message
Hello CALS – I hope you had a great weekend. The bits of rain we received were a welcome quench for some lawns and crops, but their distribution and need across the state varied greatly. It’s pretty amazing and concerning how we go so quickly from too much to too little rain/moisture, and back again, all within a few weeks… Over the weekend, there was a celebration at the Hansen Agriculture Student Learning Center for the 90th birthday of Al Christian, for whom our Allen E. Christian Swine Teaching Farm is named… More
Top Stories
Introductory Course on Drone Use in Agriculture Offered in July
ISU Extension and Outreach and the ISU Digital Ag Innovation Lab are partnering to offer a new workshop as part of their "Research to Rows" series. An introductory course on drone use in agriculture is July 30 at the Southeast Research and Demonstration Farm near Crawfordsville. “This workshop has been developed to provide education surrounding the legal use and application of this technology,” said Ryan Huffman, digital agronomy research manager with the ISU Digital Ag Innovation Lab. “Drones add additional data layers, many of which directly translate to improving on-farm decision making.” Advance registration is required. The cost is $75 and includes lunch, refreshments and handouts. More
Research
Four Spring RIR Proposals Selected for Strategic Plan Funding
Four projects were selected for seed funding support from the Office of the President from the spring 2024 “Community Vitality” Research and Innovation Roundtable. Samuel Mindes, sociology and criminal justice, is a co-PI for “Electrifying Rural Vitality: The Imperative of Characterizing Losses Associated with Outages for an Equitable Power Infrastructure Management.” More
OVPR Announces 2024-2025 Research Cohort
The Office of the Vice President for Research has named 20 faculty members to its 2024-2025 Research Collaboration Catalysts program cohort, designed to train the next generation of interdisciplinary research team leaders. Faculty from CALS departments are: Katie Dentzman, sociology and criminal justice; and Laura Iles, plant pathology, entomology and microbiology. More
Extension and Outreach
Check Orchards for Fire Blight
This year’s rainy, warm spring could be problematic for orchards due to fire blight, says a fruit crop specialist with ISU Extension and Outreach. In a recent article for the Acreage Living Newsletter, Suzanne Slack highlights common symptoms and actions to take against fire blight. More
Harvest Strawberries when they are Uniformly Red
Horticulturists with ISU Extension and Outreach answer questions about strawberry care in the home garden. More
Around the College
Licht Receives Editor’s Citation for Excellence
Mark Licht, agronomy, is a recipient of the 2023 Editor’s Citation for Excellence as a reviewer for Agricultural and Environmental Letters, a journal of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America. More
In Memoriam: Ronald Cantrell
Ronald Cantrell, chair of the agronomy department from 1990-1998, passed away recently at age 81. A memorial was published by the International Rice Research Institute, where Cantrell served as director general from 1998-2004. More
Calendar
June 18: Organic Water Quality Field Day
The latest research on water quality comparisons with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and Iowa State’s Organic Ag Program will be presented during a field day Tuesday, June 18, near Boone. More
June 22: Pollinator Fest
Reiman Gardens is hosting Pollinator Fest on Saturday, June 22, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Faculty, staff and students from Iowa State, representatives from Blank Park Zoo, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and others will present educational displays and fun activities on supporting pollinators. More
Infograzing
Iowa State Students Chase Storms, Share Data, Learn Lessons
A new course this spring, “Field Observations of Thunderstorms,” took 13 Iowa State students and their three instructors across “Tornado Alley” for eight days. They found storms, collected data and shared information with national forecasters. More
UN Says More Aquatic Animals Farmed than Fished in 2022
The total global volume of fish, shrimp, clams and other aquatic animals that are harvested by farming has topped the amount fished in the wild from the world’s waters for the first time ever, reported the United Nations. In its latest report on fisheries and aquaculture, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization says the global catch and harvest brought in more than 185 million tons of aquatic animals in 2022, the most recent year for which statistics are available. More
Marginalia
Dahlem: Cemetery or Remnant Prairie?
In a May 31 blog post, Jon Dahlem, postdoctoral research associate with Iowa Learning Farms, talks about a place where the imaginary line between nature and non-nature is blurred beyond recognition – Iowa’s Rochester Cemetery. Less than 0.1% of Iowa’s original prairie remains, and some of that is there, just off I-80 east of Iowa City, near Tipton. “Rochester’s cemetery is overgrown with deep-rooted native plants, so its dual significances as burial site and prairie remnant push against one another like tectonic plates, shaping the site above,” Dahlem writes. More
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Online
Julie Stewart, Editor
jstewart@iastate.edu, (515) 294-5616
https://www.cals.iastate.edu/cals-online
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Online, the newsletter for faculty and staff in Iowa State University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is published by email every Monday. The deadline for submitting content is 12 p.m. on Thursday.