College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Online
May 23, 2016 – No. 901
Top Stories
ISU Dairy Farm Open House, June 10
The ISU Dairy Farm will celebrate dairy month with its eighth annual open house on June 10, 6 to 11 a.m. at the ISU Dairy Farm, located south of Ames. Tours will be given every 30 minutes and include the milking parlor, milk house and trolley tour of the farm. Visitors also can learn about commodity groups in the Ag Discovery Center while sampling free dairy products. The open house includes demonstrations of current technologies and best practices in animal care, product quality, safety and environmental stewardship. The event is open to the public. More
Teaching and Students
New Life at the Animal Science Teaching Farms
Spring calving has wrapped up at the beef teaching farm with 90 calves born. The herd is inspected frequently by world-wide visitors and producers; more than 1,000 annually.
Pasture lambing began at the sheep teaching farm and will continue for the next month. Chicks will be hatching in another week or so at the poultry science farm and will be used for research purposes throughout the summer. Pigs are being weaned at the swine teaching farm. More
Extension and Outreach
Publication Series Provides Tips for Producing Hops
ISU Extension and Outreach fruit specialist Diana Cochran is authoring a series of publications that will provide information on different aspects of hop production. The first publication, Hop Production 101: Site Selection and Planting, is available online. More
Weed Science Field Day to be Held at Curtiss Farm
ISU’s Weed Science Field Day will be held June 23, 8:30 a.m. to noon, at the Curtiss Farm in south Ames. Attendees will be able to review weed science experiments with new herbicides, novel combinations and application strategies, and different tillage systems. The event is free, with no preregistration required.
Insect Zoo Launches Funding Project for Bug Village
The ISU Insect Zoo will hold its second annual Bug Village on Aug. 27 in the Molecular Biology building atrium. To keep the event free and open to the public, the Insect Zoo is launching a FundISU project. More
Soil Management and Land Valuation Conference Celebrates 89 Years
The 89th annual Soil Management and Land Valuation Conference, ISU’s longest running conference, was held May 18. More than 280 farm managers, rural appraisers, real estate brokers, agricultural lenders and others attended. Organized by Wendong Zhang, economics, the conference is sponsored by CALS and ISU Extension and Outreach.
Around the College
Tyler Honored for Support of WiSE Program
To celebrate its 30th anniversary, the Women in Science and Engineering program is recognizing 30 ISU faculty and staff whose service has enhanced their ability to serve K-12 students across Iowa and undergraduate women at ISU. In April, one of the honorees was Howard Tyler, animal science, and assistant dean for CALS Student Services.
Kling on the Environmental Cost of Growing Food
Catherine Kling, distinguished professor of economics and director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, discussed the environmental cost of growing food on the May 5 edition of The Salt on National Public Radio. Just talking about the economic value of ecosystems represents real progress, Kling said. It’s evidence that policymakers, and even consumers, are starting to balance the value of food against the environmental cost of producing it. More
EEOB Emeritus Professor Publishes Guide to Shrubs and Vines of Iowa
Donald Farrar, emeritus professor in ecology, evolution and organismal biology, and Peter van der Linden, have published “Shrubs and Vines of Iowa.” The guide identifies all 150 shrubs and vines native to Iowa.
Retail and Small Business Specialist Dies
Ronald Prescott, retail and small business specialist with the Iowa Community Indicators Program in the department of economics, died May 14. He was 59. Prescott began working at ISU in 1994 with the Center for International Agricultural Finance.
Memorial Day Ceremony is May 30
ISU employees, retirees and alumni who died during the past year will be remembered at the university’s annual Memorial Day ceremony on May 30 at 9 a.m. in the ISU Alumni Center’s Reiman Ballroom. Individuals with a connection to CALS include the following. More
- Mary Cochran, Sept. 3, 2015 – retired from entomology, biology and animal sciences. More
- Richard Hansen, Sept. 13, 2015 – retired mechanic from agronomy research farms. More
- Hubert Hensley, Feb. 27, 2015 – retired superintendent of animal science beef teaching farm and the ISU Allee Memorial Demonstration Farm at Newell.
- Elizabeth Kiser, Aug. 14, 2015 – retired freshman advisor in the College of Home Economics.
- Ruth Moyer, Feb. 22, 2016 – retired head of home economics education and Mary B. Welch Distinguished Professor of Home Economics. Memorial Resolution
- Wanda Niemann, Nov. 14, 2015 – retired secretary from animal science. More
- Irene Pope, March 30, 2015 – retired secretary for assistant dean Thamon Hazen, agricultural experiment station.
- Graeme Quick, May 25, 2015 – retired professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering. Memorial Resolution, More
Calendar
June 30: Iowa Swine Day
Iowa Swine Day, an industry-focused event, will be held June 30, 9 a.m. to 4:35 p.m. in the Scheman Building. ISU, the Iowa Pork Industry Center and the Iowa Pork Producers Association will host a plenary session in the morning on current issues related to pork production, and concurrent sessions in the afternoon on topics such as new regulations governing swine feed and emerging technologies that will become available in the future to control serious diseases in swine. More
Funding Opportunities
National Microbiome Initiative Launched
On May 13, the Obama Administration announced the National Microbiome Initiative, with the aim of “advancing microbiome science in ways that will benefit individuals, communities and the planet.” The three goals of the NMI are (1) supporting interdisciplinary research to answer fundamental questions about microbiomes in diverse ecosystems; (2) developing platform technologies that will generate insights and help share knowledge of microbiomes in diverse ecosystems and enhance access to microbiome data, and (3) expanding the microbiome workforce through citizen science and educational opportunities.” Federal agencies have committed $121 million in FY16 and FY17 funds and outside partners have committed $400 million in cash and in-kind support toward this initiative.
Webinar: NSF CAREER Program, May 26
The National Science Foundation will host a webinar to answer participants' questions about development and submission of proposals to the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program. The webinar will give participants the opportunity to interact with members of the CAREER program’s coordinating committee in a question-and-answer format. In preparation for the webinar, participants are strongly encouraged to consult material available on-line concerning the CAREER program. The two-hour webinar will begin at 12 p.m. on May 26.
Funding Information, Opportunities and Deadline Reminders
Dates listed are application deadlines. Contact: Roxanne Clemens, rclemens@iastate.edu. Additional information is posted at CALS Pre-Award Resources.
June 17: NSF Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PECASE). More
June 19: SBA Service-Disabled Veteran Entrepreneurship Training Program. More
June 23: EPA FY 2016 and FY 2017 National Wetland Program Development Grants; $200,000. More
July 14 (letter of intent): USDA AFRI Sustainable Bioenergy and Bioproducts Challenge Area.
July 15: Dept. of Education: Investing in Innovation Fund (I3) Scale-Up Grants. More
July 31: Dept. of State New American Cultural Centers and Cultural Programming in the People’s Republic of China; cost share requirement. More
Aug. 2: NIH BD2K Open Educational Resources for Skills Development in Biomedical Big Data Science (R25). More
Aug. 4: USDA AFRI Childhood Obesity Prevention Challenge Area.
Aug. 24: NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates. More
Communications Kiosk
Continual vs. Continuous
Continual means a steady repetition, over and over again. “The merger has been the source of continual litigation.” Continuous means uninterrupted, steady, unbroken. “All she saw ahead of her was a continuous stretch of desert.” (Associated Press Stylebook, 2015 edition, pg. 62-63)
Marginalia
Farmers Market Scavenger Hunt
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey encouraged Iowa students who are kindergarten through eighth grade to take part in the “Farmers Market Scavenger Hunt” again this year. There are 35 participating farmers markets across the state. More
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Online
Julie Stewart, Editor
jstewart@iastate.edu, (515) 294-5616
https://www.cals.iastate.edu/news/agonline
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 Friday.