List

Intellectual Merit: This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will assist in producing the next-generation approach for monitoring critical water resources stored in the seasonal snowpack. Agriculture is a significant user of ground and surface water in the United States, accounting for approximately 80 percent of the Nation's consumptive water use and over 90 percent in many Wes ...

The purpose for this research is to develop a Snow Water Equivalency (SWE) sensor that will broaden our understanding/management of snow and the water we receive from it.Importance of the ProblemSnowpack is very important to the United States' water budget with 85% of freshwater runoff originating as snowmelt in the west, and nine significant floods of the 20th century were directly related to ...

The traditional fish farming industry in the U.S. is currently faced with rising costs, labor shortages, competition from lower cost imports, increasing environmental regulation, and decreasing water supplies. Sales of the domestic channel catfish industry alone fell from $423 million in 2011 to $301 million in 2014. Catfish acreage in Arkansas which totaled 30400 acres in 2007 (NASS 2008), was re ...

In the United States, more than 90% of hop production occurs in the Pacific Northwest. Cultivars and best management practices are optimized for that growing environment, but may not be suitable for other growing regions. Hops contribute the bitter and aromatic flavors to beer. The craft beer industry is on the rise, with consistent growth over the past five years. Craft brewers desire locally sou ...

With the advent of precision agriculture, the way we farm is changing. Technologies exist to add precision to all aspects of the farm. Through "mapping the farm," precision management strategies can be implemented such as: targeted herbicide application, targeted soil management, improved yield predictions, improved management of water, and other farm resources. These practices all require informa ...

Small-scale hydroponic greenhouse farmers rely on current products to maximize their production potential. The highest selling commercial hydroponic systems for leafy green crops andstrawberry production are known as horizontal Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) systems. Though these systems are proven to be efficient and profitable, they limit the grower to a production capacity basedon a 2D plane res ...

The development of a cost-effective fall prevention system for rural Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) represents a significant opportunity. Patient falls are a common, costly, and serious problem in hospitals and care facilities. CAHs have greater pressures on them over typical urban hospitals due to their typically smaller number of beds and occupancy, older population demographics, smaller operat ...

Summary:The Phase I feasibility study proved the ability of the GrainGoat to replace a full-sized combine for the collection of grain for pre-harvest moisture testing with a potential savings to farmers and harvesters of $44M/day across the US during harvest season. The GrainGoat successfully harvested, threshed, and tested the moisture content in several crop varieties.Since the innovative GrainG ...

Our goal is to commercialize the largemouth bass fingerling production system/strategy that was proven effective through our Phase 1 project. This system employs "out-of-season" fall spawning followed by winter feed-training and the on-growing of advanced fingerlings indoors. In Phase 1 we developed broodstock acclimation facilities and protocols for out-of-season spawning in raceways. We showed t ...

The phase II project is a key element in a larger project to develop value added agricultural manufacturing in rural communities. In phase 1 MBAI demonstrated feasibility of producing multiple high value co-products in a barley biorefinery.The current process uses barley to produce barley protein concentrate, BPC, with ethanol as a co-product. BPC has valuable markets as a protein ingredient in aq ...