Award Data

There is compelling value to feeding live algae in fish hatcheries as the current survival rate oflarvae fed frozen paste is relatively low resulting in higher costs.However the complexity andcosts of existing photo-bioreactors and the logistical costs of shipping live material over distancesare barriers to the widespread deployment of live algae as feed.Culture BioSystems has successfully grown a ...

Specialty Crop production margins are eroded by input costs impacts of weather pests anddiseases and market price fluctuations. Producers routinely overproduce to hedge against lossesfrom environmental impacts and ensure sufficient supply to meet retail account demand furtherreducing their average margins. If they had greater certainty in advance of how much they willproduce and when it will be ha ...

The economic recovery and development of rural America is lagging that of its metropolitancounterparts.While metropolitan areas fully replaced the job losses from the 2008-2009 GreatRecession by the third quarter of 2013 rural America has yet to replace those job losses fullyfive years later.While many of the economic forces are beyond the control of ruralcommunities (globalization natural resourc ...

The fluctuating price of crude oil in the past decade has resulted in a rise in chemical costsaffecting the price of petroleum-based products plastics and specialty polymers. Non-traditionaland renewable feedstocks for these industries need to be developed to decrease dependence onpetroleum address economic concerns and produce materials with little environmental impact. Theeconomic viability of t ...

In order to meet growing demands of renewable energy photovoltaic (PV) developments willrequire significant land space for ground-mounted PV systems. This growing demand is creatingcompetition for land resources causing the most challenges for small and mid-size farms. Thischallenge can be reformed into an environmental and financial opportunity for these farms withthe increased research of co-loc ...

Making production of tilapia (and other warm-water fish) financially viable and sustainable on asmall-farm scale depends on several factors. The number-one constraint is the need to maintaino o tropical water temperatures (70 to 100 F) for the fish. To address this need our research focuseson heating the water in individual fish tanks via a closed-loop heat-transfer system usingrenewable energy. O ...

The proposed project aims to promote and improve the sustainability and profitability of small andmid-size farms which constitute the vast majority of farms in the USA.Farm operators may need a continuous supply of custom-made components and spare parts forexisting machinery.Components and spare parts could be difficult or expensive to procure or notavailable for old machinery still in operations. ...

This proposed project will enable commercialization and widespread adoption of an innovativeirrigation management tool that addresses three fundamental goals of the SBIR program; (i)improving the efficiency of water and energy use; (ii) increasing the profitability of small irrigatedfarms through better planning and risk management; and (iii) utilizing renewable energy moreeffectively.A panel of n ...

Inefficient crop spraying causes drift which can lead to crop damage or unwanted pesticide use inneighboring non-target crop areas. It may contaminate nearby bodies of water or be an issue forhuman health.Our company can significantly reduce this through the implementation of a sensorsystem which wouldproduce a quick calibration analysis by determining the efficiency of sprayermachines and the spr ...

Embryo transfer is one of the tools a livestock producer can utilize to rapidly increase the genetic gainwithin the herd overcome low pregnancy rates during physiological stress or leverage high qualityfemales by producing multiple offspring per female (rather than 1/year).The ability to transfer fresh orfrozen embryos is important in dairy and beef cattle reproduction as well as in sheep goats de ...