Award Data

Water quality and soil erosion are high priority issues for U.S. agriculture. In more humid areas of theU.S., vegetation filter strips have proven to be an effective method of reducing erosion and improvingwater quality. Filter strips are less effective in the West due to sparser vegetation and more variablerainfall. In addition, establishment of vegetation is more difficult in many western wat ...

The infestation of crawling insect vermin can cause severe economic losses in citrus and other fruit and nut trees, nursery stock and ornamentals. The red imported fire ants (RIFA) in particular are responsible for damage and death of young citrus tree in the major U.S. citrus growing regions. RIFA freed on bark and cambium to obtain sap, girdling and often killing trees. Fire ants and other ants ...

The demand for natural flavors is increasing both in America and Europe. This project will optimizean innovative technique to recover benzaldehyde (natural cherry flavor) from cherry pit hydrolyzate.The concept is based on the hydrolysis of crushed cherry pits, adsorption of benzaldehyde fromhydrolyzate passed through an adsorption bed, and recovery of the benzaldehyde by regenerating theadsorbe ...

Commercial livestock, as a group, are attacked by a complex of arthropod ectoparasites. The dairyindustry is no exception. Two species of filth fly pests that occur on this commodity group are houseflies and stable flies. Stable flies are fierce biters and have been shown to reduce milk production 40-60%. House flies are public health nuisances that can transmit a variety of diseases to humans ...

Marek's disease vaccines are the most widely used vaccines in the poultry industry. Since there are nosustainable cell lines suitable for propagating Marek's disease virus (MDV), the MDV vaccine industryuses primary chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEF) for production of vaccine virus. CEFs constitute asignificant proportion of the total cost of MDV vaccine production. Therefore, a significant reduc ...

Experiments using a static bioassay system as a basis to develop a focal control method forDreissena illustrates the potential usefulness of the plant molluscicides, Lemmatoxins, fromPhytolacca dodecandra or Endod. Endod at a dose higher than 15mg/L is lethal to adult zebramussels, while a lower dose prevents their adhesion and aggregation. Since Endod plant havebeen successfully grown as monocu ...

This project addresses two problems of environmental and economic importance to New Mexico.The first problem is the value-added utilization of pecan shells, and agricultural waste from oneof New Mexico's most important crops. The second problem is the need to remove metal andorganic contaminants of environmental concern from wastewater produced by some of NewMexico's economically important indust ...

The goal of this proposal is to determine what non-timber forest products and forest practiceshave potential for enhancing the economic benefit to owners of small forests in Southeast Ohio.The researchers will 1) identify promising non-timber forest crops that can be harvested inconjunction with existing steward-ship practices, 2) identify marketing options for the cropschosen, and 3) determine th ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project envisages new biodegradable, water-soluble films produced from blends of pectin and starch for commercial applications. The proposed research focuses on developing films by melt extrusion of plasticized blends of pectin and starch. The extruded films will be characterized in terms of blend morphology, mechanical properties, and barrier prop ...

In this project, we will develop cost-effective, environmentally benign architectural roof coatings derived from agricultural products. Each year more than 5 billion pounds of material are used for roof coatings leading to the emission of more than 2.5 billion pounds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Our preliminary studies have shown that cationic photopolymerizations of epoxidized soybean ...