Award Data

"Honey bee pollination is estimated to contribute over $14 billion annually to agricultural production. Honey bee pollination services in the larger ecosystem are also of vital importance. However, apiculture in the United States is threatened, especially by infestations of exotic parasitic mites. Varroa destructor, in particular, is lethal to many colonies, decimating both feral and managed honey ...

"Edenspace Systems Corporation seeks to achieve a substantial decrease in the production costs of cellulosic ethanol biofuel by engineering a promising biofuel crop, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), with up to three different genes that produce cellulases. When activated by heat, these enzymes break down biomass cellulose into simple sugars that can serve as biofuel feedstocks. Microbially-produ ...

"The National Research Council has concluded that ammonia is a major concern for air quality at global, national and regional scales. In the US, livestock operations are believed to contribute over 80% of the total emissions of ammonia. Specific interest in ammonia emissions from livestock operations stems from concerns with the negative impacts of high ammonia levels on air quality and environmen ...

"This project will test the feasibility of a breath alkane as an indicator of respiratory health in bovine. Significant losses due to bovine respiratory disease (BRD) occur in the U.S. beef industry with estimated annual losses at $1 billion due to higher medical costs, decreased weight gain, lower quality meat and death. BRD is highly transmittable and accounts for approximately 75% of morbidity ...

"Milk supply by the small dairy farms to the local markets not only reduces transportation costs but also provides cultural and economic benefits to the communities. However, the majority of the milk processing operations are carried out in large plants at the wholesale level. Such capacities and the large capital requirement act as a barrier to entry for small farmers and prohibit them to get a b ...

This Phase I project focuses on the economic production of yeast in an automated bio-reactor using rice bran as an energy and nutrient source. Rice bran is an under-utilized, abundantly available, low-cost co-product of the rice milling process and is currently used almost exclusively as an inexpensive additive in animal feed. The use of heat-stabilized defatted rice bran (HDRB) for the production ...

The use of sub-therapeutic concentrations of anti-microbial agents in animal feed has contributed to theproductivity of the U.S. meat and dairy industries by preventing infectious diseases, by decreasing theamount of feed required and by increasing the rate of animal weight gain. However, failure to observerecommended practices of drug withdrawal can result in concentrations of antibiotic residue ...

Semi-automated analysis of citrus grove data from remotely-sensed devices can reduce groundsurveying for appraisal, crop recording, yield analysis, and grove management. Although theygenerally start with the same aerial infrared imagery for their data collection, grove managers andindependent appraisers each have their own independent requirements for data analysis. By making theanalysis of this ...

The proposed project seeks to identify superior strains and families of white bass for aquacultureby evaluating the progeny of three wild strains collected from a broad geographic range. Thecollections will be designed to evaluate the performance of genetically distinct strains. In orderto control for the effect of family differences, five families will be collected from each of thestrains and t ...

The ready-to-assemble (RTA) construction system is a new method for assembling wood structuresbuilt from the following engineered wood products: parallel strand lumber (PSL), laminated strandlumber (LSL), and laminated veneer lumber (LVL). The RTA system is designed for rapid assemblyby small crews of unskilled labor using common hand tools. The design of the RTA systemincorporates engineered w ...