Award Data

We are developing a portable photocatalytic air purifier for reduction of ammonia levels in poultryhouses. This will be effective regardless environmental conditions integrate with existingventilation equipment enable cleaner air for improved poultry productivity and weight gains andhave a cost payback of about one year. Our approach will reduce the number of air changes neededto maintain indoor a ...

Bioethanol plants face several challenges to meet their operating costs and remain profitable. As the industry matures and becomes more cost competitive, risk-management, improving efficiency, and reducing operation costs have become higher priorities of plant operators. The majority of bioethanol produced in the U.S. is corn-based. Ground corn is treated with alpha-amlyase and gluocamylase to red ...

Field pennycress (Thlaspi arvense L.) a plant in the mustard family is emerging as a premierwinter cover crop for biofuel and edible oil production for the Midwestern agricultural rotationsystem because of its ease of genetic manipulation high oil content winter hardiness and itsability minimize soil erosion and leeching of nitrogen into waterways. Since it is grown off- season between corn and so ...

The production of bioethanol is performed under non-sterile conditions and as a result is subjectto contamination.The industry typically treats the contamination with harsh chemicals and/orantibiotics with residues making their way into the byproducts including animal feed. Estimatesput the losses in production at 2 to 4% which translates at the lower end to an annual industry- wide loss of 316 mi ...

Across the US nearly all business sectors have enthusiastically adopted new technology.In direct contrast the crop insurance industry has been slow to adopt spatial technology -Earth observation satellite-based remote sensing image analysis GIS and digital recordkeeping. Spatial technology holds great promise to enhance accuracy efficiencyproductivity and profits for the crop insurance industry.Th ...

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 ...

Nozzle clogging on orchard and vineyard sprayers is a problem that often isn't addressed until the nozzle(or multiple nozzles) are inoperable to the point that an operator can visually detect the fault. By then anunknown portion of the field has been sprayed inadequately since the fault was not immediately detected.We propose a technology that continually monitors a sprayer via imaging and which w ...

In the United States dates are grown in small desert regions of Southern California and Arizona. In2015 approximately 45000 tons of dates worth nearly $70 million were harvested from 10000acres. The Banks grass mite (BGM) Oligonychus pratensis (Banks) is a major pest of dates. Lossesand control costs for BGM are estimated to be between $1 million and $2.5 million annually inSouthern California and ...

This project's goal is to reduce spray drift from aerial applications while at the same timesignificantly increase the efficiency and profitability of aerial applicators. The project willachieve this objective through development of a scalable commercial-scale high pressurechemical delivery system designed to mount on most any piloted fixed or rotary-wing aircraftand potentially larger Unmanned Ae ...

OpportunityHerbicides since their advent in the early 1950's have been a tremendous and invaluable tool toproduction agriculture.Since that time the agricultural crop production market has changedconsiderably due to a number of technological innovations including the introduction ofgenetically modified organisms (GMO) crops.Although surrounded by some controversy theability to genetically engineer ...