Award Data

There is a need for a simple, cost-effective procedure for making accurate estimates of crop residue in agricultural fields. The objectives of this Phase I effort is to conduct the research required to design a light-weight, affordable hand-held spectral radiometer and associated spectral algorithm for quickly making field estimates of percent crop residue cover. The specific tasks that will be ...

Cytokines play a key role in the immunobiology of swine, and have the potential to improve themanagement of these animals. The pattern and tissue distribution of inflammatory cytokine expressionmay be indicative of the health or infectious status of the animal. Thus, the development of rapidcytokine tests is necessary to exploit this useful diagnostic information.Cytokines may also play another ...

Phase I research proved the feasibility of EnerTech's Slurry Carbonization technology for economically producing clean and marketable fuels from high-moisture agricultural residues and wastes, especially animal manures. The Slury Carbonization technology effectively transformed low-grade animal residues, through a moderate temperature and pressure carbonization process, into a uniform and especial ...

In the U.S., there are more than 135,000 captive deer and elk on 2,000 ranches in 42 states. Someranchers have used deer to replace or supplement traditional livestock. Primary products of deer aremeat and velvet antler, and the industry is growing. We propose to assist the industry and regulatoryagencies using molecular genetics. Ranchers want genetic tests to help establish breeding programs ...

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 ...

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 ...

The proposed product to be developed will be an inexpensive system to monitor activities ofpersons who must, or who prefer to live alone, and to alert a responsible individual on a timelybasis of potential medical emergency situations which are indicated based on this activity or lackof activity. An expert system will monitor the activity levels as well as simple user inputs suchas codes for ever ...

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 ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project investigates the rapid detection ofstaphylococcal contaminated foods. Staphylococcal food poisoning continues to be a major publichealth concern being the second leading cause of bacterial food poisoning in the United States. Thebacteria secrete staphylococcal enterotoxins and as little as 0.1¿g of SEA can produce the clinicalfeature of st ...

Many crop residues, feed byproducts, forages and other biomass have little or no nutritional value asanimal feed. Lignin in these materials is the most significant factor that limits the availability ofstructural carbohydrate (i.e., cellulose and hemicellulose) to microbial flora of ruminant animals.Many chemical treatment methods have been investigated and most result in the production ofundesir ...