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 ...

This project is designed to investigate an innovative remotely delivered needle-less controlled release implant to provide antimicrobial (ceftiofur) therapy to calves with bovine respiratory disease complex. Bovine respiratory disease complex is the most economically important (an economic impact of $624 million in 1992) infectious disease of calves in North American feedlots. Although antimicro ...

Insect pests are annually responsible for multi-million dollar grain losses. A promising detectionsystem is the ARS-developed Acoustic Location Fingerprinting Insect Detector (ALFID) which countsinsects in a grain sample by pinpointing sounds from individual adult and larval (potentially the mostdestructive in wheat) stages. The low-cost piezo-electric microphones currently used are sufficiently ...

Current designs for rural safety mailboxes combined with a lack of safety design regulations, produce a hazardous situation for errant rural motorists. When impacted, rural mailboxes have been shown to dislodge from their posts and penetrate automobile windshields. In addition, rural residents are faced with a constant maintenance problem from winter snow plows, vandals, and vehicle impacts. A ...

Simulation models that replicate the dynamics of rural growth and decline would provide aninvaluable analytical tool for rural leaders, program administrators, educators and communityprofessionals. A Rural Community Modeler (RCM) was developed in a previous Phase I effortusing the system dynamics methodology to interrelate social, educational, economic,demographic, environmental and agricultural ...

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 ...

A major problem in the hardwood lumber industry is the loss of production as the result of theformation of splits, checks, or ring failure during kiln drying. A primary cause of these drying defectsis the degradation of the green lumber as a result of bacterial infection. The optimum drying scheduleis dependent on the initial quality of the green lumber. Unfortunately, it is currently not possi ...

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 ...

Simulation models that replicate the dynamics of rural growth and decline would provide an invaluable analytical tool for rural leaders, program administrators and community professionals. The system dynamics methodology offers a structured approach to collecting and organizing the knowledge needed to develop models that capture the essential feedback relationships that describe the elements of t ...

This project will investigate a cost-effective method of producing a new oil and gas drilling fluid additive from spent sugar beet pulp, a by-product and waste material from the sugar beet processing industry. The product has the potential of replacing other drilling fluid additives, (a) asbestos, which is an effective additive but which is no longer used because of environmental concerns, (b) CM ...