Widespread adoption by dairy farmers of injecting manure into the soil instead of spreading it on the surface could be crucial to restoring Chesapeake Bay water quality, according to researchers who compared phosphorus runoff from fields treated by both methods. However, they predict it will be difficult to persuade farmers to change practices.
The Center for Agricultural and Shale Law at Penn State Law at the University Park campus has taken on the responsibility of administering the Pennsylvania Agricultural Mediation Program, providing another avenue by which it can serve and assist the state’s farmers and producers.
Industrial engineers from Penn State are part of a nine-university, four-year, $4.75 million collaborative research project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute for Food and Agriculture Specialty Crop Research Initiative focused on increasing the efficiency of blueberry production in the United States.
A visiting scholar from South Africa is collaborating with a Penn State hospitality management researcher to present findings and further develop research on food service and nutrition for school children, consumers’ food decisions and the role of the food service industry related to nutrition and obesity.
The United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has recognized Penn State Department of Nutritional Sciences alumna Susan Scarcia for her work in preventing food-related hospitalizations and deaths in the United States and abroad.
Investment in agricultural research doesn't benefit just the 2 percent of the population involved in farming. It's a matter of national security, job creation, energy independence and human health. That's according to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who visited Penn State this week (May 16) to tour College of Agricultural Sciences research facilities and commemorate this year's 150th anniversaries of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Morrill Act of 1862, which created the land-grant university system.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visited Penn State's University Park campus on May 16, accompanied by Cathie Woteki, the U.S. Department of Agriculture under secretary of research education. The visit included tours of research laboratories, a meeting with Penn State faculty and representatives from 4-H and FFA. The one-day visit commemorates the 150th anniversary of both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Land Grant University System.
The Pennsylvania IPM Program recently received a multi-year grant to continue its mission to reduce pesticide use in agricultural and urban settings. The grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institutes for Food and Agriculture (USDA/NIFA), will help PA IPM further its extension and outreach efforts to promoted integrated pest management practices that are economical and protect human health and the environment. The program will work with in both rural and urban areas to provide technologies, resources and educational opportunities across the state.
Despite the Danger: Biohazard signs posted on the door, John Burg feels comfortable in 118 Borland Lab.
The wire worm is an orange-tan insect recognizable by its considerable mouth parts. A small curveless pest, it lays its eggs in the soil; its larvae swim around dirt particles until they bump into a root. Then they attack, gnawing away at the finest fibers, leaving the plant vulnerable to fungi and bacteria.
Imagine a car that runs on sunflowers—a car that doesn’t cause smog or rely on foreign oil. Sounds like a Sixties daydream, right?
A couple in their thirties visits a fertility clinic to learn why they haven't been able to have a child—only to discover that the experts don't know either. The husband produces a more-than-adequate supply of sperm, the wife ovulates regularly, her tubes are normal; both of them are healthy and fit. The diagnosis? Idiopathic infertility.
Don't leave that milk out on the counter!
You can't see, smell, or taste them, but bacteria flourish in mild temperatures and can survive in the carton even after you remember to put it back in the fridge.
Some cows we call pigs," Jeff Gandy says, walking down the middle of the milking barn between two rows of swishing tails.
"They're good cows," he adds. "They're just messy. They present a bit more of a problem than the other ones."
Gandy, manager of Penn State's mastitis research herd, stops behind a remarkably unsullied specimen with a yellow ear tag, and pats her haunch. "This one, she doesn't like to get dirty," he says. "She never comes in with mud on her."
"It's a little ripe today," Ralph Mumma remarks. He nods out the window of the Pesticide Research Lab. "As you came into the building, you might have smelled that manure pile behind the hill. I could smell it. The University stores its manure in a little shed just over the hill. So now we are working on manure odors."
