Emerging Research Issues for Washington Agriculture
FY-09 Internal Competitive Grant Program
The Unified Industry-Based Agriculture Initiative funded by the Washington Legislature for the 2007-09 biennium provides funds to the Washington State University Agricultural Research Center for an internal competitive grants program to address emerging issues facing Washington’s agricultural industries. The grants program is being advised by industry leaders with a goal of providing greater responsiveness to emerging research and outreach needs. The program is a focused effort to deal with researchable emerging issues that face Washington’s agriculture. It is not intended to supplement routine support for existing programs but to provide funding for a new emphasis in or short-term expansion of programs that need additional resources to pursue emerging challenges and opportunities.
What is an emerging issue?
An emerging issue is a topic where research-based information may be needed in the near future and where WSU may be inadequately invested to provide this information. Priority is given to funding work that may contribute to several commodity areas but may not be of high enough priority to interest a specific commodity group to fund the research. Some consideration is given to the potential of the research to develop a knowledge infrastructure that can support applications for other sources of funds as a way of extending the scope or impact of investigation.
What is the process?
The lead PI must be a faculty member in a CAHNRS department or hold an ARC faculty appointment. Proposals were solicited (http://arc.wsu.edu/INFO/arcrfp/index.html) and peer reviewed according to posted criteria by panels of WSU senior faculty and representatives from the agricultural industry. 43 applications were received in 2008. Funding is for one year, with the possibility of a second year. The maximum award is $125,000 for two years.
What were the target areas of research?
Sustainable food and agricultural production systems:
- Development and implementation of integrated pest management in irrigated agricultural systems
- Retention and enhancement of soil productivity
- Improving water use efficiency
- Transitioning from conventional to organic production systems
- Automation and mechanization to enhance the efficiency, safety, and economic sustainability of food production and processing systems
- Water and air environmental quality as part of sustainable agricultural production systems
- Agricultural practices at the urban-rural interface
Value-added agriculture production systems:
- The impact of the developing biofuels economy on Washington’s agricultural economy
- Consumer preferences and acceptance of evolving biotechnologies and functional foods aimed at improving health and nutrition
- Improving farm profitability through new uses of crops, livestock, and by-products (Note: we are looking for opportunities for new uses that provide increased income to the producer in contrast to presently known uses of crops, livestock, and by-products).
- Production, marketing, and distribution systems in support of emerging regional and local food systems.
Note: Biofuel feedstocks and anaerobic digestion proposals were not considered because of other funding targeted to these areas for this biennium.
Sixteen proposals were funded with an average award of ~$58,600. In general, these built on the work of a core group of investigators but often extended the scope of the project by including additional PIs or collaborators. Principal investigators were from 10 departments and six are not based in Pullman.
The range of grant topics reflected concerns in the stated target areas. Several were directed to adding value to existing Washington crops: by improving quality traits of the products (Cogger, Jiang, Lange, Whiting, Walters); by raising the ability of producers to assess the market value of these traits (Johnson); or by increasing value added by processing the crop or its by-products (Chen, Tang, Zhang). Other projects targeted ways of altering the production systems for greater productivity or decreased input costs (Cogger, Pierce, Walters, Brown). Food and environmental safety related to production were addressed from the perspective of biological hazards (Killinger, Ullman) and from the perspective of assessing and minimizing pesticide inputs (Pierce, Walsh, Stark).
The review panels chose projects individually, but some themes are noticeable in this first biennium of selection. In general, the amount of funding available was sufficient to support a single relatively focused project. But the projects chosen often have potential consequences beyond the specific objectives. For example, the Pierce project will work on automated application of pesticides to grapevines to control insect pests that invade grapevines by moving up the trunk of the vine. This obviously involves developing software and hardware to recognize the trunk and spray these selectively. The Whiting project will develop methods for predicting, at high resolution, what traits in the canopy of cherry and apple trees are correlated with very high quality fruit. This could lead to improved methods for pruning, spraying and fertilizing trees, processes that might be implemented by a future generation of the machines developed in the Pierce project. Brown is working on comparable technology for crops like wheat, but the emphasis here is predicting the fine scale fertility of soil so that amendments can be directed to where they will do the most good.
Other projects have this flavor of a specific set of experiments designed to address part of a bigger emerging question. The other two pesticide projects, Walsh and Stark, are trying to look at more subtle issues related to pesticide use. In the Walsh project, pesticide efficacy is being evaluated as a function of water stress. The idea is that rainfall or irrigated soil moisture will affect both the insects and their host plant and that it might be possible to manage pesticide application more efficiently by understanding this relationship. Variation in water availability is a recurrent theme in Washington agriculture and may be intensified by shifting climate patterns. Stark will examine the fate of new insecticides after application to determine how they are transported in the soil and water and whether they persist. A unique emphasis of this project is the study of sub-lethal effects of the compounds, especially on fish and aquatic ecosystems.
The three projects relating to biological hazards deal with different but related issues. One is examining the survival of pathogenic E. coli and Salmonella in irrigation water and another in manure used in organic crop production. A third will measure antibiotics in animal waste in order to determine how strong the selection pressure might be for the maintenance of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in these systems. These projects are designed to assess potential hazards and develop methods to minimize these. Recent national problems surrounding contamination of spinach, onions and tomatoes showed how devastating the potential of bacterial contamination can be to both consumers and producers. The level of contamination seen as acceptable is being lowered on a regular basis, making it essential to determine how to minimize exposure and risk.
Several of the 12 projects funded in 2007-2008 were successful in obtaining significant outside support to extend the work, including USDA National Research Initiative competitive grants to Cogger and Zhang. In addition, some of these projects have contributed data to proposals that are currently under review. While this sort of leveraging is important in extending the projects and bringing additional resources to bear on them, it is important to keep the focus on the idea that, by solving problems in Washington, we can often make a contribution to the solution of other problems of national and international significance.
Brief summaries of funded projects for the FY 2009 Emerging Research Issues Internal Competitive Grants Program.
Summaries are extracted from portions of the funded proposals. Complete versions of the funded proposals are available upon request to the ARC.
High Throughput Profiling of Washington Crops for Phytochemicals Related to Human Health.
An Autonomous Application System for Targeted Pest Control.
High-Value Crops under High Tunnels in Western Washington.
Quantifying intra-tree fruit quality variability relative to 3-D canopy architecture.
Modeling the Impact of New Generation Insecticides used in Apple Production on Water Quality.
Mapping soil-water dynamics on the Palouse with proximal soil sensing.
Extracting Antioxidants from Fruit Processing Wastes in Washington Agriculture.