Catching Up with CALS — Nov. 29, 2023

Dean's Message — Success South of the Border

I recently read a quote emblazoned on a wall at Mexico City’s International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) that effectively summarizes the importance of what we do in CALS. I had the opportunity to visit CIMMYT — a major seed repository and research center devoted to nonprofit agricultural research and training to make food systems more resilient — while participating in the Governor’s Trade Mission to Mexico Nov. 13-17. That memorable quote was attributed to famed American agronomist Norman Borlaug, who precipitated the increases in agricultural production of the mid-20th century termed the Green Revolution. Borlaug said: “Everything else can wait; agriculture can’t.” CALS researchers are committed to furthering sustainable production methods — whether it involves helping Idaho’s farmers raise more crops with fewer inputs or work within our Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences to identify environmentally friendly alternative materials for manufacturing apparel.

At CIMMYT, our traveling group, which also included International Programs Director Bob Haggerty and Plant Sciences Department Head Juliet Marshall from CALS, found kindred spirits who have also gone all-in on shaping a sustainable future. CIMMYT is focused on reducing farming inputs, sequestering more carbon in soils, reducing agriculture’s carbon footprint and other goals that are also hallmarks of our $55 million Innovative Agriculture and Marketing Partnership for Idaho (IAMP) grant, formerly known as Climate-Smart Commodities. IAMP, awarded by USDA, is the largest grant in our history. CIMMYT has invited us to return next March, and I see a tremendous opportunity for investigators with our IAMP grant to participate in that trip and trade notes. Marshall sees potential to tap CIMMYT as a future resource for wheat germplasm that could be used to incorporate resistance to various diseases and certain quality traits into our breeding program. “I think making connections with the researchers at CIMMYT would be very beneficial, especially when it comes to having reciprocal agreements associated with sending our students down there and their students up here to improve student experiences with plant breeding and disease work,” Marshall said.

Another important stop on the tour for our U of I contingent was Chapingo Autonomous University, which is among Mexico’s leading agricultural universities. The university is free for students to attend, but the application process is extremely competitive. They told us they admit about 2,000 students annually from a pool of 25,000 applicants. There’s tremendous potential for future exchanges of both faculty and students between our institutions.

Like Idaho, Mexico is a major player in the dairy industry, with more than 250,000 dairies ranging in size from a few dozen cows to thousands of cows. And like us in CALS, Mexico’s dairy industry is increasingly focusing on climate change and sustainability. Consequently, an official we met who represents northern Mexico dairies was keenly interested in learning more about the ongoing construction of Idaho Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (Idaho CAFE), which will include America’s largest research dairy, focused on sustainable production, in Idaho’s Magic Valley.

Our trade team left Mexico City with a strong impression of Mexico’s importance as a trading partner, especially of agricultural commodities. During the first six months of 2023, Mexico, which ranks as the world’s 14th largest economy, was the No. 1 trade partner with the U.S. According to the International Trade Administration, the two-way trade in goods and services totaled $86.4 billion in 2022. Furthermore, Canada and Mexico together purchased more than 44% of the value of all goods exported from Idaho. Mexico is the No. 2 importer of fresh Idaho potatoes and is also a major buyer of Idaho malt barley, beans, livestock and other staple commodities. We made invaluable connections during out time south of the border, both with our hosts in Mexico and among the other members of our Idaho team. I had the opportunity to speak directly with Gov. Brad Little about progress on our capital projects and forthcoming priorities. We further solidified our relationship with the new leaders within the Idaho State Department of Agriculture, and we forged new relationships with CALS alumni who now represent all facets of the agriculture industry. I’m optimistic some of them will lend their insights to CALS advisory boards and committees. In short, this trip provided us an unbelievable return on our investment.

Michael P. Parrella

Dean
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

 Our Stories

Meat Science Lab Gets Grant

University of Idaho has received a large federal grant to help build and equip a new meat science laboratory to be located on its Moscow campus.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) recently announced it is awarding $481,755 toward U of I’s planned 12,750-square-foot abattoir, to be called the Meat Science and Innovation Center Honoring Ron Richard.

U of I’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking for the estimated $14.1 million facility on Oct. 14. The laboratory was among seven projects nationwide to receive a share of $2 million the agency invested through its Research Facilities Act Program, which is intended to “assist in the construction, alteration, acquisition, modernization, renovation or remodeling of an agricultural research facility to enhance the institution’s long-term impact on food and agricultural research.”

U of I met a required 50% match to be eligible for the grant with dollars brought in through prior fundraising efforts. Some of the grant funds will go toward construction and overall project management costs, but the bulk of the dollars will be used for purchasing equipment. For example, grant funding will help buy a hoist to lift carcasses, a platform for trimming carcasses, a bowl chopper used to make beef franks, a vacuum packaging machine and a smoke house used in the production of bacon, sausages and ready-to-eat products.

The new abattoir will replace a facility built in the 1960s, providing dedicated spaces to host multiple functions simultaneously, cutting-edge equipment and far greater operational efficiency. It will also be the new home of the Vandal Brand Meats retail store. The new facility will serve livestock producers, meat processors and meat merchandisers with technical, marketing and business development assistance. The project is targeted for completion by May 2025.

“Really, it’s going to help make this facility a state-of-the-art facility we can use to train students and do work with Extension programs, and we’re going to be able to continue to do some high-quality research with more modern technology,” said Michael Colle, an assistant professor of meat science and project director of the grant. “Having this facility will hopefully allow us to receive more grants than we currently do. We’ve been very successful in that realm, but this should open more opportunities for successful grants and cutting-edge research.”

Colle hopes to further leverage the funds by convincing some of the vendors who are awarded contacts to supply equipment to donate additional equipment.

Debbie Gray, interim director of grant and project development within CALS, was instrumental in submitting the grant, piecing together information from prior grant applications regarding the meat science lab.

USDA-NIFA funded the three-year grant under award No. 2023-77046-41255.

Ag Outlook Seminars

University of Idaho Extension is resurrecting an event that consistently drew large crowds prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, featuring experts who assess the state’s agricultural landscape and offer an outlook for the year to come.

The Idaho Ag Outlook Seminar was last hosted in person in 2019 and was delivered in an online format during 2021 and 2022. Brett Wilder, a UI Extension agricultural economist, has organized four in-person sessions scheduled for mid-December in each region of the state.

Sessions are scheduled for:

• Tuesday, Dec. 12 at the Bonneville County Fairgrounds in Idaho Falls
• Wednesday, Dec. 13 at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls
• Thursday, Dec. 14 at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game office in Nampa
• Tuesday, Dec. 19 at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston

Registration is $30 per person, and booklets with information from the presentations will be available to order for $20 each following the sessions. Lunch is included. Check-in will begin at 8 a.m., and seminars will start at 9 a.m. and should conclude by or prior to 3 p.m. local time.

Several producers, media members and even some congressional staff members have already registered for the various sessions.

“I had a lot of feedback from folks who were involved. It was a good event and something people enjoyed going to,” Wilder said. “It’s valuable for agricultural producers to have an idea of what the year looked like on a bigger scale than their own operation and what to expect moving forward.”

The unveiling of the annual UI Extension report estimating the gross income and net farm income of Idaho agriculture for the year that’s ending has been a highlight of past seminars. Wilder, who will present that eagerly anticipated data during the upcoming seminar, noted 2022’s gross income estimates for Idaho agriculture proved to be extremely accurate, though their estimates of input costs came in high.

“In 2022 we had all-time high numbers for these commodities, and we were within a percentage or so with our estimates,” Wilder said. “It’s a good benchmark number for how the agriculture industry is doing in the state of Idaho.”

Wilder will also give the beef outlook presentation. Dustin Winston, a top dairy analyst in the Northwest with the financial services franchise StoneX Group Inc., will present the dairy outlook.

Xiaoxue “Rita” Du, an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology (AERS), and Tyler Hand, a graduate student in the department, will present on global trade and U.S. macro trends. Xiaoli Etienne, an associate professor in AERS and Idaho Wheat Commission Endowed Chair in Commodity Risk Management, will present about input cost trends. Norm Ruhoff, a clinical assistant professor in AERS, will give a grain outlook in Lewiston.

Troy Lindquist, senior service hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Russell Qualls, the state’s climatologist, will cover presentations on weather patterns. UI Extension educators Joseph Sagers and Doug Finkelnburg will cover hay presentations. UI Extension agricultural economist Patrick Hatzenbuehler will give an outlook for potatoes, and Greg Latta, an associate professor of forest economics in the College of Natural Resources and director of the Policy Analysis Group, will cover forestry in Lewiston. Arrangements for additional speakers to cover water, grains and pulse crops are still being finalized.

Wilder plans to distribute surveys to participants inquiring about their input costs and land lease rates. The responses will be used in drafting Extension publications on both topics. Wilder will offer those who complete the survey the opportunity to win door prizes.

“Those are the two most commonly asked about publications,” Wilder said. “If we can have a captive audience around the state to collect that information then we’ll do that.”

Hay Test Research

University of Idaho Extension Educator Sawyer Fonnesbeck was stumped twice by the same question during presentations he gave early this year about the importance of testing alfalfa hay.

Growers who heard him speak at Idaho Range Livestock Symposium sessions asked him to estimate how long alfalfa test results remain valid. Fonnesbeck, a livestock production and ruminant nutrition Extension educator based in Oneida County, had no answer, unaware of any research on the subject conducted in or near Idaho.

Seeking to generate his own data in response to the growers’ question, Fonnesbeck has launched a research project, using a $3,000 mini-grant through Idaho Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) Professional Development. Fonnesbeck will discuss his ongoing study on how long hay retains its nutritional value in various storage conditions, as well as advice for incorporating water-damaged or moldy hay into rations, during East Idaho Beef School, which will be offered at three locations throughout the region later this month.

The three schools will be conducted at the UI Extension county offices:

• Nov. 28 in Blackfoot (Bingham County) — 412 W Pacific St from 6-8 p.m. MT
• Nov. 29 in Montpelier (Bear Lake County) — 21620 U.S. Highway 30 from 6-8 p.m. MT
• Nov 30. In Malad (Oneida County) — 459 Main St from 6-8 p.m. MT

RSVP by emailing cwillmore@uidaho.edu in Blackfoot, jhatch@uidaho.edu in Montpelier or sfonnesbeck@uidaho.edu in Malad. There is no fee to attend any of the schools and dinner is included. Other topics covered will include an update about the national Beef Quality Assurance program audit and the use of dart guns for doctoring cattle.

Fonnesbeck hopes beef school participants will give him feedback on his study’s setup and ideas for possible spinoff projects in the future. For his study, Fonnesbeck purchased 12 small hay bales from three different producers and divided them into three lots – one stack is being stored on bare ground with no covering, another is being stored on a pallet with a tarp covering the top and the final stack is being kept in a shed. Fonnesbeck will conduct baseline testing, followed by bimonthly testing, to determine how well each haystack retains its nutritional value.

“My theory is within the hayshed, the nutritional value is going to have a downward slope, but it’s going to be very moderate,” Fonnesbeck said. “My hay uncovered and on bare ground, I think it’s going to have a steeper decline in nutritional value. What will be interesting to see is how steep the downward slope of the nutritional value actually is for each storage type. That is the current unknown piece of the puzzle.”

The data should help producers better balance rations to meet the nutritional needs of livestock using hay that’s been stored for several months.

Producers may add nutrient supplements to their rations to offset any losses in nutritional value, or simply feed cattle more hay.

In addition to time, rain can deplete the nutritional value of hay. A light rain shortly after cutting, when the hay still retains most of its moisture, likely won’t cause much damage. After cut hay has had time to dry, however, rain may leach soluble sugars and carbohydrates from plants. Furthermore, if a rainstorm elevates the moisture level of dried alfalfa back above 50% cellular respiration may resume, which uses stored energy within the plant that would otherwise benefit livestock. Fonnesbeck estimates two-thirds of the hay in Oneida County sustained some rain damage after cutting this season.

“If you are selling rained on hay, or feeder hay, you are probably going to lose at least $50 per ton, and probably more,” Fonnesbeck said.

If hay is soaked for too long and a producer can’t get it to dry, it may become moldy. Certain kinds of mold are toxic to cattle, and Fonnesbeck recommends testing for mold toxicity if mold damage is widespread. Otherwise, he suggests blending in moldy hay with better alfalfa, allowing cattle to pick out any good hay from a moldy bale.

Fonnesbeck advises using feeder hay in the late fall and early winter and switching to high-quality hay for bred heifers during calving season, from late February to early April, sustaining them during peak lactation and enabling them to recuperate to breed again later in the spring.

Faces and Places

Brent Olmstead, CALS assistant dean of government and external relations, retires on Nov. 30. Brent joined CALS in 2016 and has played a critical role in many of the college’s key initiatives by educating policymakers and external partners about the importance of our land grant mission and advocating for continued support for CALS.

The Idaho Wheat Commission voted unanimously during the recent 2023 Tri-State Grain Growers Convention held in Coeur d’Alene to rename its endowed chair in risk management at University of Idaho to recognize former wheat commissioner Bill Flory, ’77. The endowed chair is held by Xiaoli Etienne, an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology.

CALS students Klay Hanrahan, Kalyssa Safley, Tomie Moody-St Clair, James Taurman-Aldrich, Hannah Glaser, Claire Shelton, Ariana Olmos, Juan Jaquez, Conley Martin, Brianna Leon, Mackenzie Serrano, Regan Stansell, Hadley Beechinor and Whitney Foster recently attended the Agriculture Future of America Leaders Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. The four-day event allows students to work on professional skills, make connections with fellow students across the nation and hear from those guiding the agriculture industry today.

FCS Senior Instructor Sara Matthews recently presented her work on open AI in higher education and teacher preparation programs at the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s annual conference in Nashville.

CALS student members of the Student Idaho Cattle Association attended the Idaho Cattle Association Annual Convention & Trade Show in Sun Valley where they were able to network with industry leaders, learn more about issues facing the cattle industry and ways that they can help to promote and protect the Idaho cattle industry.