Catching Up with CALS — May 1, 2024

Dean's Message — Reaching Out to Alumni

To showcase an incredible attribute of the new Firefly Petunia, Jerome-based Moss Greenhouses will host a May 31 sale late at night and in the dark. Details of the sale will be available on their Facebook page. Through genetic engineering, a plant breeder in Ketchum incorporated bioluminescence from a fungus into the flower, enabling it to emit a soft, moonlight-like glow. Moss Greenhouses, a business in its 73rd year run by a family of dedicated Vandal alumni, will soon be one of only two garden centers in the country offering the technology. I got to see a Firefly Petunia on April 25, when the Moss family hosted a gathering of Magic Valley Vandal alumni and I had the pleasure of representing the university. “They’re working on the brightness in the enzyme that they’ve spliced into the gene. Then they will start cross-breeding it into different plants,” owner Jennifer Moss explained to a silver-and-gold-clad crowd. “They’re even talking about turfgrass so when you walk across it, your footsteps will light up like in the movie Avatar.” This type of petunia is not native to North America, is not considered an invasive species and it is not a food plant. So the chances of the modified genes spreading into native plants and disrupting ecosystems should be minimal. It’s also notable that Moss was among the Class of 2020 Forty Under 40 honorees selected by Greenhouse Product News “celebrating the brightest minds and boldest talents in the horticulture industry.”

Witnessing this botanical innovation and having an audience with some of U of I’s most accomplished supporters was a strong reminder that our graduates are on the cutting edge in their fields, and as a university we’re wise to maintain and strengthen our ties with them. Our alumni represent an army of willing advocates well positioned in leadership roles throughout the state to share our visions for a thriving Idaho. They also offer support, guidance and employment opportunities for our future graduates. To capitalize on this resource, however, it’s incumbent upon us as representatives of U of I to tell our story and share our accomplishments, leaving no doubt that any investment in our university will trigger tremendous returns. In short, we need to validate and feed the passion that our alumni exude.

The university has heightened its emphasis recently on delivering our message to alumni where they live, such as the recent event in Jerome, hosted amid a rainbow of hanging baskets and potted plants in full bloom. I shared how U of I fared extremely well in its legislative funding requests, securing nearly everything we sought. I addressed our burgeoning campuswide enrollment and forthcoming expansions of our medical and cybersecurity programming. I described how bullish I am on our university’s efforts to acquire the University of Phoenix online college, which would help our campus attract an important new student demographic.

I also addressed some of our recent CALS milestones. Understanding that the dairy and cattle industries generate roughly 66% of the value of Idaho agriculture, we’ve broken ground on a 12,750-square-foot abattoir in Moscow to be called the Meat Science and Innovation Center Honoring Ron Richard, and we’re on pace to be milking cows by this time next year at the Idaho Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (Idaho CAFE), which will include the nation’s largest research dairy. Idaho CAFE will also have a soil and water demonstration farm where we’ll study the connections between plant and animal agriculture. Just a few years ago we opened a new facility for faculty at our Nancy M. Cummings Research, Extension and Education Center in Salmon, which houses our main cow-calf operation, and we recently celebrated the ribbon-cutting of the Idaho Center for Plant and Soil Health in Parma. We’re also operating from a new Seed Potato Germplasm Laboratory in Moscow. We’re reaching more stakeholders than ever before through programming — in the past year we engaged more than 75,000 youth through our UI Extension 4-H Youth Development program, and our Extension faculty made more than 275,000 face-to-face contacts with stakeholders. We brought in a whopping $91 million in extramural funding in the past year. Notably, we’ve received an $11 million Center of Biomedical Research Excellence grant through the National Institutes of Health to establish a center for research supporting women’s health in Idaho.

The next priority on our list will be to upgrade dilapidated facilities at our Kimberly Research and Extension Center. I also recently participated in another trip with Lisa Victoravich, dean of the College of Business and Economics, to engage U of I alumni in Palm Desert, California, where several of our top supporters spend the colder months. While it was gratifying to share the following  success stories, it was also somewhat surprising to learn how many of them were largely unaware of our accomplishments. We’re doing tremendous work, so let’s give our proud alumni the fodder they seek to help us build our reputation.

Michael P. Parrella

Dean
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

By the Numbers

University of Idaho Extension team is large and diverse. It includes 90 Extension educators, 15 area Extension educators, 66 county-based Extension educators and 9 associate Extension educators. The UI Extension network also includes 44 specialists, 1 clinical faculty member, 7 administrators and more than 100 program coordinators, Extension associates and staff.

Our Stories

Ag Talk Tuesday Resumes

University of Idaho Extension’s popular virtual discussion series about Idaho agriculture, called Ag Talk Tuesday, will return for a seventh season beginning on May 7, taking participants on a deep dive into several key issues facing the industry.

There is no fee to participate in the bimonthly Zoom sessions, but advanced registration at uidaho.edu/ag-talk is required. Ag Talk Tuesday are scheduled for 11 a.m. to noon on the first and third Tuesday of each month from May through August.

At the beginning of each session, participants are invited to share local crop updates. Following the crop discussions, featured speakers address a chosen agriculture-related topic.

“In addition to giving participants a chance to hear about hot topics. we like to use Ag Talk Tuesday to introduce new faculty,” said Kasia Duellman, a UI Extension seed potato pathologist who is a co-organizer of Ag Talk Tuesday. “The sessions also give Extension educators and specialists the opportunity to highlight their research.”

Agricultural experts from outside of the university are also invited to serve as speakers to offer a variety of viewpoints:

• The series begins May 7, with a water supply update by Keith Esplin of the Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition and an agricultural outlook presentation by Josh Huff of Ag West Farm Credit.
• On May 21, U of I Distinguished Professor Sanford Eigenbrode will present work from Dr. Dane Elmquist, a recent U of I graduate who is currently a Conservation Cropping Outreach Extension Specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Eigenbrode will speak about the role of soil arthropods in soil health and Pacific Northwest wheat systems.
• The presenter for June 4 is Joan Campbell, a U of I researcher who will present on post-harvest weed seed control using light technology.
• On June 18, UI Extension economist Brett Wilder will speak on the landscape for corporate and family farms in Idaho.
• On July 2, Armando Falcon-Brindis, a new entomologist based at the Parma Research and Extension Center, will speak about his research and extension program that he is initiating this year.
• On July 16, nematologist Pooria Ensafi will discuss his research on nematodes associated with cereal crops and management strategies.
• On Aug. 6, UI Extension educator Reed Findlay will speak about the use of annual alfalfa as a source of nitrogen for subsequent small-grain crops, research that is being done in collaboration with fellow extension educators Joseph Sagers, Justin Hatch, Tom Jacobsen and Jared Gibbons and UI Extension barley agronomist Jared Spackman.
• On Aug. 20, UI Extension economist Pat Hatzenbuehler, an Ag Talk Tuesday regular, will speak about the Idaho crop profitability outlook.

Doug Finkelnburg, a UI Extension area educator of cropping systems, Pam Hutchinson, a weed scientist based at the Aberdeen Research and Extension Center, and Juliet Marshall, head of the Department of Plant Sciences, are also Ag Talk Tuesday program co-organizers along with Duellman.

The program has steadily increased its participants throughout the years. In 2023, 135 people — including crop researchers, farmers, agronomists, students, agribusiness representatives, financial institution representatives, Idaho Power officials, chemical company representatives, media, students, commodity commission representatives and others — registered for Ag Talk Tuesday.

Each season, Duellman periodically sends out an Ag Talk Report newsletter that includes summaries of selected featured presentations along with other interesting articles related to agriculture, research, and current season challenges.

The program originated in 2018 when Duellman and Hutchinson sought to revive a former UI Extension tradition of hosting informational lunches for agricultural fieldmen in eastern Idaho. The two originally co-hosted the lunch-hour discussions at locations spanning from Burley to Rexburg.

In 2019, they tried hosting the meetings over breakfast, also offering a Zoom option for people who couldn’t be there in person but still wanted the information.

“Logistically, hosting these face-to-face sessions at different locations across east Idaho became difficult for us during our busy summer months, and it was hard for people to get to them,” Duellman said.

The 2020 pandemic offered an unexpected solution by allowing the organizers to focus on virtual, online sessions only, which is the format used today. This allows sessions to be recorded and uploaded to the U of I CALS YouTube channel for viewing later.

Mission of Mercy

Students involved in University of Idaho’s apparel, textiles and design program have been working in an assembly line to mass produce a product they’ve designed to make life easier for rural Guatemalan women.

Many women in Guatemala have no access to menstrual pads — a fact that can sometimes prevent them from leaving home. Students taking ATD 224 and members of the campus ATD Club have set a goal of making 400 high-quality, reusable menstrual pads to be hand delivered during a forthcoming philanthropic trip.

Two sophomores in ATD 224, Joanna Osornio of Caldwell and Kenzie Eppey of Coeur d’Alene, were chosen to spend 10 days in Guatemala beginning in the second week of May. They’ll be accompanied by a pair of faculty members within the Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) — instructor Chelsey Byrd Lewallen and Professor Sonya Meyer.

“I think it’s going to expand how they see themselves as designers and product developers to say, ‘I can make something that looks good, but I can also make something that does good,’” Lewallen said. “I think it brings a lot of purpose to why they’re getting this degree and what they would like to do in the future.”

The annual trip is organized by the Indiana-based organization Hearts in Motion. Though this will be U of I’s first involvement in the trip, Washington State University (WSU) Professor Kathy Beerman’s biological sciences students have participated for several years and will test the locals for iron deficiency and type II diabetes. While the U of I team gives away pads, the WSU students will distribute iron fish, which are added to stock pots to bolster the iron content of food. A team of dentists will also make the trip to pull abscessed teeth.

The U of I contingent will teach lessons in sewing and making pads to members of a community center with a sewing room in the village of Gualan. They’ll also bring basic sewing tools and supplies to donate to the community center.

“Maybe they want to make something to sell so they can earn a little income, or maybe they want to make some repairs and alterations. Maybe they want to do some crafts. We are looking forward to hearing their needs and then supporting them to accomplish those tasks.” Lewallen said.

ATD students Tess Richardson and Chloe McDougal developed the design for the pads, coming up with several prototypes of various sizes and styles before arriving at a three-layer version they liked. Their design includes a top cooling layer that keeps wearers dry, an absorbent fabric commonly used in cloth diapers and menstrual pads and a moisture-proof layer cut from donated tent fabric.

The two ATD students who will make this year’s trip are eager for the opportunity to personally witness their class’s hard work making a difference for real people.

“It’s really nice to get to know what things happen in other countries and get involved in this kind of thing to help other people,” said Eppey, who plans to become a fashion designer.

Osornio, who is fluent in Spanish, will also aid her team as a translator. Osornio plans to become a swimwear designer.

“I know there are a lot of women who don’t have the resources we have here,” Osornio said.

Lewallen hopes to make the Guatemala trip an annual tradition — perhaps building a new class around the trip and a related philanthropic project. For this year, the U of I team will receive support from FCS and College of Agricultural and Life Sciences endowment funds. The ATD Club organized a sustainable clothing swap and screen-printing workshop as a fundraiser. WSU Women in STEM (WiSTEM) raised money to help purchase fabric for making menstrual pads and supplies for kits recipients will use to wash them.

Branching Out

An aptitude for math and science led EmmaRae Parsons to consider pursuing a degree in civil engineering. When a high school teacher asked why she was interested in that topic she realized she didn’t have an answer.

Growing up surrounded by farms and ranches in the small rural town of Arco and participating in 4-H horse and sheep projects had given Parsons an appreciation for agriculture, but she hadn’t considered a career in the industry. Friends and neighbors encouraged her to explore options offered in the University of Idaho’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

“I was always passionate about being outside and I love the people I grew up with and a lot of them are farmers and ranchers,” she said. “Most of those that had gone to college were Vandals and were very passionate about it.”

Parsons discovered the biotechnology and plant genomics degree at U of I and her mother encouraged her to try it out, combining her skills in math and science with her interest in agriculture.

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Faces and Places

Alexandra Gogel, a doctoral candidate within the Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences, has been named as a finalist for the Emerging Leaders in Nutrition Science Poster Competition, an award competition of the American Society for Nutrition at NUTRITION 2024, which is the society’s flagship meeting. NUTRITION 2024 will be hosted June 29-July 2 in Chicago. Nearly 900 abstracts were submitted by students and postdoctoral fellows in the competition, which recognizes the top 10% of abstracts as rated by more than 400 nutrition scientists. Gogel’s abstract is titled “Circadian and Within-feed Variation in Human Milk, Total Protein and Proteomic Profiles.”

Ling-Ling Tsao, an associate professor within the Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS), and her graduate student, Chen-Yu Liu, attended the Region 2 Family Fun Fair, which supports children and families for National Child Abuse Prevention Month, observed during April. The event was hosted April 17 in the Lewiston Library by the Strengthening Families Coalition, of which the FCS school is a member.

Agricultural systems management students Isaac Krasselt, Travis Wells, Nathan Stout and Oree Reynolds competed in the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture Judging Conference held at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls. The team placed first in Ag Mechanics and second in Precision Ag. Krasselt was first place individual in Ag Mechanics and Wells was second place individual. Wells was also first place individual in Precision Ag.

Child development and early childhood education students held a family block party at the Child Development Laboratory in honor of the Week of the Young Child. They facilitated block play stations, encouraging parents to play alongside their children.

UI Extension educators Lance Hansen, Madison County; Bracken Henderson, Franklin County; and David Callister, Butte County; will travel to Micronesia and Yap to participate in the Western Regional Agricultural Stress Assistance Program’s conference to be hosted June 26-29.

Help stock the CALS Food Pantry from April 29-May 10 with donations of food or dollars. The CALS Food Pantry is open to all in the Vandal community and provides a variety of shelf-stable foods to those in need. Learn more about locations to drop off food or contribute online.