“The biggest thing that stands out about this new variety, BetaGene, is that it’s both a high yielding variety and high in beta glucan. Beta glucan is a heart-healthy chemical that is exclusive to oats,” says John Mochon, program manager of the Small Grains Breeding Program in the UW-Madison agronomy department.

BetaGene is 2 percent higher in beta glucan on average than other oat varieties on the market. That may not sound much, but it’s huge from a nutrition standpoint. A 2 percent bump translates to a 20-percent boost in beta glucan levels in products made from the oat.

Nutrition researchers liken beta glucan to a sponge that traps cholesterol-rich acids in the bloodstream. Consuming 3 grams daily of this soluble fiber—combined with a healthy diet—may lower the blood’s level of LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, lessening the risk of coronary heart disease, according to one report from the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.

UW breeders have increased acreage of the new variety this year in hopes of releasing it for the 2014 growing season.

Wisconsin is among the top oat-producing states. Growers here plant about 300,000 acres of oats each year—about half of that harvested as forage and fed to livestock, the rest harvested for grain—with yields averaging 60 to 70 bushels per acre. But better returns from other crops and other market forces have made oats less attractive to growers, Mochon says. Overall oat acreage in the United States has declined steadily over the years.

“That’s why I’m trying to add value to oats. It’s one of my goals to reverse that trend,” he says. “Things like increased beta glucan, developing forage lines, developing lines that are rust resistant, and developing lines that have a high groat percentage are all part of this effort.”

Mochon hopes that BetaGene will help improve demand for oats. The new variety has already generated some interest in the food industry. At least one large milling company paid a visit to Wisconsin to learn more about the experimental variety.

It has taken UW breeders 14 years to bring BetaGene to this point. They performed the original cross in 1998 and nurtured the oat in variety trials until they were confident that it was ready for growers. This is standard operating procedure for vetting experimental crop varieties. It takes 12 to 15 years to prove that they can yield well, fend off disease and have a track record for success before being considered for release, Mochon says.

In this case, there was also an international angle to be considered. Canada is a big oat producer and therefore an important potential market, so Mochon is working to ensure BetaGene also meets requirements for certified, licensed sale north of the border.

It’s clear he has done this thousands of times. With a few quick flicks, the feather deftly flips and sorts tiny fly bodies into neat piles, then sweeps them into newly tagged tubes. Then he’s on to the next vial from the packed rack: flip, sort, screen, and tag — picking out differences invisible to an untrained eye.

Their size belies the magnitude of their influence: with these flies, Ganetzky, a geneticist and Steenbock Professor of Biological Sciences at UW–Madison, has improved the understanding of human conditions ranging from cardiac failures in young athletes to aging brains.

And yet, he did not set out with these goals in mind. Unlike clinical or translational research, where the direct intent is to improve health care, basic research such as Ganetzky’s aims simply to gain knowledge of the world and how it works, including the biology of the creatures living in it.

It is also the type of research so often lampooned by politicians as an example of wasteful government spending — who cares why a sleeping fly’s legs twitch? But the answer to that question has helped to explain how numerous drugs hurt the patients they were supposed to help and has permanently affected the pharmaceutical development process.

Ganetzky’s unassuming laboratory is modest compared to the rooms full of gleaming equipment just steps away in the Genetics Biotechnology Center on the UW campus. But don’t let appearances fool you. Like the flies they work on, Ganetzky and his lab team are giants in the world of science.

Please read the rest of the story here on the On Wisconsin magazine website.

The shorter of the two, titled Do-It-Yourself Alternative Lawn Care, is targeted at homeowners. It focuses on six things homeowners can do to help their lawn survive and thrive without a lot of added inputs:

The other publication, Organic And Reduced-Risk Lawn Care, is aimed primarily at turf-care professionals. It discusses the same six management steps in more detail and also gets into how certain pesticides and fertilizers can fit into alternative lawn care.

Read this eCALS article for more information about both publications. Do-It-Yourself Alternative Lawn Care (A3964) and Organic and Reduced-Risk Lawn Care (A3954), can be purchased online at learningstore.uwex.edu.

Karl Haro von Mogel, Research Assistant
Department of Agronomy
UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
kmogel@wisc.edu
Phone: (608) 262-6521

3:02 - Total Time

0:17 - Why seeds in a time capsule
1:00 - What will be different in 50 years
1:24 - What seeds went into time capsule
2:09 - What will people do with time capsule seeds
2:29 - Seed 50 years from now
2:52 - Lead out

Transcript

Sevie Kenyon: Karl, you recently placed some seeds in a 50 year time capsule, can you tell us why you did that?

Karl Haro von Mogel: So they, Union South at the University of Wisconsin, Madison… wanted to have a time capsule containing various items that were representative of our time today and then it would be opened 49 years from now. Seeds and the varieties of crops we grow, are always changing and I wanted to put in some seeds that plant breeders here—at the University of Wisconsin—thought were important today and would be important in the near future. Put them in the time capsule and then in 2061, someone might open them up and get a little window into all of these different aspects of what these plant breeders were working on today.

Sevie Kenyon: And Karl, what would you expect to be different 50 years from now?

Karl Haro von Mogel: The plants we grow 50 years from now, their genes may have come from—if you’re talking about maize—it may have come from some maize plants growing in Mexico and some growing in Iowa and then some growing in Europe. As seeds move around the world people trade them, cross them and breed them and then maybe even aspects of other plants that we might engineer into them as well.

Sevie Kenyon: What examples of seeds did you put into the time capsule?

Karl Haro von Mogel: I had some carrots, there were some purple carrots and some carrots that were bred for very high levels of beta-carotene- and that’s what causes the orange color in carrots. There were some interesting onions that were male sterile… they didn’t make pollen, but they could make seeds. There were some beets, the beets are red and yellow striped and when you cut them open they look like a flame, so he called them Badger Torch, Badger Flame and Badger Sunset. They’re also some oats, bred for high levels of a compound that is important for maintaining good cardio-vascular health.

Sevie Kenyon: Karl, what would you expect people to do or think when they open this time capsule 49 years from now?

Karl Haro von Mogel: I’m hoping that they…, it’s cheap and easy enough that they could just take these seeds and find out a little bit of information about the genetics. I don’t think any of the seeds will sprout, but maybe they might. So, we gave… I gave them pictures of what some of the plants might look like.

Sevie Kenyon: Karl, what do you see 50 years from now?

Karl Haro von Mogel: I’d like to see plants that can solve some of the many problems that we have today. You can’t separate everybody’s health from agriculture. It’s all inter-dependent… so I’d like to see plants that could fill some of those gaps, fill some of those roles that we may need them to fill to help people to get some of the nutrients they need that they’re not getting today.

Sevie Kenyon: We’ve been visiting with Karl Haro Von Mogel, Department of Agronomy, University of Wisconsin in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Madison, Wisconsin and I’m Sevie Kenyon.

White

White will play an active role in the research, teaching and outreach activities of both units in the area of environmental justice, with a particular focus on environmental health burdens faced by vulnerable communities.

She currently serves as assistant professor of sociology at Wayne State University and is a former Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. She received her doctorate from Western Michigan University.

“Professor White’s community-based research is on the cutting edge in the field of environmental justice and will be of great value to the university, our students and our community as we continue to build momentum in this area,” says Gregg Mitman, interim director of the Nelson Institute. “She brings expertise in a diverse range of environmental health and social justice topics, including food systems, land use and race and gender studies.”

White’s research focuses on documenting the history of black farmers' collectives, cooperatives and experiences in the Midwest. She is currently studying the grassroots organizations and communities of color that are engaged in developing sustainable community food systems in response to issues of hunger and food inaccessibility. In 2009 she was awarded a Humanities Center Faculty Fellowship from Wayne State for her work studying the urban gardening movement in Detroit and the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network.

“The opportunity to have someone on our campus who brings together urban agricultural and environmental justice issues is a huge development,” says Daniel Kleinman, professor and chair of community and environmental sociology. “The number of ways in which she’s going to enrich our community through scholarship, teaching and mentoring is very exciting.”

White will teach core courses in the two units, including “Global Environmental Health: An Interdisciplinary Introduction” and “Environmental Studies: The Social Perspective.”

“I am excited about this position and look forward to joining a community of scholars who are engaged in conversations around sustainability, urban areas and food access from several different perspectives,” she says.

White says she is eager to interact with UW-Madison students and introduce them to the creative and innovative ways that communities are transforming the urban landscape.

White’s research focuses on documenting the history of black farmers' collectives, cooperatives and experiences in the Midwest.

“I am deeply committed to offering students the opportunity to discuss the relationship between environmental health, environmental justice and food systems,” she says. “I want to create a space for students to inquire about the impact of social demographics on food options and access, and then, using community-based research methods, allow them to combine both theoretical and practical understanding to conceptualize sustainable cities.”

White will also play a leadership role in advancing the Nelson Institute Community and Environmental Scholars Program and other community-driven environmental education, research and engagement activities.

Through direct service, research, personal networking and community organizing experiences, the Community Environmental Scholars Program offers a diverse cohort of undergraduate students an academic framework for examining the links between environmental studies and community service and developing perspectives and solutions around complex issues.

White will maintain her connections to the urban agriculture movement in Detroit and develop similar networks in Milwaukee and Madison, broadening opportunities for student involvement.

She will begin at UW-Madison for the Fall 2012 semester.

University of Wisconsin-Madison turf experts are getting a lot questions about how to grow a healthy lawn with minimal risk to the environment and human health. The questions come from both homeowners and lawn-care professionals, says Doug Soldat, a soil scientist and UW-Extension turf specialist.

“For the past few years this has been one of the top questions at our professional workshops,” he says. “Lawn care operators are realizing that their customers want this, and they are asking us how to do it.

“The problem is that there are no standards,” he says. “The USDA has set the organic food standards, but there is nothing comparable for turf. There’s a huge range in what people are doing and calling natural lawn care.”

Over the past decade, the university’s turf scientists have been collecting data to develop sustainable lawn care guidelines tailored to Wisconsin. At the O.J. Noer turf research facility near Verona, they’re evaluating grass varieties and blends to see how they perform with reduced levels of irrigation, fertilizer and pesticides. They’re also exploring non-chemical strategies for controlling pests and monitoring the effectiveness of pesticides that the EPA classifies as “reduced risk.”

They recently compiled what they’ve learned into two publications. The shorter of the two, titled Do-It-Yourself Alternative Lawn Care, is targeted at homeowners. It focuses on six things homeowners can do to help their lawn survive and thrive without a lot of added inputs:

– Prepare soil properly. A good soil makes it easier for the grass plant to get nutrients and water and compete with weeds. Weeds are adapted to adversity, so they’ll dominate a poor soil in the absence of herbicides.

– Select the right grass. Low-maintenance grasses suited to Wisconsin include tall fescues, fine fescues and common (not improved) varieties of Kentucky bluegrass. Which is the best choice depends on soil, environment and sunlight. And because it’s very difficult to control weeds in newly seeded grass without herbicides, sod is a better bet for getting the lawn established.

–Mow as high as possible—three or four inches—with a sharp blade, to maintain strong roots and shade out weeds. Mowing frequently lets you remove less of the plant to avoid weakening the grass.

–Provide enough nutrients. Well-fertilized lawns have fewer insects and disease problem. Organic fertilizers should be applied at least twice a season.

–Control pests. Weeds are the primary challenge. You can pull them in a small area if you’re persistent, but larger areas may require other tactics. The publication discusses the pros and cons of various alternative weed killers.

–Apply enough water to help build a thicker stand of grass that’s more able to keep weeds at bay.

Wisconsin is a leader in processed vegetables—No. 2 nationwide in acreage and production and No. 3 in the value of goods produced—and now the state’s growers and processors are leaders in a new approach to hunger relief. Read this new Grow Q&A with Colquhoun, a professor of horticulture and director of the Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, to learn how the industry and food relief groups such as Second Harvest of Southern Wisconsin are partnering to get excess vegetables from farms to food banks.