This is the 30th annual holiday poem by Dave Dickson, poet laureate and emeritus professor of dairy science and dairy extension at the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over the holidays, Dickson will be practicing triple jumps at his family’s dairy farm near Everson, Washington.

Nutritional experts are urging Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables. Some of us actually are following the advice. So wouldn’t it be great if there was a natural compound that caused fruit to ripen more quickly and last longer on grocers’ shelves and in our refrigerators?

The great pumpkin (and two pickup loads of pumpkin underlings) arrived Oct. 16 at UW Children’s Hospital and Ronald McDonald House, delivered by Tom Wright and Denise Mueller of the West Madison Agricultural Research Station.

The College of Agricultural and Life Sciences will present Susan Crane, co-owner and manager of Crane Farms in Burlington, Wis., with the Honorary Recognition Award for her service and dedication to Wisconsin agriculture and the dairy industry. The award will be presented at a banquet Oct. 24 in the Memorial Union on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. (For information on attending the banquet, please call Lee Gottschalk at the CALS conference office, (608) 263-2421.)

The 22nd annual Wisconsin Agricultural & Life Sciences Alumni Association Football Fire-up and Auction will be held Saturday, Sept. 6, before the Wisconsin/Boise State football game.

A study at two Wisconsin greenhouses has found that compost mixes, including one from urban leaf waste, can produce acceptable bedding plants under commercial conditions.

Whether they grow corn, or cattle – or fish, farmers are always looking for ways to get the most out of their crops. One recent trend in aquaculture is to manipulate the sex of fish populations in order improve profits. Raising either monosex populations, where all the fish are the same sex, or sterile populations, can provide substantial benefits to fish farmers.

Looking at the hours he puts in under a 20 percent teaching appointment, a casual observer might see workaholism. But Scott Craven enjoys teaching so much that the Spitzer Teaching Award is frosting on the cake for this wildlife ecologist. “I like the material, and I’m blessed with attractive subject matter. I really enjoy working with wildlife, and I hope that my enthusiasm for that is contagious,” he says.

Biochemist Brian Fox studies a family of enzymes that metabolize compounds as diverse as nutritionally desirable fats and toxic waste.

Many of us have some experience with one of Amy Wong’s research interests and none of us has pleasant memories of the experience. Wong studies enterotoxins produced by Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus. We know them as sources of food poisoning.