LifescapesTexas A&M

The Agriculture Program • The Texas A&M University System

l i f e s c i ences • agr i cu l ture • natura l r e sources • communi t i e s

Land FragmentationDivides Texas

Brush Busters Tames RangeManaging Private Forestland

4-H’ers Teach Environmental Awareness

Land FragmentationDivides Texas

Brush Busters Tames RangeManaging Private Forestland

4-H’ers Teach Environmental Awareness

The Agriculture Program • The Texas A&M University System

Lifescapes(ISSN 1539-1817)

is published three times a year by The Texas A&M University System

Agriculture Program.

Edward A. HilerVice Chancellor for Agriculture and Life Sciences

Prairie View A&M University Tarleton State University

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University-Commerce Texas A&M University-Kingsville

West Texas A&M University Texas Agricultural Experiment Station

Texas Cooperative Extension Texas Forest Service

Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory

Published by Agricultural Communications

Ellen Ritter, Head,Agricultural Communications

Dave Mayes, Associate Head,Agricultural Communications

Helen White, Production Editor

Shana Hutchins, Contributing Editor

Jon Mondrik, Art Director

Send comments, questions or subscription requests to Lifescapes Editor, Agricultural Communications, TexasA&M University, 2112 TAMU, College Station, TX

77843-2112. Or call (979) 845-2211,fax (979) 845-2414 or e-mail agprogram@tamu.edu.

Visit our Web site at http://agprogram.tamu.edu

for more information about our academic, research,extension and service programs and to

sign up for our monthly e-letter, What’s New?

All programs and related activities of The Texas A&MUniversity System Agriculture Program are open to allpersons regardless of race, color, age, sex, handicap,

religion or national origin.

Copyright 2004 by The Texas A&M University SystemAgriculture Program. Written material may be reprint-ed provided no endorsement of a commercial productis stated or implied. Please credit Lifescapes, The Texas

A&M University System Agriculture Program.

ON THE COVERAlthough it measures only 147 square miles, RockwallCounty and its growing urban sprawl represent someof the biggest land fragmentation issues facing Texas

today. See related story on page 2.Photo by Jim Lyle

17,500 copies printed

Not printed at state expenseMKT-3475

Of Land and StewardshipOur Texas heritage is rooted in the land. How

we treat the land today—whether forestland,prairie, urban green space, crop- or rangeland—will determine whether we can sustain this heritage for coming generations.

Farmers, ranchers and forest owners have tra-ditionally been stewards of the land thatensured their livelihoods. Now, land fragmenta-tion, the buying of rural land around rapidlygrowing urban areas, is putting the squeeze onfamily farmers and endangering wildlife, agri-culture and quality of life. Addressing the issuessurrounding land fragmentation, as well as themanagement, conservation and enhancement ofall types of land, will be central to the future ofour state.

In this issue of Lifescapes you will find several feature stories on how research, tech-nology development and educational programs of the Texas Agricultural ExperimentStation, Texas Cooperative Extension and the Texas Forest Service are helping addressthese issues and improve land stewardship.

While land use is a significant interest for the Agriculture Program, it is one amongmany. In fact, given recent events, I would be remiss if I did not briefly mention howwe are addressing two of our nation’s immediate and critical needs.

First, over the past few years, our agencies have intensively prepared for an out-break of foreign animal disease such as the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (“MadCow Disease”) incident in Washington. We have rapid response teams of animal scien-tists, veterinarians, Extension specialists and cooperators in other state and federalagencies prepared to help contain and minimize the threat in Texas. With the actionsnow being taken by USDA, we hope this will remain a single incident with relativelylittle impact to the nation’s and our state’s meat industry.

Second, our International Office of the Agriculture Program was recently appointedto lead a consortium of a dozen universities and agencies in a three-year, $107 millionproject awarded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to rebuild agricul-ture in Iraq. Ed Price, associate vice chancellor for International Programs, journeyedto Iraq in December to initiate the effort.

Anticipating and being responsive to public needs is at the heart of the land-grantuniversity mission. Our faculty and staff members in the Agriculture Program aregratified by being able to address those needs and make a difference for Texansand the world.

Edward A. HilerVice Chancellor for Agriculture and Life Sciences

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C O N T E N T SFEATURES

Land Fragmentation 2Texas farms giving way to urban growth

Beyond Boundaries 6Lab uses high-flying mapping technologies

to better manage natural resources

Weather on the Web 9

Brush Busters 10Land-friendly brush control

finds a home on the range and in the city

Forestry for the Future 13Extension education helps Texans

make forests a renewable resource

Balancing Acts 16Producers use scientific sampling

to take guesswork out of diet management

Research of ‘Giant’ Proportions 17

Nutritional Networks 20Texas A&M takes a collaborative approach to advancing food science

‘Don’t Be Crude’ Team Cleans Up 24Texas 4-H’ers gain national acclaim for environmental efforts

Small Grains, Big Yields 26Wheat research results in real-world payoffs

for producers and the environment

Red-Hot Ideas 28Pepper producer turns trash into cash in the El Paso Valley

Ties That Bind 30Legacy gift to establish Central Texas ranching resource

DEPARTMENTS

Site Seeing 12

State Gems 19

Trailblazers 21

Frontiers of Discovery 23

Giving Matters 32

Vo l . 4 N o . 1 , Spring 2004 • T h e Te x a s A & M A g r i c u l t u r e Pr o g r a m

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L A N D FR A G M E N TAT I O NTexas farms giving way to urban growth

by Kathleen Phillips

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kylines, power lines, freight lines, hotels,apartments, churches, shopping, shopping,shopping, shopping . . .

speed limit, bridge, water, manmade reservoir,boats, marinas, shorelines, houses, houses, hous-es, houses . . .

gas stations, restaurants, hospitals, office build-ings, car dealers, highway signs, billboards, eightlanes, exit, exit, exit, exit . . .

Welcome to Rockwall County.

Where Ridge Road meets Goliad Road in the city ofRockwall, an ironic relic faces motorists stopped at the light. Afruit stand beckons, looking for all the world as if a farmerpicked his garden, loaded up a wagon and set the bushel bas-kets right there on impromptu hay-bale tables.

“This was what we all used to call Farm-to-Market 740,” saysDavid Magness, one of Rockwall County’s six or so remainingfarmers. “Later it just became FM 740, and folks didn’t knowwhat ‘FM’ stood for. Now it’s just known as Ridge Road.”

“Ridge” refers to the rock and soil that juts way above LakeRay Hubbard on the county’s western border. That ridgebegan extending a welcoming finger toward weary Dallasurbanites some 30 years ago when the county had only 5,000people, and tens of thousands have responded. Now RockwallCounty, just 12 miles by 12 miles and the tiniest county inTexas, has 55,000 people and claims on its Web site to be thefastest-growing in the United States. The change in countypopulation is comparable to a person moving from a 6,000-square-foot mansion into a two-car garage. And the flow ofpeople into Rockwall County has not begun to let up. Lookahead 10 years and see the equivalent of 92 people living inthat garage.

“For a while the lake was a natural barrier,” Magness says.“But Interstate 20 came through in the 1950s, and the reser-voir was built in the late 1960s to supply water for Dallas. Bythe 1970s, there were houses dotting the shoreline, and that’sbeen continuing ever since.”

. . . chain restaurants, waffles, tacos, chicken,burgers, neon lights flashing, flashing, flashing,flashing . . .

Magness started farming in Rockwall County in 1975 aftermarrying a Royse City girl he met in college. By the time hewas farming full-time in 1982, the county had “acres andacres” of wheat and cotton.

He weathered the farm crisis of the 1980s and another finan-cial downturn in the 1990s that led him to diversify into otherbusinesses. But most of the county’s other 25 or more farmersdidn’t. Much of the farm acreage was leased from absenteelandowners. Those absentee landowners and the farmers whoowned their land saw dollar signs sprouting in the furrows.

Both sold their property to developers. Gradually more andmore of that land has met with bulldozers and earthmovers.Turnrows have been asphalted, old barns toppled over andscraped away for new homes.

. . . day spa, hair stylist, law office, dentistoffice, massage therapy, manicure, baby clothes,men’s clothes, women’s clothes, clothes, clothes,clothes, clothes . . .

“Now there are about one, two, three, four, five.” Magness’s right index finger glides over the fingers on his

left hand.“There are fewer than 10 farmers, I’ll tell you that. And

most have less than 600 acres, which is impossible to make aliving on. There are only two who farm full-time; the othershave off-farm jobs.”

Magness added a fertilizer business in the late 1990s and inJanuary 2003 became Rockwall county commissioner “because

I reached a point in business where I could, and because I sawthe shift of the county going from rural to urban.”

Wearing his farmer hat, Magness says the little towns ofFate, Royse City and McLendon-Chisholm still have “ruralcharm,” which is to say that they have “an atmosphere ofknowing everyone in church and on Main Street, of peopleparticipating in everything.” Donning his commissioner’s cap,Magness says the county has “a lot to offer people. It’s great tosee the new people blend with the old and to have new peopleassume leadership roles. We all can blend and work togetherin an atmosphere where everyone is accepted.”

The appeal for old-timers and newcomers is the same. Fromthe main intersection in Rockwall, one can be in Dallas—amongst its shopping, culture and business attractions—in 20minutes. From downtown Dallas, one can be in RockwallCounty—with its slower pace, quaint stores, lakeside recre-ation and smaller schools—in less time than it takes manyDallas residents to get home in snarled traffic.

Some of that traffic is beginning to back up in Rockwall,however. Magness patiently edges behind the bumpers circling

Spring 2004

OPPOSITE: An aerial view reveals one of many new subdivisions encroaching onrapidly diminishing rural and undeveloped land in Rockwall County.ABOVE: Produce and progress collide in Rockwall County, Texas’ smallest butfastest-growing county.

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the courthouse square to leave on a drive through the county’sremaining farmland.

“I used to farm that land,” he says, too many times to note. “Iharvested a crop from that land last June.”

That land he refers to, scattered all over the county, is in vari-ous stages of development. On some, workers hoist a new firehydrant over a newly installed waterline. Elsewhere, the orangeplastic surveyor’s ribbons line up over the rolling sod like houseseedlings. On other land, fancy iron lampposts sparkle in thesunlight from grain-stubbled fields where streets soon will wind.

“We’re in the mega-stage now,” Magness says. “The mega-developers are about to come in and build the 5,000- to 12,000-home subdivisions.”

On a wall-sized map, Magness points to agricultural landaround Fate and Royse City. “There are 5,333 homes going in onthese 1,600 acres by Fate over the next 15 years.”

Magness elaborates: 356 homes a year, almost seven homes aweek, one new home every day for 15 years.

“Where are the people coming from?” he asks.Wouldn’t we all like to know? Texas leads all other states in the loss of rural farming and

ranching lands. The conversion of land into urban uses from1982–97 exceeded 2.6 million acres, according to the U.S.Department of Agriculture. Further, the annual rate of conver-sion from 1992–97 nearly doubled over the previous 10 years,notes the report, Fragmented Land: Changing Land Ownership inTexas. The report was compiled by experts from the Texas A&MUniversity Real Estate Center, wildlife and fisheries department,and rangeland ecology and management department.

“Landowners throughout Texas are under huge pressure to selltheir lands for development—it is a huge challenge to maintainour traditional rural values when we face these changes,” saysDr. Neal Wilkins, a Texas Cooperative Extension wildlife special-ist who co-authored the Texas report. “Likewise, as we losewildlife habitats and productive agricultural lands, we weakenthe ability of many of our rural areas to sustain their existence. . . . For many communities, it can turn into a downward spiral.”

Ownership fragmentation, or the division of rural lands intosmaller parcels, may result in rural acreages that are too small tomaintain the economies of scale for traditional farming, ranch-ing and forestry uses. Fragmentation is a serious issue because

too much land turned into urban uses takes a big dent out of thestate’s agricultural economy. The market value of Texas cropsand livestock each year is about $12.6 billion, according to theTexas Agricultural Statistics Service.

. . . from the $120s, $0 down, dreams come true,willows, crestridge, chandler, shepherd, lafayette,meadows, springs, village, glenn, highland, landing,progress, sold, sold, sold, sold . . .

“I’m thinking about quitting in a couple of years.” “Really?”J. D. Jacobs Jr., long-time friend and fellow Rockwall County

4 Texas A&M Lifescapes

J. D. Jacobs Jr. and David Magness, two of the county’s few remaining farmers,recall different times as they overlook land they once farmed.

Fragmenta t ion R ates

Frag

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Number of Rural Landowners(% change 1987-1997)

>50% decline

25-50% decline

10-25% decline

3-10% decline

no change

3-10% increase

10-25% increase

25-50% increase

>50% increase Source: USDA Agricultural Statistics Service

farmer, confides his plan to Magness over lunch. It’s not somuch that Magness questions the decision as that he wishesnot to believe it.

“I just want to fish,” Jacobs replies.At 61, Jacobs has farmed much of his adult life. He was

reared in the country near McLendon-Chisolm where he andhis wife, Ollie, recently built a home. He ponders whether alaw should prevent a certain amount of land from being soldto developers and decides, “yes, if the land is highly produc-tive.”

All over the county, Jacobs has tilled, planted and harvestedfrom such land. Much of it has gone to developers and muchof the rest is destined for the same.

“I’ve got 600 acres that I’m farming now that they’vealready told me they’ll sell at the first opportunity,” Jacobssays, and that would send him scrambling to find more tofarm to make agricultural ends meet. Problem is, there is nomore land to rent for farming.

As for his own land, he vows never to sell for any reason. “It’s a place for a homestead, for my children and grandchil-

dren,” Jacobs says. “I grew up in the country and I love it. Thecountry in this county isn’t the same anymore, except for mylittle spot. There has to be something besides money.Somebody has to want to stay on the land.”

Jacobs thinks beyond his own “little spot.”“What concerns me is, what if all the farmland is gone in

the future?” he says.“We may be looking to other countries for our food supply.

When we have to do that, they’ll charge us what they want.”With five times as many people predicted to ultimately fill

up Rockwall County—some 300,000 over the next few years—it’s a safe bet that no wheat, not a kernel of grain, will sproutfrom the county’s soil and into the fresh bread at the well-known eateries popping up along the interstate.

The two farmers trade speculative glimmers of hope.“A lot depends on the economy,” Jacobs suggests. “If it

improves, we’ll see the development happen quicker.”Magness adds, “Maybe if the mega-developers put more

homes per acre, that will concentrate the population and leavemore fields.”

Then reality reenters the lunchtime conversation.“It’s hard for a farmer to get from one farm to the next

when they’re spread over 6 miles,” Jacobs notes. “Anywhereyou go in this county, there’s traffic, and people don’t like towait behind a tractor.”

. . . overpass, underpass, rent cars, 18 wheelers,pro shops, truck stops, storage buildings, neonheaven, this city limit ends, that city limit begins,now leaving Rockwall County, going, going, gone,gone, gone, gone.

Spring 2004 5

• Fragmentation of large, family-owned farms and ranches posesthe greatest single threat to wildlife habitat and the long-termviability of agriculture in Texas, the Governor’s Task Force onConservation concluded in 2001.

• Privately owned farms, ranches and forestlands account for 144million acres—some 84 percent of the state of Texas. That’s ahigher percentage of private ownership than in any other state.

• Some 78 percent of Texas farms and ranches are smaller than 500acres. Only 6 percent of all farms and ranches exceed 2,000 acres,but these account for two-thirds of the land in Texas farms andranches.

• Mid-sized farms and ranches (500 to 2,000 acres) account forabout 23 percent of the state’s rural lands and are disappearingsteadily from the Texas landscape.

• Every year, the state loses about 250,000 acres of mid-sized prop-erties. In the rapidly fragmenting portions of Texas, often locatedaround growing urban centers, these farms and ranches are mostoften broken into smaller ownerships, although some are consoli-dated into larger agricultural operations.

• Land use conversion, a predominant trend in the 1990s, will con-tinue to deplete the habitats of native wildlife, especially thoseanimals that depend on native grasslands in the eastern and cen-tral portions of Texas.

• Land fragmentation also leads to a loss of open space, waterquality problems caused by increased erosion and runoff, and ahigher demand for county services in rural areas.

• The trend toward fragmentation shows no sign of reversing, butsome actions can be taken to slow it. One approach is the volun-tary Purchase of Development Rights program used in otherstates. The program would offer incentives for farmers and ranch-ers to continue owning and operating their lands. It was pro-posed in the 2003 session of the state legislature, but it was notpassed.

This information is taken from the March 2003 report of the Rural LandFragmentation Project conducted by The Texas A&M University System inpartnership with American Farmland Trust. The report is entitled TexasRural Lands: Trends and Conservation Implications for the 21st

Century and is available from http://tcebookstore.org

Fragmenta t ion Fac ts

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BeyondBoundariesLab uses high-flying mapping technologies

to better manage natural resourcesby Edith Chenault

Take a plane ride with Dr. Sorin Popescu, and you’ll seeTexas forests in a new way—individual trees emerge dis-tinctly from the thickets, and even the undergrowth

below their canopies becomes clear.The scientist is researching how accurate and effective

LIDAR remote sensing is in assessing the potential for forestfire in the state.

LIDAR—the acronym for Light Detection and Ranging—useslaser light to measure the distance from an airborne sensor toa reflective surface on the ground, says Popescu, assis-tant professor with Texas A&M University’s SpatialSciences Laboratory and department of forest science.Because it can cover the ground at 70,000 pulses persecond, LIDAR can collect three-dimensional dataabout the earth’s surface in amazing detail.

The Texas Forest Service is interested in LIDARbecause it holds the promise for more easily and accu-rately determining how much and what kind of deadvegetative material—potential fuel for wildfires—existsin forests and brushy areas. The greater the buildup ofthese fuels, the higher the risk of fire danger. Satelliteimagery and aerial photography are currently beingused to make these assessments, but they do not accu-rately measure the amount of fuel present, especiallyunder forest canopies.

“Since LIDAR is able to penetrate the canopy andprovide a three-dimensional perspective, our hope isthat it will provide us with the additional informationwe need,” says Curt Stripling, geographic informationsystems coordinator for the Forest Service, who isworking on the project with Popescu.

Tom Spencer, the agency’s risk assessment coordina-tor, says, “It is important for us to accurately deter-mine fuel types, particularly in the high-risk areas ofthe state where people are in close proximity to wild-land fuels. We call this the Wildland-Urban Interface.Many of the state’s 20 million residents make theirhomes in this interface zone. Being able to betterdetermine the fuel types will increase our accuracy indefining where these high-risk areas are.”

The LIDAR sensor will be flown over a 35-square-mile test area in Walker County. Scientists will com-pare the data taken from the air with that gathered fromground sample plots.

“We will take the information and determine whether itanswers the question we initially asked: Will it provide us amore detailed perspective of fuels in an area, and will it add toour understanding of the wildland fire risk?” Stripling says.

LIDAR mapping is just one way the Spatial SciencesLaboratory is helping people see the world in new ways. Thelab offers a range of services, from providing information tonatural resource managers across the state, to mapping the

boundaries of lakes managed by the U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers, to training the next generation of students in spatialsciences.

Dr. Raghavan Srinivasan, director, says the lab downloadsand creates data from many sources, including satellites ownedby the federal government. The satellites are 400 to 500 milesaloft, but some are so accurate, “every 2 feet is imaged,”Srinivasan says. “You can pretty well pick out a car or a truckon the road and sometimes tell what the model is.”

Spring 2004 7

OPPOSITE: Chris Staats, Kim Crumpler and Greg Michalak use global positioningsystem equipment to plot points that will help electronically define the perime-ter of a park.ABOVE: LIDAR’s canopy-penetrating capabilities will allow Curt Stripling (left) andSorin Popescu to better assess vegetative types and quantities in Texas forests,particularly those in high-risk areas.RIGHT: LIDAR image of a study site near Lake Conroe.

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The spatial sciences divide into three categories:• Global positioning systems, which use an array

of satellites that can provide the exact location ofanything on the earth at any time;

• Remote sensing, which can include any devicecapable of gathering information about a distantobject; and

• Geographic information systems, which can beany software capable of analyzing the sensed dataand its locations.

For example, if you want to build a school in a certain area,remote sensing collects the information about various sites,GPS gives the data exact locations, and GIS uses computerizedmodels to tell you which site might be the best choice.

One of the lab’s most popular products is the Soil and WaterAssessment Tool (SWAT), the first and most widely used of itskind in the world. Using GIS software and maps and data col-lected from the field, the SWAT computer model is used topredict effects of nonpoint source pollution on watersheds.

The idea was conceived in the 1990s by Dr. Jeff Arnold,agricultural engineer with the USDA Agricultural ResearchService in Temple, and Srinivasan, who was then with the

Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Blackland ResearchCenter in Temple.

Researchers needed to know the effects of managementdecisions on water, sediment, nutrients and pesticides inwatersheds and river basins across the nation, Arnold says.But computer models in use then predicted conditions onlyover areas that were the size of crop fields.

In the early 1990s, Arnold began expanding the areas themodels could cover, until, “we ran the SWAT model across theUnited States,” he says.

Weather, soil and topographical information from satellitemaps and field work feed into the model, which contains

ABOVE: Kim Crumpler and Greg Michalak evaluate GIS maps gener-ated in the Spatial Sciences Lab.RIGHT: Dr. Raghavan Srinivasan (standing) explains his lab’s map-ping and modeling capabilities to researchers with the U.S. ArmyCorps of Engineers and the Texas Water Resources Institute.

Texas A&M Lifescapes

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Weather on the Webby Tim McAlavy

Is it snowing in Amarillo? Blowing dust in Lubbock? Parched in FortStockton? Raining on South Padre?

On any given day, the answer is probably—maybe. That’s why wedouble-check The Weather Channel before wetravel in Texas . . . . We have to second-guessthe meteorologists to really be prepared.

But where do Texans turn for a longer-termperspective on the state’s ever-changing climate?

The Texas Weather Connection, a Web siteof the Spatial Sciences Laboratory in CollegeStation, provides real-time climatological data ondrought, rainfall, soil moisture and vegetativegreenery statewide.

The site is a collection of weather-reporting tools derived from datagathered through satellite remote sensing, geographic information sys-tem, global positioning system and Internet mapping technologies. Websurfers who visit http://twc.tamu.edu can find:• Daily and cumulative rainfall totals from the National Weather Service’s

Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD);• The latest temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, dew point,

wind and precipitation information from 77 weather stations across thestate, as well as the North Plains Weather Network, a cooperativeeffort of The Texas A&M University System Agricultural Research andExtension Centers in Lubbock and Amarillo;

• Interactive maps of the Real-Time Vegetation Monitoring System devel-oped at the Blackland Research and Extension Center in Temple, thelatest NEXRAD radar data, the Keetch-Byram Drought Index; and

• The latest Texas Fire Danger Map based on fuels, weather and topo-graphical data generated from automated weather stations that arepart of the National Fire Danger Rating System and WeatherInformation Management System.The Texas Forest Service uses the site to monitor drought and assess

fire danger in all 254 counties. Dairy producers check the site to track rainfall to manage runoff for

environmental purposes and to develop crop rotation sequences.County agents and Extension specialists use TWC data to generate

accurate, computerized climatic and crop production models and toevaluate production methods recommended by CroPMan software.

Future weather tools on the site will provide:• Interactive maps for potential evapotranspiration, soil moisture and

runoff, and • Information for agriculture, flood mitigation, water allocation from

reservoirs, watershed, and water resource management practices.

equations that estimate what could happen under different cir-cumstances.

Agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencyand the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality use SWATto assess water quality and pollution risks in surface andgroundwater. Other scientists have used the model to predictthe effects of climate change on water supplies.

Its use has now spread to Europe and Asia, and it has become“one of the most widely used watershed models in the world,”says Dr. Allan Jones, director of the Texas Water ResourcesInstitute. Srinivasan and Arnold have provided SWAT modelersto more than 100 countries.

Because of their expertise, Srinivasan and Arnold have trainedprofessionals from all over the world. Representatives from 55countries have attended the international workshops held everyother year. Dr. Martin Volk, who attended the first internationalSWAT workshop in Giessen, Germany, is now working at theGrassland Soil and Research Lab in Temple helping to expandthe model’s capabilities even further.

Volk, a working group leader at the Center for EnvironmentalResearch in Leipzig, Germany, says SWAT is used in his countryto help farmers determine the impact of organic crops on waterand land resources. It also helps governmental agencies recom-mend how best to manage land subject to erosion.

He says SWAT’s strength is its ability to analyze and assesslarge areas of land and to integrate nutrients and the watercycle into the equations.

“It’s good to have one tool,” Volk says, adding that other mod-els often separate the components.

The lab is increasing the number of students trained in spatialsciences here at home as well. The number of undergraduatestudents enrolled in spatial sciences classes at Texas A&M hasincreased from 35 to 90 and the number of graduate studentsfrom 10 to 24 in the past several years. The lab offers master’sand doctoral programs through the departments of forest sci-ence and biological and agricultural engineering. The College ofAgriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Geoscienceshave recently agreed to offer an undergraduate degree in spatialsciences starting Fall 2004, Srinivasan says.

Professionals who want to add skills also can take part in thecontinuing education programs offered by the lab.

Web sitehttp://www-ssl.tamu.edu

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10 Texas A&M Lifescapes

Sometimes the best ideas really are thesimplest. A decade ago, two range scien-tists in San Angelo were grappling with

how to help ranchers become more effective inbattling such unwanted brush as mesquite andpricklypear.

The confusing array of herbicides on the mar-ket perplexed ranchers, and treatment instruc-tions on the labels weren’t easy to follow. Toooften, ranchers were wasting money puttingout too much herbicide, which resulted in poorbrush control and did the land and the envi-ronment no favors.

Brush BustersLand-friendly brush control finds

a home on the range and in the cityby Steve Byrns

Dye-enhanced herbicide helps Zack Holland (inset) easily identify treated brush inCrockett County.

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The answer was to simplify.“We simply pared down all the known techniques, herbi-

cides and research into just two or three recommended meth-ods per species,” recalls Dr. Allan McGinty, a range specialistwith Texas Cooperative Extension. “We knew from experiencethe methods we chose would yield a 75-percent or better(brush) kill if done properly. Improper application is thesingle most common cause of brush control failures.”

McGinty teamed with Dr. Darrell Ueckert, arange researcher with the Texas AgriculturalExperiment Station, to develop the BrushBusters program, which provides ranchers—and increasingly, small-acreage owners, sub-urbanites and municipalities—the user-friendly information they need to handle theworst brush species in Texas.

Working with Extension specialists in agri-cultural communications, they developed a setof easily understood, easily reproduced instruc-tional pamphlets. The three-step procedures helpranchers pick the best method, equipment and time fortreating their individual brush problems. The materials alsooffer recipes for mixing chemicals so ranchers have no calcu-lations to make, which lowers failure rates.

By making brush control a do-it-yourself option, usingequipment most people already have, Brush Busters is eco-nomically right for the times.

While big ranches still exist, more are being cut up intosmaller tracts, McGinty explains, which makes conventionalcontrol techniques such as aerial spraying and bulldozing lesspractical.

Brush Busters is ideal for small tracts because it focuses ontreatment of individual plants. The best time to chemicallytreat brush is when it’s young—it takes less herbicide to dothe job, and the success rate is highest. Knocking out emerg-ing brush also minimizes any damage done to soils, grasses,and habitat for wildlife.

“This is a simpler, more precise brush control method,”McGinty says, “and ranchers like it because they can kill oneplant but leave the one next to it unharmed, preserving thebrush they want to keep for deer and quail.”

Lee Clark, a Menard County rancher, has been using BrushBusters techniques since the early 1990s, spraying 7,000 to8,000 acres to control mesquite and pricklypear.

“I’ve had extremelygood luck with all themethods I’ve tried,” hesays. “I learned to doall this just by readingthose Brush Busterspamphlets. I think theoverall program isgreat.”

For the past threeyears, Clark has been

in the brush control business, mainly as a way to keep hisranch hands employed during the off-season.

“People from Austin and Houston are buying up land herein Menard County in 100- to 200-acre tracts,” he says. “We’ve

done a bunch of that (brush control) work, and we’ve donesome work on 15,000- to 16,000-acre ranches. We’re getting90-percent or higher (kill rate on brush), and, you know, that’spretty good.

“I think not disturbing the soil helps, too. When you useheavy equipment in bitterweed and pricklypear country, it

just sows these pests. I’ve had the same thing happen insome good-sized mesquite flats that I grubbed and

raked. It was mainly just big trees with hardly anylittle ones. Within three years, the mesquites

were probably knee-high and just darned nearsolid. We went back in there and used BrushBusters on those sprouts, and I mean itsmoked ’em.”

Dow AgroSciences is by far the largestchemical company involved with Brush

Busters, because it has the lion’s share of theproduct choices used.Rick Borgogni, a Dow district marketing manag-

er in 14 states, says, “Brush Busters is a very strongprogram, and one we have been very proud to be asso-

ciated with from its very beginning. We’ve always had indi-vidual plant treatments, but we’ve also had a lot more compli-cated prescriptions for those treatments. Brush Busters haspercolated all that down to specific recommendations. Thistechnology could be adapted anywhere in the world.”

Marketresearch donein 2000 showsthat BrushBusters wasused formesquite con-trol on morethan a millionacres of Texasrangeland, afigure thatcontinues to increase annually. Brush Busters methods in 2000were estimated to have saved rangeland owners $13 millionand reduced herbicide use by 30 percent, compared to tradi-tional aerial applications.

“Brush Busters mesquite treatments three years ago wereestimated to have added $69 million to the Texas economythrough increased livestock production previously lost tobrush,” McGinty says. “The program conserved 221 to 413 bil-lion gallons of water that had previously gone to brush.”

Brush Busters originally concentrated on pricklypear, cedarand mesquite. Today, eight species are on the list, includingyucca, huisache, Chinese tallow, McCartney rose andsaltcedar.

“The old programs on mesquite and pricklypear are still themost popular,” McGinty says. “We’ll keep adding species aswe find ones that fit. Baccharis is one we’re working on now,and we’d like to get greenbrier in there.

“The Brush Busters philosophy is not limited to rangelandanymore,” he says. “We’re working on a project now at theSan Angelo airport. An area next to the runways has to bemowed every two weeks to keep the vegetation off the lights.

“We went back inthere and used

Brush Busters onthose sprouts, and I

mean it smoked ‘em.”

“The Brush Busters philosophy is not limited torangeland anymore. . . .We’re working on a project now at the San Angelo airport.”

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Here are a few Web sites from The TexasA&M University System Agriculture Program andUSDA.

TEXNAT: A Wealth of Texas Natural Resources InformationThese days conservation is on everyone’s mind.Find out how you can become involved in naturalresource management of Texas rangelands.Complete with management tips, common rangeplants, special educational programs, and sympo-sium proceedings, this site has all you need. http://texnat.tamu.edu/

Water: What Would You Do Without It?With the growing concerns over water use, TexasCooperative Extension has established this site tohelp conserve water in and out of the home. http://savetexaswater.tamu.edu/

Clueless in the Mall Scavenger HuntWorried about your children’s calcium intake butcan't get them to drink more milk? This site offersa fun scavenger hunt that teaches kids the impor-tance of calcium, good nutrition and exercise.

The game includes information about adequatecalcium intake, the dangers of osteoporosis andideas on how to “spice up your milk.”http://calcium.tamu.edu/

Weed ControlWeeds are not only eyesores in your garden.They also compete with plants for water, soilnutrients, sunlight and air. While hand-hoeing isthe best weed control method, this site showshow mulching and herbicides can keep unwantedweeds from your garden.http://soilcrop.tamu.edu/organiclifestyles/vegetables/weedcontrol.html

Energy Star AppliancesEnergy Star appliances conserve water and useless electricity, saving money in the long run. Visitthis site to learn more about Energy Star air con-ditioners, dishwashers, refrigerators and clotheswashers.http://fcs.tamu.edu/housing/appliances/energy-star-appliances.htm

Texas Digital Diagnostics SystemAre you a producer with a fast-moving crop dis-ease or a home gardener with an unidentifiablegarden disease or pest problem? Do you lack thetime or means to visit your local Extension officefor help? Try the new computer-based TexasDigital Diagnostics System. County agents canphotograph your problem and send it over theInternet to Texas Cooperative Extension scientistswho will diagnose and provide recommendationsfor your problem. Visit this site to see if TDD isavailable in your county:http://cnrit.tamu.edu/tdd/

Disaster PreparednessNatural or man-made disasters can occur anytime day or night. Visit this site to learn how toprepare for the unexpected, including tips onhow to create a family disaster plan and disaster supply kit.http://fcs.tamu.edu/disaster_preparedness.htm

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gThey can’t grub it because of all the underground electricallines. The only practical answer is Brush Busters.

“A lot of city water treatment plants are using Brush Bustersto control brush around their lagoons and water storage areas.We regularly train right-of-way people for power line compa-nies, railroads, highways, cities, irrigation districts and counties.

“The LowerColorado RiverAuthority is anotherBrush Busters user,”McGinty says, “andthey traditionallyhave not allowed her-bicide use on anyland they control.”

The LCRA’s CreekSide ConservationProgram is a cost-share program withprivate landowners

within its 11-county district, which runs along the river fromSan Saba County to Matagorda County.

“We run this program through the local Soil and WaterConservation Districts,” says Rusty Ray of Austin, the manage-ment supervisor for LCRA lands. “Its focus is to control soil orsediment from going into receiving streams and ultimatelyinto LCRA reservoirs. We’re trying to stabilize the soil. Brushcontrol is a large part of the program.

“In the past we have not used herbicides at all. We were get-ting requests from the district conservationists who were seek-ing a new tool to control brush. We said if they would use theBrush Busters techniques for mesquite management, wewould allow it on the cost-share program.

“Why Brush Busters? Individual treatment is the way to gowhen dealing with brush,” Ray says. “The ranchers don’t haveto use as much herbicide, so they spend less money and thereis less chemical to potentially enter a waterway or a stream.”

The city of Austin is another recent Brush Busters convert.Dr. Kevin Thuesen is Austin’s environmental conservation pro-gram manager. He works with Austin’s water quality protec-tion lands, some 15,000 acres used to maintain the city’s waterquality. Brush Busters methods are among the practices usedto maintain the land in a proper savannah-like condition.

The land includes some areas near the Edwards Aquifer.The city successfully used a modified version of Brush Bustersto control saltcedar in this environmentally sensitive area.

McGinty says no matter who uses Brush Busters, the key tothe program’s success remains the same: “Small amounts ofchemicals, applied at the right time and in the right way, makeit possible for anyone to effectively and responsibly controlmost brush problems.”

Web sitehttp://texnat.tamu.edu/brshbst/index.htm

“The ranchers don’t have to use as much

herbicide, so they spendless money and there isless chemical that has

the potential to enter awaterway or a stream.”

13

Iris and Charles Newkirk had a $22,000 learning experi-ence shortly after investing in 100 acres of timberland.The timber was ready for harvesting, and the Newkirks

saw the land purchase as a way to diversify their investments.After the timber cut, a local consultant advised the couple onconventional methods of replanting the acreage in trees. Theseedlings were doing well, but the summer turned out to be adroughty one. The seedlings were quickly overshadowed byweeds. The Newkirks turned to their consultant.

“We were told we did not need to spray the weeds, thoughthere was little moisture in the sandy soil,” Iris Newkirk says.

Unable to compete with the weeds for limited moisture,most of the seedlings died. The Newkirks’ first reforestationeffort was a complete loss.

It was an expensive lesson. Replanting the next year costthem $10,000, plus another $12,000 for the previous year oflost timber growth. The replanting failure was only one ofmany hard lessons the Newkirks had to learn to manage theirforestland investment.

Their experience is not unique.

Rules of Private OwnershipPrivate citizens such as the Newkirks, not corporations, own

most of the 12 million acres of forested land in Texas. The

thousands of acres harvested every year help feed America’sdemand for 5.5 billion pounds of wood each day. To replacethis timber, private landowners attempt reforestation on thou-sands of acres each year.

Reforestation is critical, not only for supplying the wood-hungry American industrial economy, but also for improvingwater and air quality. For example, every ton of wood grownremoves 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere andadds more than a ton of clean, fresh oxygen. Forested land fil-ters water and provides habitat for wildlife.

Yet, while large corporate landowners realize an 85-percentor better survival rate of new tree seedlings, even duringdrought years, private, nonindustrial landowners realize a sur-vival rate closer to 30-percent—or less, according to Dr. EricTaylor, forestry specialist with Texas Cooperative Extension.

“A 30 percent survival rate basically means they’ll have tostart over,” Taylor explains.

The fact that reforestation is so expensive explains why pri-vate landowners in Texas planted only about 47,000 acres oftrees in 2000, even though they own 60 percent of the land. Incomparison, industrial forest interests planted 120,000 acres.

Forestry for theFutureExtension education helps Texans make forests a renewable resourceby Robert Burns

Iris Newkirk and her husband, Charles, learned the risks of forest ownership thehard way, losing $22,000 in their first two years to replanting and lost timbergrowth expenses.

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New Forest Outdoor ClassroomsWhy such a high failure rate? Private landowners often use outdated and inappropriate

methods. Meanwhile, the forest industry has developed betterapproaches in every phase of the regrowth process.

Reforestation affects every Texan because trees, whetherthey grow in reserves or pine tree plantations, greatly affectenvironmental quality.

“Forest management is much more than timber manage-ment—growing and harvesting trees,” Taylor says. “It’s aboutgrowing a healthy forest ecosystem, one that promotes notonly a sustainable yield of wood, but also aesthetics, wildlifehabitat, air and water quality.”

To help educate forest landowners, Taylor and the Extension

forestry unit have been working on 200 acres of timberlandnear The Texas A&M University System Agricultural Researchand Extension Center at Overton.

The land is being used to demonstrate that the same modernforestry management techniques used by large corporationscan be efficiently applied to small acreages.

“Most good reforestation practices don’t cost any more toimplement than the inappropriate methods,” says Dr. DarwinFoster, Extension forestry program leader. “And those that domore than pay for themselves.”

Another purpose of the timber demonstration plot is toimprove forest management techniques.

“It’s more than just demonstrating what’s already known;it’s research, looking for better ways of doing things,” saysTaylor, who with Foster spearheaded the development of thenew research and demonstration forest.

The land was made available on long-term, no-cost leases bythe Bruce McMillan Jr. Foundation Inc. of Overton, a perpetu-al trust dedicated primarily to agricultural science and educa-tion. The land had been allowed to grow up in brush after ithad been harvested of timber in the mid-1990s.

Ralph Ward Jr., foundation president and treasurer, saysturning the land over to the forestry unit was a good decision.

“We thought it would be best managed by a university insti-tution, both in terms of a return on investment and for theresearch opportunities,” Ward says.

Taylor and Foster also enlisted the support of the TexasForest Service and commercial enterprises such asInternational Paper’s Supertree Nursery, Temple-Inland ForestProducts Corporation, Silva-Tech/South Inc., UAP Timberlandand BASF. These organizations supplied seedlings, site prepa-ration equipment and chemicals.

Following accepted industry guidelines, the McMillan forestdemonstrations will show the advantages of a range of effec-tive reforestation techniques.

“Shear and windrowing” is one outdated management prac-tice Taylor would like to change through such demonstrations.

Before planting tree seedlings, the traditional site prepara-tion method is to push the brush and unwanted trees intowindrows. Topsoil may also be collected in the windrow alongwith the brush. The windrow is then often burned.

“Windrowing can have deleterious effects on many of ourEast Texas sites, “ Taylor says. The resulting removal of organ-ic matter from the site can increase soil temperature extremes,

reduce moisture, deplete nutrients and cause reforesta-tion efforts to fail.”

One modern alternative is to use large machines tomulch the brush and small trees and thereby minimizebut not remove debris. The mulched material quicklybreaks down and returns the nutrients to the soil foruse by the new tree seedlings. The process is moreexpensive than traditional site preparation, but it pro-vides a better environment for the new seedlings and

results in fewer reforestation failures. In the long run, it’s abargain on many sites, Taylor says.

Based on other research, Taylor and Foster believe they candemonstrate that containerized seedlings planted at differenttimes will have a much better survivability rate than the bare-root seedlings commonly used by small landowners today.

Though the containerized seedlings are more expensive, in

In a single pass, this specialized mulching machine can chew up brush and low-value scrub trees to produce kindling-sized chunks and mulch that will decom-pose within a year and return valuable nutrients to the soil.

“Most good reforestation practicesdon’t cost any more to implement than the inappropriate methods.”

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the long run the higher survivability will pay back the expensemany times—not just in terms of replanting expense, but alsoin a healthier, more balanced stand.

The demonstrations will allow small forest landowners andconsulting foresters to view first-hand the results of theresearch. Nothing drives a point home quite like actuallybeing able to compare a failed or partial stand to a healthystand next door.

In related work, Taylor and Foster hope to refine knowl-edge of optimal spacings of tree seedlings in a new stand.Old spacing methods relied on the shotgun effect, primarilybecause bareroot seedlings had a low survivability rate onEast Texas’ sandy soils.

Traditional consultants plan for large seedling losses inthe first year, so they commonly advise overplanting. Evenwhen this strategy works—and, as in the Newkirks’ case, itoften doesn’t—overplanting is expensive in terms of seedlingsand labor. And in years when there is a high survival rate ofbareroot seedlings, the landowner may have to pay for a pre-mature thinning operation or chance the young trees chokingeach other for sunlight, nutrients and moisture.

Taylor and Foster have planned their research for the longrun. When planted and managed with modern techniques,new tree varieties can yield a return on investment muchquicker than was possible two decades ago. Still, growinghigh-quality timber or a profitable pulpwood stand takes time.

Much of the first two years of the project has been con-sumed by planning and site preparation. For research anddemonstration purposes, results of the bareroot versus con-tainerized seedlings and fall versus spring plantings should beapparent both visually and statistically this coming year.

Taylor expects he will be able to demonstrate how usinginsecticides will affect seedling growth and survival for thefirst three years after planting.

Research demonstrating the influence offive planting densities and different levels offertility will slowly become apparentthroughout the next 15 years. The same goesfor fine-tuning economically and environ-mentally sensitive management practices forsmall landowners. It’s all a work in progress,whose benefits will be reaped throughout thelife of the project, Taylor says.

Educational InvestmentsDespite their earlier problems, the

Newkirks are sold on forestry and have con-tinued to invest in East Texas.

The trick to making it work, though, is notto depend upon any given consultant, but tolearn how to manage the forestland by your-self, Iris Newkirk says. The landowner needs

to learn how to micromanage the stand from planting to thin-ning to harvest.

“Once we bumped into Eric Taylor and Dennis Smith [theExtension agent in Gregg County], we did a lot better,” shesays.

Through the Extension connection, the Newkirks haveattended forestry field days at the Overton center and else-where, as well as national and regional foresty conferences,and have become certified Master Tree Farmers through a 7-week satellite training program.

Web site: http://extensionforestry.tamu.edu

A 10-year growth of brush and small scrub trees, unde-sirable because it competes with plant seedlings for soiland nutrients, flanks a swath of mulch left by a timber-mulching machine.

The trick to making it work . . .is . . . to learn how to manage the forestland by yourself.

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Balancing ActsProducers use scientific sampling

to take guesswork out of diet managementby Blair Fannin

17Spring 2004

When consultant Cliff Carter speaks, ranchers listen—especially when he is pointing out costly mistakes incattle feeding.

There’s no magic involved, but the approach is unique. Partof Carter’s work includes traveling to clients’ ranches andgathering fecal samples from cow herds. As it turns out, whatsome might think is an ordinary cow pie actually is a goldmine of information.

That’s in part because of the work performed by the TexasAgricultural Experiment Station’s Grazingland AnimalNutrition Laboratory. The lab is the only one of its kind in thenation, using Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS)to analyze fecal samples submitted by ranchers to determinediet quality.

Ranchers receive an analysis in the mail showing nutritionaldeficiencies and recommended feeding options.

“One ranch I know saved $9,000 on their feed bill becausethey didn’t need the feed,” says Carter, whose Carter RanchConsulting works with cattle operators of 1,000 head or morein Victoria, Goliad and Refugio.

The Grazingland Animal Nutrition Laboratory on the TexasA&M University campus began offering its services in 1994. Itanalyzes fecal samples, not just from cattle but also from ani-mals such as goats, white-tailed deer and bison. It processesmore than 8,000 samples per year.

Not only is the lab helping ranchers determine their ani-mals’ dietary needs, it’s also helping ranchers preserve andprotect rangeland by tailoring grazing management strategies.

“I was on a ranch recently where rains had made the grasslook good, but they were concerned with a heifer herd,”Carter says. “To be absolutely certain these cattle were gettingeverything they needed, we went ahead and took a sample.”

Research of ‘Giant’ Proportionsby Blair Fannin

A new task for an Experiment Station laboratory may help save thegiant panda from extinction half a world away in China.

Texas A&M’s Grazingland Animal Nutrition Laboratory, which for yearshas determined the nutritional needs oflivestock and wildlife by analyzing theirfecal matter, has begun doing the samething for the endangered pandas.

“We may find something we don’t antic-ipate that might be applicable for live-stock,” says Doug Tolleson, lab director.

The lab and its partners—MississippiState University, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the Universityof Memphis and the University of Tennessee—are working with theMemphis Zoo in its research. The zoo is the temporary home to twogiant pandas, Le Le and Ya Ya, who arrived in April 2003 from China aspart of a project to learn more about the rare animal.

With fewer than 1,000 left in the wild, the giant panda is one of themost endangered species on earth. The pair at the Memphis Zoo is thefourth set on exhibit in the United States, and the ninth pair in the worldoutside of China.

“The ultimate goal of the zoo’s conservation program is to preserveand restore giant panda habitat,” says Dr. Chuck Brady, zoo president.“But before this is done, it is important to understand the panda’s dietaryneeds so the correct choices for habitat conservation can be made.”

The pandas rely on a steady diet of bamboo—about 100 pounds aday. To better understand their nutritional needs and foraging strategy,researchers are analyzing a bamboo diet and variations.

Tolleson says his lab is working to establish a diet that will help main-tain pandas while in captivity. But the big picture involves finding a dietthat will improve their sustainability in the wild.

As a first step, fieldwork is being done in China’s Qinling Mountains tounderstand why the panda eats only bamboo.

“They eat about 18 hours a day and then sleep the rest,” Tollesonsays. “They grab a handful of bamboo and hold it with a special thumb-like appendage while eating. They can also grab a stalk and crack andcrunch. Their teeth are capable of peeling back the stalk to get to thespongy part.”

Despite their affinity for bamboo, Tolleson says, pandas are digestivelycomparable to carnivores, not cows or deer.

“There’s no pre-stomach mechanism for bacterial digestion,” heexplains. “What they are getting out of it nutritionally is through chewing,and then what digestion takes place happens as the bamboo goesthrough the simple stomach.”

Tolleson predicts that studying the panda diet will lead to some excit-ing discoveries.

“We’re going to think differently, because these animals are different.”OPPOSITE: Ranch foreman Clay Neel (left) and consultant Cliff Carter collect freshfecal samples from a cattle herd near Victoria, then package them (above) foranalysis at Texas A&M’s Grazingland Animal Nutrition Laboratory.

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The lab report indicated that the forage was adequate in vol-ume, but that quality, while still within limits, had droppedfrom previous samples.

“We decided to leave them on that pasture for one moreweek, then move them to a new pasture,” Carter says. “Thenew pasture had been burned in the summer, and the volumeand quality of the grass was high.”

Gene Sollock, a cattle producer in Iola, uses the lab’s servic-es to help him with his rotational grazing system. When heinherited the family land years ago, it had been severelyfarmed and overgrazed. Thanks to the information he receivesfrom the lab, he can better manage his pastures.

“You can look and guess, but you don’t know until you seethe results from the lab test,” Sollock says. “[With the report,]you see exactly what that animal is utilizing.”

The Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy works in muchthe same way that the eye perceives color and is based on theamount of light reflected or absorbed by a substance. Eachorganic bond vibrates at a unique frequency along the NIRband. Machines project NIR light into the fecal sample, meas-uring what bounces back or passes through, to determine therelative chemical makeup in the material.

The data generated is then entered into NUTBAL Pro, a soft-ware program that calculates the quality of an animal’s diet,including projected daily weight gain/loss. Ultimately, the pro-gram helps determine the most cost-effective feeding regimenwhile evaluating the amount of fecal nitrogen and phosphorusreturned to the soil.

Dr. Jerry Stuth, Kelleher Professor in Texas A&M’s range-land and ecology and management department, developed thenutritional monitoring program. For a $25 fee, producers canreceive data “that can help them provide a more consistentsupplemental feeding program to their livestock,” says DougTolleson, lab director.

Producers typically receive results within 48 hours. The datareport might indicate a loss of milking potential or a proteindeficiency. The producer would then want to feed cottonseedcake or another protein source to get the animal back into apositive nutritional balance.

Carter says in one instance a ranch was starting to feed inthe traditional fall pattern, but discovered it didn’t have toafter submitting a fecal sample.

“That went on into December [without having to feed],” hesays. And in another instance, a ranch wasn’t feeding enough.

“Nearly all of the ranchers I’ve worked with who use thelab have felt like they have saved quite a bit of money,” Cartersays.

There are many advantages to taking part in the services thelab has to offer. The most obvious one is that the datarevealed from the fecal sample takes the guesswork out offeeding the supplements based on forage availability.

“Depending on a producer’s goal, they can take a fecal sam-ple and tell what that herd’s diet and nutritional status is,”Tolleson says. “We tell them when their pasture is high qualityand when it’s not. You can use this service as a yardstick.”

Web sitehttp://cnrit.tamu.edu/ganlab/

Lab director Doug Tolleson prepares a dried sample (inset) forinfrared analysis.

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‘Marie Daly’ Rose Latest Texas Superstar

The ‘Marie Daly’rose is the latest to benamed a TexasSuperstar. ‘MarieDaly’ is an easy-to-care-for polyantharose with semidoublepink blossoms andrich green foliage. This fragrant dwarflandscape rose is an outstanding per-former in almost any soil type and ismuch less prone to pest problems thanmost miniature rose plants. The TexasSuperstar effort is one of Texas A&MUniversity’s most innovative and suc-cessful horticultural research andExtension programs. Only the best-adapt-ed, highest-performing and most pest-resistant plant materials are designatedTexas Superstars. For more informationon the Texas Superstar program or tofind the nearest official Texas Superstarretailer, go tohttp://www.TexasSuperstar.com.

NASA Honors Texas Forest Service Team

NASA honored Paul Hannemann,Mark Stanford and Charles “Boo”Walker of the Texas Forest Service fortheir contribution to the Space ShuttleColumbia recovery efforts. The threereceived one of NASA’s most prestigiousawards, the Public Service medal, whichhonors individuals who have made out-standing contributions to NASA’s mis-sion. Stepping out of their customaryroles in fire protection, the three menwere responsible for managing and coor-dinating the air and ground searches forthe Space Shuttle Columbia recovery.The three-month search covered a 2,400-square-mile area in East Texas, used 45aircraft and more than 25,000 volunteers,and involved more than 16 governmentagencies. Among the critical tasks per-formed by Texas Forest Service personnelwere plotting the shuttle material found,developing an incident database forreported material and remains, operatingthe National Shuttle Material ReportingHotline, securing the command posts,

supporting the media, and finding, col-lecting and storing shuttle material.

New License Plates SupportExtension Programs

New license plates for the TexasMaster Gardener and the Texas 4-H andYouth Development programs are nowavailable. Money made from sales of theplates, which cost an extra $30, will fundgraduate student assistantships and activ-ities of Texas Master Gardener and pro-gram enhancement grants for 4-H, bothprograms of Texas CooperativeExtension. Texas Master Gardener beganin the late 1980s as a network of volun-teers trained by Extension to enhanceTexas horticultural and environmentalprograms across the state. In 2002, TexasMaster Gardeners included 5,300 volun-teers in 106 counties. The volunteersoffer services equivalent to those of 168full-time employees, providing a $5.3million benefit to the state. More than800,000 youth between the ages of 5 and19 were enrolled in 4-H programs lastyear. More than half live in major urbanareas.

To order these specialty plates, go tohttp://www.dot.state.tx.us/vtr/spplates/specialplate.htm?nbr=117 for the TexasMaster Gardener plate or http://www.dot.state.tx.us/vtr/spplates/specialplate.htm?nbr=128 for the 4-H plate, or askfor form VTR-999 at your county taxassessor-collector’s office.

Violin Contest Ranks New Instrument with Stradivarius

Dr. Joseph Nagyvary, recently retiredTexas A&M University biochemist, spenthis career studying Stradivarius violins to

the molecu-lar level.Based on hisresearch,Nagyvaryaccepted achallenge

last August from MiraMedia, a Germancompany producing a documentary onAntonio Stradivarius, to craft his ownviolin and compare it to a Stradivarius.After Nagyvary completed his violin in

just six weeks, both violins were playedin a contest featuring four identicalmusic selections and a judging audienceof 600. The order of play was random,and separate scores on a 10-point scalewere given for tone quality (beauty) andprojection (power). World-class violinistDalibor Karvay played the violins behinda screen so that the audience could notsee which instrument was being played.In all audience scores—whether fromthose who considered themselves trainedmusicians or just average concert goers—the new Nagyvary violin ranked slightlyhigher than the 300-year-old Stradivarius.Although the concert marked the end ofhis career as a biochemist at Texas A&M,the researcher plans to continue to makehis Nagyvarius violins. “AntonioStradivari was at his best in his 70s and80s,” Hungarian-born Nagyvary said.“I’m 69, so perhaps I'm entering thesame stage of life.”

Wildlife Maps Available OnlineTexas Cooperative

Extension has formeda marketing partner-ship with Texas Parksand Wildlife to sellthe popular TP&Wwildlife maps online.Maps include TheGreat Texas CoastalBirding Trail series,which includes mapsof the upper, lowerand central Texas coastal areas. Thisseries features information about birdingsites, the species found at each site, andthe best times of the year to visit. Newlypublished are Panhandle Plains WildlifeTrail and the Heart of Texas WildlifeTrail–East, with the Heart of TexasWildlife Trail–West to be published soon.These trail guides contain directions toeach site, suggested seasons for visitingand examples of the wildlife you’ll see.To purchase these maps, go to http://tcebookstore.org and click Animals, thenBirds or Wildlife.

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When William Alex McIntosh was a boy, he loved sci-ence and dreamed of becoming a forest ranger. Butdreams change as kids grow up. The forest ranger

dream faded, but his love of science did not. By the time he got to college, McIntosh had decided on soci-

ology as a profession.While in graduate school, he became involved in a study

that sought, among other things, to determine how well under-developed countries could monitor malnutrition. He found thework fascinating and the subject of nutrition compelling.

He was hooked.In 1975, with a doctoral degree from Iowa State University,

McIntosh signed on as a sociology professor at Texas A&MUniversity. But he was still fascinated with nutrition.

That’s why, besides his regular basic sociology classes,McIntosh has been teaching an undergraduate course on thesociology of human nutrition for 20 years.

Because of this interest, he was a natural for the university’sIntercollegiate Faculty of Nutrition (IFN) when it was foundedin 1989.

Nutrition is a large field of study that involves many aca-demic disciplines, so, rather than establish a single depart-ment, the university drew faculty from more than a dozen,ranging from sociology to animal science.

To say IFN members come from a wide range of disciplinesand interests may be an understatement. Dr. SusanBloomfield, for example, came to Texas A&M to teach clinicalexercise physiology after earning a doctorate in the field fromThe Ohio State University in 1992.

For the past five years she and her graduate students havebeen exploring how bone biology is influenced by nutritionalfactors, exercise and spaceflight.

The link between exercise and nutrition is obvious, butouter space? Bloomfield laughs. The link, she says, is how thelack of weight-bearing movement in space, coupled with areduction in food, could affect bone health.

On average, astronauts eat only 70 percent of the food theytake with them, so they are not getting all the nutrients theyneed. The reasons vary from lack of appetite to busy workschedules while in orbit, she says.

Recent experimental results in Bloomfield’s laboratory sug-gest that even short-term decreases in food intake can result insignificant loss of bone, even in animals with normal activitylevels. This research could change weight-loss diets.

“We need to know a lot more about moderate food restric-tions and health,” she says.

Bloomfield, who is also associate leader for the bone lossteam of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, isworking on grants to help continue the research.

Other disciplines represented by IFN faculty include healthand kinesiology, large and small animal medicine and surgery,statistics, wildlife and fisheries sciences, biochemistry and bio-physics, medical microbiology and immunology, human andanimal anatomy, medical neurobiology, social and behavioralhealth, food genomics, plant physiology, endocrinology andnutrition, and anthropology.

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Satya Kolar, a graduate student in nutrition, cultures intestinal cells in an artifi-cial environment for a study led by her mentor, Dr. Robert Chapkin.

Nutritional NetworksTexas A&M takes a collaborative approach

to advancing food science

Nutritional NetworksTexas A&M takes a collaborative approach

to advancing food scienceby Linda Anderson

21Spring 2004

Five academic colleges, plus The Texas A&M UniversitySystem Health Science Center, the Texas A&M University-Kingsville Citrus Center and the Texas AgriculturalExperiment Station, participate in the program. In all, 47 fac-ulty members from 15 departments are involved in IFN.

Because the nutrition faculty come from such diverse disci-plines, their students benefit from different approaches to var-ious aspects of nutrition and have many career choices.Students in the program can earn master’s and doctoraldegrees. Some become researchers; others become dietitiansworking in hospitals and schools or for food manufacturers oreven sports teams.

The IFN faculty enjoy a mentoring relationship with stu-dents, says Dr. Robert S. Chapkin, professor and faculty fel-low, and chair of IFN. Students admitted to the programchoose which professor to work with and which field of studyto pursue under the broad spectrum of nutrition.

Chapkin himself mentors several students, including YeeVoon Ng and Kirsten Switzer. Both earned bachelor’s degreesfrom the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and both are pur-suing graduate degrees involving human nutrition. Ng is work-ing on a combined master’s degree and registered dietitianprogram; Switzer is finishing work on a doctorate and hopesto graduate in May.

But their goals are very different.Ng has always wanted to work in a hospital.“I want to work with the elderly and help them overcome

their troubles if they are sick or not doing well.”In January, she began a 30-week internship in Temple, work-

ing as a dietitian with several hospitals and other agencies.Students take internships at regional hospitals, local school dis-tricts, state agencies and federal nutrition programs.

Ng hopes to become a clinical dietitian in a hospital, butshe’s keeping her options open. “I don’t want to make anydecisions until after my internship.”

Switzer’s goals are more research-based. She enjoyed work-ing in a research lab at the Baylor College of Medicine inHouston while her husband completed his education. When itwas her turn to go back to school, she knew what she wantedto do.

Her research involves n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, suchas those found in some fish, and the way they positively affectsuch inflammatory diseases as arthritis and Crohn’s disease, agastrointestinal disorder.

Lisa Sanders, who is also working on a doctorate, is men-tored by Dr. Joanne R. Lupton, Regents Professor and holderof the William W. Allen Endowed Chair in nutrition. Like soci-ology’s McIntosh, Sanders discovered her fascination with

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Texas A&M University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences facultymembers Dr. Barry L. Boyd, assistant professor of agricultural education, Dr.Oral Capps Jr., professor of agricultural economics, and Dr. Roger E. Gold,professor of entomology, were recognized with The Association of FormerStudents College-Level Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching for2003. In addition, Dr. Willie F. Krueger, professor of poultry science, washonored on his 50th anniversary as a teacher at Texas A&M for the manycontributions he has made to the department and as adviser to its poultryjudging teams.

Joseph Hlavinka ’56, Zay Gilbreath ’62 and J. T. Smith ’73 were present-ed with 2003 Outstanding Alumni Awards from the Texas A&M College ofAgriculture and Life Sciences. Since earning his bachelor’s degree in animalhusbandry in 1956, Hlavinka has developed a variety of agricultural enter-prises, including the Hlavinka Land Company and Hlavinka Cattle Company.In 1986, he and his wife were recognized as Aggie Parents of the Year.Gilbreath joined Cargill Inc. after receiving his bachelor’s in agricultural eco-nomics in 1962. In 1981, he became president and manager of CaprockCattle Feeders, a Cargill subsidiary, where he currently is involved in a part-nership between Caprock, Excel Beef Packers and Meta Morphix Inc. toimprove cattle performance, beef quality and uniformity. Smith, who earnedhis degree in agricultural journalism, boasts an award-winning, 30-yearcareer covering national farm and ranch news. He served in editorial posi-tions with the Abilene Reporter-News and Progressive Farmer magazinebefore becoming editor of The Farmer-Stockman magazine in 1998.

The Wildlife Society has recognized Dr. Nova J. Silvy, Regents Professor inTexas A&M’s department of wildlife and fisheries sciences, with its presti-gious Aldo Leopold Award for 2003. The Leopold Award, which has beengiven since 1950 to honor distinguished service to wildlife conservation, isconsidered the ultimate recognition for wildlife professionals.

Dr. Joanne R. Lupton, Regents Professor and holder of the William W.Allen Endowed Chair in Human Nutrition in the Texas A&M department ofanimal science, has been invited to serve as a member of the DietaryGuidelines Advisory Committee. Jointly sponsored by the U.S.Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, this commit-tee is advising the secretaries of both agencies on whether revision is need-ed in the 2000 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Lupton alsoreceived the FDA Commissioner’s Special Citation for her outstandingefforts as a member of the Task Force on Consumer Health Information forBetter Nutrition.

Former Texas A&M University System regent and longtime McAllen pro-duce industry businessman Wayne Showers was honored as the AgricultureProgram’s 2003 Distinguished Texan in Agriculture. Showers was recog-nized for his support of research and Texas Cooperative Extension efforts,in addition to his exceptional vision and leadership for the Texas vegetableindustry, the A&M System and the people of Texas.

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Texas A&M Lifescapes22

human nutrition through anotherarea of science.

Sanders says she knew she wantedto do something in medicine. As anundergraduate biomedical sciencesmajor, she took a course in nutritionthat opened her eyes.

Nutrition, she says, “is not only thetreatment of disease, but also its pre-vention.” And that, she decided, waswhat she wanted to do.

The relationship between mentorsand students is designed to be close,Chapkin says. They collaborate onthe research, with the mentors super-vising the research and students usu-ally receiving a stipend for theirwork.

Because this relationship is soimportant to the program, “we need acritical mass of highly competent fac-ulty” for the students to receive thehighest-quality education possible.

“That’s the beauty of an intercolle-giate faculty—the student gets a greateducation,” Chapkin says.

“The quality of the programdepends on the faculty and the kindsof students coming in.”

And that will be further enhancedwhen the proposed department ofnutrition and food science opens itsdoors in the College of Agricultureand Life Sciences, Chapkin says.Twelve new faculty positions will befilled over the next three years, andsome of the undergraduates theyteach will go on to become graduatestudents with IFN.

“The new department will play acritical role in our development,”Chapkin says. “We should get aninflux of new faculty whose primaryinterest is nutrition.”

Outreach programs are part ofIFN’s curriculum, too. Each February,IFN sponsors the Texas HumanNutrition Conference on campus,which draws hundreds of nutritionprofessionals from across the country.

“It’s another way to provide ourstudents and nutrition professionalsin the community with researchinformation and an appreciation ofour research facility,” says Dr. Debra

Reed, an Extension specialist and IFNfaculty member who also heads TexasCooperative Extension’s statewideExpanded Nutrition Program.

The goal of IFN is “to have a forum, amechanism where everyone interested insome form of nutrition can collaborate onresearch, and bring a teaching and out-reach agenda forward,” Reed says. “In aplace as large as Texas A&M, it’s easy tocreate [isolation] where we are all livingin our own little worlds.

“The boundaries between us are whatwe’ve created, but the general publicdoesn’t have the boundaries. When theyhave issues, they are just concerned withgetting their questions answered.

“We need to think like consumers, andI think that begins with breaking downsome of the barriers and looking at itfrom different perspectives.”

Chapkin agrees. Working together, “wefind out how food functions; that leads tothe development of functional foods,” hesays. That kind of research can lead tooptimal health for everybody.

“We are the nutritional conscience ofthe world,” he says. “We make recom-mendations to the public based on soundscience to reduce the risk of disease andincrease optimal health.”

McIntosh believes in this goal. He stillfinds the subject of human nutrition fas-cinating and enjoys helping his studentsdiscover it.

“From forest ranger to sociology tonutrition,” he says, “I think I’ve foundwhere I belong.”

Web sitehttp://nutr.tamu.edu/

As part of her thesis, nutrition graduate studentAmy Claflin is using the Internet and other nutri-tion information sources to evaluate researchstudies on family nutrition. Je

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Experiment Station DevelopsTwo Heart-Healthy Peanuts

The TexasAgriculturalExperiment Station,in a collaborativeproject with theUSDA’s AgriculturalResearch Service andOklahoma State

University, has developed two healthierpeanut varieties that should be availableto consumers later this year. The OLinand the Tamrun OL01 each contain ahigher percentage of oleic acid, a health-ful monosaturated fat that has beenshown to lower bad cholesterol levelswhile raising good cholesterol levels tohelp reduce the risk of clogged arteries.In addition to their health benefits, bothvarieties have tolerance to lethal soilfungi, including Sclerotinia and tomatospotted wilt virus. The OLin is named inhonor of the late Dr. Olin D. Smith, alongtime peanut breeder in Texas A&M’sdepartment of soil and crop scienceswho led the peanut project until hisdeath in 1999. Both varieties were cross-bred at Texas A&M University byresearch associate Michael R. Baring.Selection, agronomic evaluation and dis-ease screening were conducted by Baringand Dr. Charles E. Simpson (above),professor emeritus and peanut breederwith The Texas A&M University SystemAgricultural Research and ExtensionCenter at Stephenville.

In the Green: Experiment StationReleases Hardy Dwarf Turfgrass

Landscapers, turf managers and homegardeners searching for the perfect prod-uct to green up sparse winter lawnsshould consider Panterra, a newlyreleased turfgrass variety developed byExperiment Station plant breeder Dr.Lloyd R. Nelson. Panterra has all theadvantages of traditional winter ryegrasswith none of the disadvantages. It cre-ates a thick, deep-green winter lawn, yetrequires less mowing during the winterand spring, saving on maintenance oflawns and athletic fields. Panterra also ishardier and better able to stand up tocleats and wear than older ryegrasses. In

addition, because it dies off in mid tolate May in much of Texas, it does notcompete with bermudagrass turf.Panterra seed production and marketinghas been contracted to Barenbrug USAInc., which has sales offices in Dallas,Texarkana, Schulenburg and Houston.

Texas A&M ScientistsFirst to Clone White-Tailed Deer

In what is believedto be the first suc-cess of its kind,researchers with theTexas AgriculturalExperiment Station

and Texas A&M University’s College ofVeterinary Medicine have cloned awhite-tailed deer. A fawn, named“Dewey” after Dr. Duane C. Kraemer,one of the researchers, was born to a sur-rogate mother in May. The news wasmade public in December once thegenetic identity was confirmed throughDNA analysis. The joint project withViagen Inc. involved two teams of scien-tists, including lead investigator Dr.Mark E. Westhusin and Kraemer, whoeach hold joint appointments with theExperiment Station and the College ofVeterinary Medicine. Westhusin says thebreakthrough may help advance effortsto conserve endangered deer species,including the Key West deer of Florida.Texas A&M is the first academic institu-tion in the world to have cloned cattle,goats, pigs and a cat.

A Cruciferous Vegetable a DayMay Help Keep Cancer Away

For years, vegetableshave been recognizedfor their cancer-preven-tive properties.Experiment Stationresearchers are nowworking to see if thosesame foods can lead to a cure for the dis-ease. Dr. Stephen H. Safe, anExperiment Station chemist who hasbeen studying cancer for 10 years, hasbeen awarded a patent for a new use forderivatives of DIM, or diindolylmethane,to treat cancer. DIM is a natural com-pound found in cruciferous vegetables

such as broccoli, cabbage, turnips andmustard greens. Although DIM already iscommercially available as a natural sup-plement for cancer prevention and fortreating estrogen-related health issues,Safe’s research is focused on making itmore potent against tumors. His lab hasused chemically modified DIM to inhibitthe growth of several types of cancercells—including pancreatic, colon, blad-der and ovarian—in mice and rats withminimal or no side effects. Safe’s patenthas been picked up by Plantacor, abiotech company headquartered inCollege Station, and is expected to enterclinical trials soon in collaboration withM. D. Anderson Cancer Center inHouston.

Tests Reveal Poor Water Qualityin East TexasFarm Ponds

Recent testing of318 farm ponds inEast Texas hasrevealed that thewater quality of 20 percent of the pondsneeds improvement. The 318 ponds rep-resent an estimated one million thatcover approximately a half-million sur-face acres throughout the state. BecauseEast Texas soils are highly acidic andmost farm ponds are watershed pondsfed by runoff, the most common prob-lem is acidity. County Extension agentstested pH levels, alkalinity and oxygenlevels to determine how to improve thewater quality. Results showed 68 of theponds needed from 1 to 3 tons of agricul-tural limestone per surface acre to cor-rect the acidity, which is a crucial factoraffecting fish, not to mention farmers’profits. According to Dr. Billy J.Higginbotham, Extension wildlife andfisheries specialist, farm ponds can pro-duce 1,000 pounds of catfish per acreannually when properly maintained.These ponds also are conservatively esti-mated to have a value of $125 per sur-face acre per year for their recreationalvalue alone.

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‘Don’t Be Crude’ Team Cleans Up‘Don’t Be Crude’Team Cleans Up

Texas 4-H’ers gain national acclaim for environmental effortsby Linda Anderson

Spring 2004 25

The narrow country road branches out in three direc-tions. Nearby fields lie fallow for the winter; neighbors’houses are few and far apart.

Tucked away in this quiet, out-of-the-way corner of VictoriaCounty Precinct 4 is a white 460-gallon drum. The drum—oneof 18 scattered throughout the area—isn’t the most attractivepart of the landscape, but it is valuable pro-tection for the environment.

Local folks bring their used motor oil herefor recycling, thanks to the efforts of threeremarkable 4-H’ers. Barbara Brown, LacyJones and Kate Klinkerman have been help-ing improve the environment in South Texassince 1997, when they started the Don’t BeCrude recycling program. They were 11 and12 years old at the time.

“The reason we started it,” says Barbara,now 17, “was because Kate noticed herfather pouring oil on a fencepost to killweeds. The weeds did die, but we wantedto know: What happened to the oil?”

The girls were already environmentallyaware sixth-graders, because of lessonslearned at school and through the Wood-Hi 4-H club, says Juli Klinkerman, Kate’s moth-er. “They studied environmental issues andrecognized the problem.”

The weeds may be dead, the girls discov-ered, but the groundwater might have become contaminated,too.

Klinkerman says the team learned that a quart of oil can pol-lute up to 250,000 gallons, a day’s water supply for a smallcity, and a gallon poured out on the ground can contaminatean entire acre of groundwater.The problem is serious, especial-ly in rural areas, Klinkerman says, “where everybody has theirown water well.”

The girls decided to do something about it. First they contacted oil recycling businesses to learn how to

establish used motor oil dump sites. Then they told state envi-ronmental authorities about their proposed project and enlist-ed the help of their parents, who are all active adult leaderswith Texas Cooperative Extension’s 4-H program.

Next the girls made a presentation to the Victoria CountyCommissioners, who were so impressed that they grantedapproval for five recycling sites in the county.

In January 1998, the three 4-H’ers became the Don’t BeCrude team and set about spreading the word on the impor-tance of recycling used motor oil.

But they didn’t stop there. Since then, the trio:• Convinced eight corporate sponsors to donate money to

purchase federally approved recycling units for the program;• Founded Victoria County Conservation of Natural

Resources, a 4-H project to help educate the community aboutproper disposal of used motor fluids;

• Spoke on youth and environmental issues to more than 50audiences across the nation;

• Gave interviews to national news media, including CNNand USA Today, and to Channel 1, a cable television networkcarried by schools all over the country; and most recently topoet Maya Angelou for the Oxygen television network;

• Hosted an annual environmental fair forabout 350 students in Victoria County; and

• Sponsored an annual Earth Day recycledart bag contest for about 6,800 students and20,000 residents of Victoria.

The team has generated so much supportthat the program has been expanded intoneighboring Calhoun County to help protectmore than 500 miles of shoreline from usedfluid contamination, says Lacy, who is nowstudying business administration in college.The other two girls plan to major in environ-ment-related studies. Kate will attend TexasA&M, while Barbara is still considering sev-eral universities.

The Don’t Be Crude program now spon-sors 18 units in a seven-county area.Roughly 100,000 gallons of used motor oilare recycled each year through the program,Barbara says.

As the oil collects in the drums, U.S. FilterRecovery Services of Luling pumps it out

and picks up the used filters.Used motor oil can be put to good use, says George

Chavarria, operations manager for the company. A processingplant, he explains, turns it into a fuel mixture that’s used inbig industrial machines. Other oil recycling companies processthe used motor oil as an ingredient for asphalt.

The 4-H’ers’ dedicated recycling efforts have won themnumerous state and national awards, including the NationalPresidential Environmental Youth Award, given by theEnvironmental Protection Agency in 2001.

“It was a real honor and thrill for us to receive the EPAaward from President Bush,” Lacy says, adding that the presi-dent called the girls’ project his favorite.

The three girls still volunteer hundreds of hours per year incommunity service for Don’t Be Crude, which is now regis-tered as a nonprofit agency and has a board of directors.

“We’ll serve on the board when we get older,” Lacy adds.She serves as the team’s representative on the board, which ismade up of Extension educators, scientists and petrochemicalindustry leaders.

The board is developing a program that can be used by 4-Hgroups statewide.

“It would be possible to expand it into a 4-H project that canbe conducted in rural counties,” Barbara says. Once piloted inTexas, the board wants to offer the project nationally.

“‘To Make The Best Better’ is the 4-H motto,” Barbara says,“and that’s how it all started.”

Web site:http//www.dontbecrude.org

OPPOSITE: Since sixth grade, Victoria County 4-H members (left to right) BarbaraBrown, Lacy Jones and Kate Klinkerman have been turning environmentalawareness into action by leading a successful used motor oil recycling program.ABOVE: Kate Klinkerman recycles oil filters at one of 18 South Texas sites nowparticipating in the Don’t Be Crude program.Je

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26 Texas A&M Lifescapes

Small wonders are in small grains. Consider those flourtortillas you munched on at dinner last night or the toastyou buttered this morning.

These foods we take for granted come from wheat, but notjust any wheat. Wheat must have certain qualities to keepflour tortillas fresh and pliable. It needs others to make breaddough light and airy. Still other qualities in wheat ensure thatthe price of our daily bread stays affordable—through cropsthat farmers can grow abundantly, cheaply and in environ-mentally responsible ways.

These are things no one thinks much about around thekitchen table, mainly because others have thought about themover many years. The high quality of our small grains stemsdirectly from such big research efforts as the TexasAgricultural Experiment Station’s statewide Small GrainsImprovement Program at places like Amarillo, Vernon andCollege Station.

Texas farmers are familiar with the Experiment Station’swheat breeding successes. The program was started more than50 years ago by early wheat breeding pioneers such as the lateDr. Kenneth Porter of Amarillo, who worked from hisBushland laboratory and greenhouses and collaborated withcolleagues across the state. The program has released 25 vari-eties. Today many of them are grown across the Great Plains.

These varieties help producers save money while protectingthe environment. Growers, are using fewer chemicals, if any,to grow wheat. Today’s wheats also require less water to makesizable yields. Other performers contain qualities that makefoods taste better and stay fresh longer.

One of the leaders is TAM 110, which is resistant to green-bugs, a damaging pest in wheat crops. A new release is TAM111, which combines improved yield with superior bakingquality. Others bear more descriptive labels such as Sturdy,Tascosa, Caprock, Lockett, Siouxland 89 and TAMEX (a jointrelease by Texas A&M and New Mexico State University).

First the SeedSeed from Texas A&M breeding efforts is certified only after

years of testing and after sufficient seed stocks are grown

through the Texas Foundation Seed Service. Breeders evaluatethousands of seedlings every year before experimenting with asingle strain, says Dr. Jackie Rudd, chief wheat breeder forprograms in Amarillo and Vernon. Ten or even 15 years ofresearch may fly by before a farmer plants a single seed.

“It’s easy to say we need to improve quality for certain enduses,” says Rudd. “The difficult part is defining which proteinand starch characteristics are necessary to make a particularkind of bread product.”

For example, Dr. Ralph Waniska, Texas A&M cereal chemist,is wrestling with what it takes to make a better tortilla, a sta-ple that has skyrocketed in demand.

“Each new technology helps extend tortilla freshness duringstorage, or maintain other quality criteria such as size, opacityor dough properties,” explains Waniska, who has at least threenew patents on tortilla formulations in the works and is pro-moting his latest developments to millers and bakers.

Proteins in flour tortillas must perform differently fromthose in bread. For example, tortillas must stay flexible overweeks of storage. Bread, on the other hand, firms or stalesafter only five days, and proteins for freshness are prized. Toget the desired results for baked tortillas, Waniska wants theproportion of glutenins and gliadins in wheat to vary.

Glutenins and gliadins are proteins that contribute to thedevelopment of wheat gluten, a sticky and rubbery proteinrequired for dough. Wheat gluten affects baking qualitybecause of its unique amino acid composition and structure.Bread dough requires a consistent, strong, resilient gluten tohold in air bubbles during fermentation and baking.

“The gluten network needs to be spreadable but not elastic,and mellow to extend into a large-diameter tortilla,“ says Waniska. “There’s room for improvement.”

Dr. Dirk Hays, a molecular geneticist at College Station,agrees. Hays looks at proteins, enzymes and other compoundsthat may provide competitive advantages for niche products.By developing more of these specific qualities within a wheatvariety, Experiment Station scientists are helping to capturemore value for the producer, processor and consumer.

Texas farmers plant small grains such as wheat, oats, rye,

Smal l Gra ins ,B ig Y ie lds

Research results in real-world payoffs forproducers and the environment

by Pam Dillard

Spring 2004 27

triticale and barley, with wheat accounting for nearly 90 per-cent of the acreage. Each year, farmers plant some 8 millionacres from the Gulf Coast to the Panhandle. In the 1990s, thefarmgate production value for all five crops averaged $420 mil-lion per year.

How important is a single new variety? Consider that wheatyields have increased by 30 percent in the past 30 years—atrend that is continuing. Rudd says that at least half theincrease must be attributed to the adoption of new varieties.New varieties generally yield 3 to 4 percentage points higherthan older ones. With an annual production of 100 millionbushels in Texas alone, calculated with a price of $3.50 perbushel, that 3-percent increase can return more than $10 mil-lion to the state’s economy.

And that’s just grain production. Wheat is also used as win-ter pasture for grazing animals—beef and dairy cattle, sheep,goats and assorted wildlife. About 65 percent of the smallgrain acreage is grazed annually, with a value (in pounds ofanimal production) greater than $400 million. Oats, rye andtriticale are prized more for their value as feed than food. Upto 80 percent of oats are grazed each year.

Grains of InfluenceIn the Texas Panhandle, at the Bushland Station alone, mil-

lions of wheat seeds are carefully stored in thousands of paperenvelopes, a living archive that provides the genetic diversitythat nourishes the breeding program. Recent upgrades to facil-ities there include a new seed storage unit, named to honorthe pioneer Porter. Nearby are three state-of-the-art greenhous-es built with funding almost entirely from the wheat industry.

To identify a desired trait, breeders look at wheat varietiesand other grasses possessing those characteristics. Plant cross-es start in the greenhouse, then eventually end up in fieldnurseries. Typically, researchers start with plantings of 20 to30 kernels in a 2-foot-long seedbed called a head row. Theymay plant 100,000 head rows, making a field look like acheckerboard. This is the researcher’s first opportunity toactually see true breeding lines emerge.

The head-row plantings may be repeated over a number ofgrowing seasons, with researchers winnowing their selectionsto the desired traits each time. Eventually, only 100 specimensmay be chosen for extensive field trials. Fewer than 50 typesactually make it to statewide evaluation. Multi-state trials willfollow in the wheat zones of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, NewMexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

Other testing takes place at the Texas A&M Cereal QualityLaboratory, established in 1965 and headed by Dr. LloydRooney. Here, scientists evaluate bread baking and millingproperties such as those required in flour tortillas and breads.

On the crop production side, Hays and Dr. William Payne, acrop stress physiologist at Bushland, are seeking the true phys-iological tolerances of high temperature and drought.

“When spring temperatures jump too high during pollina-tion, both grain development and quality are affected,” Hayssays. “Such trauma causes the plant to suffer. First it may dryprematurely, causing grain shriveling and weight loss. Flouryield and quality also fall with severe damage, and doughstrength collapses.”

Focusing on the molecular mechanisms regulating a plant’s

adverse responses, Hays is evaluating Middle Eastern andAustralian cultivars, which have many of these coveted traits.If successful, this work will result in more high-yielding vari-eties that better tolerate heat and drought.

Many foods such as noodles, frozen dough products orbreads possess parts from many wheats. Manufacturers takethese additives and blend them together to achieve their prod-ucts’ most favored qualities. Why not build what’s needed intothe plant?

Rudd points to marketplace trends moving some aspects ofthe breeding program toward specialized product lines. In thefuture, wheat may be seen more as an ingredient than as aconventional commodity.

“Recent efforts to establish two centers of breeding excel-lence at Amarillo and College Station are seen by the industryas extremely positive,” says Rodney Mosier, who heads theTexas Wheat Producers Association. He and others from thesmall grains industry have teamed with Texas A&M faculty toform the Texas Small Grains Advisory Committee, a group pro-viding guidance and resources to accomplish research goals.

The Experiment Station plans to step up oat breeding in thefuture. At least two new oat varieties are due out soon. And,while wheat breeding efforts primarily target hard-red wintervarieties, which do well in the Texas Panhandle and are typi-cally used in breads, scientists also are looking at some soft-red winter lines that are more often used for milling and bak-ing. Two triticale varieties, on which work began in the mid-1980s, are nearing release—the first Texas A&M issues certi-fied for use as winter forage.

Farther back in the research pipeline are other varieties thatoffer promise, so the plant breeding work continues. Says Dr.John Sweeten, research director for the Amarillo center, “Ourgoal is assisting Texas producers in meeting the challenges pre-sented by consumers clamoring for wheat-based products.”

OPPOSITE: From new state-of-art greenhouses at Bushland, Dr. Jackie Rudd exam-ines wheat plants as potential parent lines for use in the breeding program.ABOVE: Wheat seed in these labeled packets is slated for planting beginning inSeptember in field nurseries across the state. Breeders harvest their seed eachJuly.

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Take a big helping of a jalapeño industry by-product. Add a grower’s determination.Sprinkle with advice from a Texas Cooperative

Extension county agent. Add a little smoke and dry-ing time. And you have a recipe that is delicioso.

Two years ago, Gale Carr, business manager for hisfamily’s Borderland Farms in Fort Hancock, was los-ing money with each chile crop, and he knew it.

Each fall, growers in the El Paso Valley harvestgreen jalapeño peppers. With more than 2,500 acresin peppers and annual sales of more than $5 million,Texas is the leading producer of fresh jalapeños in theUnited States.

Red jalapeño peppers are used as filler in thecayenne industry, with the leftovers considered trash.Because of the higher labor costs of hand harvesting,more growers have turned to machines. But mechani-cal harvesters don’t differentiate between greenjalapeños and red ones, which are left on the groundas a waste product.

Red-Hot Ideas

Gale Carr checks chipotle peppers that have been (top to bottom)harvested, sorted, washed and smoked before being packaged forsale.

Pepper producer turnstrash into cash

in the El Paso Valleyby Edith Chenault

Texas A&M Lifescapes

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Spring 2004 29

“We were mechanically harvesting, so you get reds andgreens mixed together,” Carr explains. “You’re up on the har-vester, throwing the reds off. All of a sudden, you’re slappedin the face with ‘That’s how many dollars I’m losing.’”

Carr went to Dr. Jaime Iglesias, an Extension agent in ElPaso County, for advice.

“Jaime suggested making chipotle, like Mexico does,” Carrsays. “At that time, I had no idea what chipotle was; Ihad never even heard the word chipotle.”

Carr quickly learned that chipotle is the smoked,dried, red jalapeño popular with the “fiery foods” crowd.Carr traveled to Mexico with Iglesias—who has morethan 25 years’ experience growing and marketing chilesthroughout the Americas—to study the process. He alsosearched the Internet and read every available book,magazine and anything else he could find on chipotle.

“It took lots of homework, lots of sleepless nights,” he says.After the trip to Mexico two years ago, he decided to con-

struct a small building that would smoke 16,000 pounds ofchiles in seven days.

“We ruined the first 10 batches,” Carr recalls. “We couldn’tget an even heat distribution, and the chiles on the inside por-tion of the smoker would get burned, while, on the outside,we couldn’t get any heat at all.”

During the first year, Carr says, they sold 40,000 pounds andhad trouble keeping up with demand, largely because of onebig customer in Denver that supplies Chipotle Grills, a nation-wide subsidiary of McDonald’s.

The second year, he expanded his operation to a plant thatcan smoke 40,000 pounds per day, making him the only majorcommercial supplier of chipotle in the United States. Thisyear, he’s added more customers and processed 2 millionpounds of jalapeños.

Iglesias explains that Carr has a market niche because chipo-tle can’t be imported in bulk from Mexico without passing rig-orous inspection standards. The chipotle that comes into thecountry is in small quantities and is generally lower in quality.

In addition to jalapeños, the Carrs grow red chiles, uplandand pima cotton, alfalfa and grass hays such as Sudan. Thechipotle business has allowed them to diversify their farm—which, with 48 employees, is the largest business in theirsmall West Texas community of about 5,000—in an area thathas wilted under a 5-year drought.

“Part of the reason we wanted to diversify is because we’rein a drought situation; we don’t know if it’s going to last oneyear or another five years,” Carr explains. “This year, we laidout 30 percent of this farm because we didn’t have the waterto plant it. Next year, it may be 60 percent that we can’t plant.To keep the people here on the farm working, we needed todo something that didn’t rely on water.

“We’re using a lot of water, but not on the scale you wouldon a farm. On a farm, we’re talking acre-feet of water; here,we’re talking gallons.”

An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover an acreof land to 1 foot deep, or about 325,000 gallons. Carr usesabout 5,000 to 6,000 gallons of water a day for cleaning andprocessing chipotle.

Carr’s background as a food inspector in the U.S. Armymakes him very sanitation-conscious.

“I want to make the most sanitary product I can make,because I know, in the end, quality is going to make the differ-ence,” he says.

When a load comes in from his or other farms, the chiles gothrough a mechanical cleaning process to eliminate sticks andother trash. On a grading table, workers sort out stems, leavesand other material. They spray the peppers with peroxide acid

to kill mold and fungus. Another wash removes rocks andother debris. Next, a slice in the chile makes it dry faster.

Carr uses another by-product, pecan wood from orchardprunings, in the smoker along with mesquite. The smokedchiles are moved to a dehydrator, then packaged for sale.

When the Carrs harvested only green jalapeños, theyreceived 15 cents a pound. By combining them with two pre-viously cast-off by-products, Carr says they now sell a productworth $2 to $3 a pound, depending on the kind of chipotle.

Also, the seed is extracted, which results in more meat tosell and produces another profitable by-product. Carr sells theseed to other producers at $14 to $30 per pound.

He credits El Paso Texas Cooperative Extension for much ofhis success.

“The whole idea was Jaime’s brainstorm,” Carr says.“Jaime’s knowledge of the product and the people in theindustry helped us get to where we are.”

María Barua, Extension agent for marketing and public infor-mation, helped Carr design the logo.

“Even if our product wasn’t as good-looking as it is, I thinkthe logo would draw as much interest as the product,” he says.

This isn’t the first time Carr has relied on advice fromExtension. Iglesias previously helped him revolutionize hisalfalfa sales.

When Carr had the idea to sell the hay over the Internet,Iglesias helped him increase his production and quality so hecould sell to horse owners in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama,Arkansas and Tennessee. He takes hay orders online athttp://www.borderlandfarms.com and ships directly to buyers.

For now, Carr sells chipotle only in bulk, but he hopes oneday to market it over the Internet as well.

“I’ve been afraid to get ahead of myself and have 100,000people say at once, ‘I want this in 1-pound packages.’”

But, adding value is where the future of farming lies, hesays.

“We’re going to have to move up the chain a little bit andnot be just a producer,” Carr explains. “You’re going to have toadd a little value to stay in business.”

“It took lots of homework,lots of sleepless nights.”

30 Texas A&M Lifescapes

TiesThat BindLegacy gift to establish Central Texas ranching resourceby Shana Hutchins

For Melanie Turner, life’s enduring loves have been land, family and friends. How fleeting these joys can be recently hit

home harshly when she lost three good friends within ninemonths. Because the deaths were premature, no personalestate plans had been made.

The events prompted Turner, a vice president and financialadviser with Merrill Lynch, to take a look at the future of herown family estate, namely Pecan Valley Ranch, a 2,000-acreBlack Angus cattle operation located just outside of Mexia.

The ranch, composed of incremental purchases made bythree generations over 70 years, represents a true lesson inold-time land buying—one that wasn’t lost on Turner’s par-ents, Byron and Martha Turner.

“When we got married in the 1950s, Martha’s dad advisedus to start buying land,” Byron recalls. “I told him I didn’twant to be a farmer, and he told me I didn’t have to be—that Icould be a rancher. Three to four years later, we started buy-ing land as it became available from the road to the ranch—30,40, 100 acres at a time—and we just kept buying it.”

The series of small-parcel purchases has grown into a familyranching legacy. To keep it intact for generations to come,Turner opted to donate the property as part of a bequest gift toThe Texas A&M University System Agriculture Program aftershe and her parents die.

“Unfortunately, I was not blessed with children, and, if myparents predecease me, I have no heirs,” Turner says. “I had tofind a way to have the family ranch carried on, and the stew-ardship offered by Texas A&M and the Agriculture Program

provided a means to have that desire met.”The bequest, valued at more than $3.5 million, is a combina-

tion land gift and cash endowment. The ranch will be used asa demonstration site for Texas A&M’s Center for Grazinglandsand Ranch Management, while the endowment will supporteducational and research activities conducted at the ranch.

“This type of facility is badly needed, because Central Texasis devoid of a place where ranchers can go and learn throughfield days or tours that demonstrate the latest in ranchingtechniques,” Turner explains. “We also have a number of smalltowns in the area whose young people participate in 4-H andFFA who would benefit from such a facility.”

Meanwhile, Back at the RanchTurner herself began reaping the educational benefits of

ranch life at an early age, learning to appreciate agriculturethe old-fashioned way—by doing chores long before theybecame more fashionably known as hands-on experiences.

“I constantly was gentling calves, halter-breaking them and,needless to say, they all had names,” she says. “Hay baling sea-son taught me agriculture wasn’t all about just having funwith the calves. As soon as I could steer and operate theclutch on a tractor, I began going to the field to haul hay. Itwas a great way to learn to drive, because the only concern Ihad was to not run over a hay bale.”

A self-described “triple-scoop Aggie,” Turner followed her

Melanie Turner (left) has followed in the footsteps of her parents, Martha andByron, balancing a successful business career and the demands of land andcattle ownership to carry on a ranching legacy that spans three generations.

Spring 2004 31

One Spirit One Vision One VoiceA Conversation with Melanie Turner,

Gift Planning Campaign Chair

What are Texas A&M University’s biggest needs under One Spirit One

Vision? What about for the Agriculture Program?This campaign is crucial to the future of this university and its programs.Our biggest needs as a university are the ability to attract the best profes-sors from around the world as well as the top-ranked students, and toprovide quality facilities. The Agriculture Program’s needs mirror those ofthe university’s. To keep up with other agricultural universities, we mustput emphasis on such critical needs as water management, biotechnology,bioterrorism, increasing the nutritional content of food, and increasingproductivity with decreasing acreage.

How do you plan to encourage additional planned gifts?I talk about the tremendous need for the One Spirit One Vision cam-paign. People must understand this before they can give. I would like tospeak to groups on the benefits of planned giving, both financially andpersonally, and work with individuals to encourage gifts. I would love toshare the podium with a student who could tell why this campaign is criti-cal for students, and then I would speak on the benefits of making a gift.

What advice would you give to those who are considering making a gift?Visit with the personnel from the college or program of your choice andthe campaign leaders to gain a better perspective on the need for the giftand how the gift will be used. Visit with donors, like myself, to gain reas-surance that your wishes are respected. Most importantly, spend sometime on campus visiting with our students, and you will understand thatTexas A&M is developing the leaders of tomorrow.

What does The Aggie Network (of former students) mean to you?The Aggie Network is the strongest family around the world. We haveproved that in how we have bonded through wars, the Bonfire tragedy,and how well we have responded to the One Spirit One Vision campaign.If we want to move our university into the ranks of the nation’s top 10, wewill join in this campaign, by giving now or in the future. Without thetools we gained at Texas A&M, from the education to the network, many ofus wouldn’t be where we are today. The cost of getting an education isgrowing, and schools need more donations. It’s time for those of us whohave the benefit of an education to give back.

What is your message for today’s Texas A&M student?Texas A&M is not just textbooks; it’s an education in life, integrity andwork ethic. In today’s corporate world, that plays a huge role. I neverdreamed when I walked off that stage in 1984 with my doctorate of howfull-circle everything would come. As they say, I’ve been able to gohome—I’ve had the opportunity to do things with and for the university.When the time is right, make sure that you go home and open a door fora future Aggie.

love for agriculture to Texas A&M, where she earned threedegrees—a bachelor’s in biology in 1979, a master’s in plantprotection in 1980 and a doctorate in horticulture in 1984. Inthe years since, she has become an active proponent of bothTexas A&M and the Agriculture Program, serving on theCollege of Agriculture and Life Sciences Development Council.

In 2000, Glenn Pittsford, Texas A&M Foundation director ofgift planning, asked Turner to take on her biggest supportingrole to date as chair of the gift planning group for TexasA&M’s One Spirit One Vision Campaign.

“When we started looking at who we might select as leader,we looked immediately at Melanie, who, at that time, hadmade one of the largest planned gifts we’d ever had,” Pittsfordexplains. “She has lent credibility to the campaign through herknowledge, her influence and her example.”

For Turner, the chair position offers an opportunity to talkwith potential donors about the tremendous difference theirgifts can make in the lives of future Aggies.

“Too many have said, ‘I will do this when I am more finan-cially able,’ or ‘That is my goal at 55,’ and then tragedy strikesunexpectedly,” she says. “If no provision is made in the will,then their desire goes unfulfilled. Everyone should have a planfor the future of how they want their wishes fulfilled if theyare unable to see them to fruition.

“My financial training at Merrill Lynch also helps me under-stand the ways that a planned gift may be given to Texas A&Mand the potential tax benefits to the donor.”

According to Pittsford, about 80 percent of planned giftscome by bequest, one of several methods of long-range givingthat pay off handsomely for the university’s future.

“Melanie comes from a strong family with deep roots that

Pecan Valley Ranch is home to approximately 300 producing cows, the majori-ty of which Turner describes as tame enough to eat from her hand.

Jim L

yle

Jim L

yle

32 Texas A&M Lifescapes

All in the Family: Fuchs ChildrenHonor Father with Scholarship

After helping to create a scholarship atTexas A&M University more than adecade ago inhonor of hisparents, oneAggie is beingmemorializedin the sameway by his ownchildren.Monroe Fuchs’56, chairmanof Ideal Poultry Breeding Farms Inc. inCameron, was the guest of honor at aNov. 20 surprise luncheon to unveil theMonroe H. Fuchs ’56 EndowedScholarship, established by his children,Gary Fuchs ’78, Janet Crouch, TeriAdcox ’90 and Laurie Robinson ’92.The $50,000 award will benefit deservingAggies pursuing degrees in the depart-ment of poultry science. Fuchs earnedboth a bachelor’s degree and a master’sin poultry science at Texas A&M.Together with his children Gary, Janetand Teri, he has turned the companyfounded in 1937 by his parents, Leo andEdna Fuchs, into the largest supplier ofexotic poultry in the United States, ship-ping close to four million chicks annual-

ly. In establishing the scholarship, Fuchs’children are carrying on a tradition ofpoultry science support he started. Priorto helping them fund the $69,000 Leoand Edna Fuchs Endowed Scholarship in1991, Fuchs donated a $75,000 collectionof paintings depicting perfect specimensof various breeds and varieties of chick-ens to the department.

Scholarship MemorializesAggie Rodeo Legend

In tribute to rodeo’s past and future atTexas A&M University, Aggie rodeoalumni have teamed with the College ofAgriculture Development Council tofund a $25,000 endowed scholarship inhonor of a Texas A&M rodeo legend. TheJ. Raymond Fuller ’43 RodeoScholarship will benefit students in theCollege of Agriculture and Life Scienceswho are members of the Texas A&MRodeo Club and participants in rodeossanctioned by the NationalIntercollegiate Rodeo Association. Fuller,who died in 2000, competed in saddlebronc riding, steer riding and wild cowmilking events and helped Texas A&Mwin a men’s team championship at aNational Championship Rodeo in 1942.Endowment supporters say they wantedto honor Fuller for his undergraduateaccomplishments in the rodeo arena as

well as his support of many Texas A&Mprograms in the years since.

High School Ag TeacherRemembered with Award

Family and friends of Floyd Collinshave established the $50,000 FloydCollins Endowed Scholarship at TexasA&M University to recognize his 26-yearcontribution to agriculture education andstudents. Collins, a graduate of TexasTech University, died of lung cancer in1998 at the age of 54. Although he andhis wife Cheryl had no children, he guid-ed many students as an agricultureteacher at Snyder High School, JaytonHigh School and, most recently,Smithson Valley High School in NewBraunfels. Gifts from family and friendswere combined with $15,000 raised bythe Smithson Valley Ag Boosters Club tobring the scholarship to $25,000. Theamount was matched by the Texas A&MBookstore to create a permanent $50,000endowment to support future SmithsonValley graduates attending Texas A&M.Although the scholarship is open to grad-uates regardless of major, preference willbe given to those who participated in theschool’s agriculture program for at leasttwo years. As long as they remain ingood standing, recipients are eligible toretain the scholarship for four years.

Giv

ing M

att

ers

are tied to the land,” Pittsford adds. “I admire people like herwho have the courage to act on a special opportunity to leavea lasting legacy.”

Rewarding RelationshipsTurner says she has cherished the lifelong relationships she

developed from her student days in Aggieland. For instance,she still maintains contact with her major professor in horti-cultural sciences, Dr. David Reed, who defines his former stu-dent as an example worth emulating.

“First, Melanie is an example of a person who has used edu-cation to achieve her life goals and career objectives,” Reedsays. “She set a career objective and used education to getthere. Obtaining her Ph.D. in a science field was simply a stepin that progression.

“Second, Melanie is an example of how one’s tenacity andself-confidence ensures no career objective is out of reach.

“And finally, Melanie is a good example of ‘dancin’ with theone that brung ya.’ Texas A&M helped Melanie achieve hercareer and life goals, and now she is rewarding us with hertime, devotion and generosity.”

If Turner’s vision for her family’s land is any indication, thepayoff for Central Texas looks promising, too.

“I envision Pecan Valley Ranch as the showplace of CentralTexas,” she says. “The Black Angus cattle herd will be one ofthe most notable in the country; new drought-resistant, high-protein grasses will be under development; herbicides andtechniques for weed and brush control will be a priority; andstudents will learn in a hands-on environment.”

But if Turner has anything to say in the matter, that visionwon’t become reality any time soon. However, it will involveat least one student.

“You have to understand that this gift is going to be 50 yearsdown the road, because I’m going to live to be a really cantan-kerous old lady,” she quips. “I kid the people at theFoundation that, when I get into my 90s and can’t get aroundquite as well anymore, then I expect them to send a youngAggie to come drive me around in my pickup truck!”

For Melanie Turner, looking ahead is all in a day’s

work. As a vice president and financial advisor with

Merrill Lynch, she’s made a career of helping clients

prepare for a better tomorrow by taking

calculated risks today.

As part of her own planning,

Turner has made a bequest of real

estate to Texas A&M that will one day

establish her family’s 2,000-acre ranch as a

prominent research and extension resource for

Central Texas. She’s now banking on the help of fellow

Aggies to make her alma mater’s broader investment

in the future possible.

“Not everyone can leave a working ranch to Texas

A&M,” Turner says. “I am uncommonly fortunate in

this and other ways. But most former students can do

something that makes a difference for future Aggies

and demonstrates their appreciation for the A&M

educational experience. This experience goes far

beyond what money buys and instructors teach, and

its benefits last a lifetime.”

To help ensure a lifetime of difference for

tomorrow’s Aggies today, Turner invites you to join

her in supporting A&M’s One Spirit One Vision

Campaign.

Melanie Turner ’79 MCKINNEY

One Spirit One Vision Gift Planning Campaign Chair

What do you see in A&M’s future? For information on One Spirit One Vision giving opportunities in agricultureand life sciences, please contact the Agriculture Program

Development Office at (979) 847-9314 or by e-mail at t-pool@tamu.edu.

Agriculture Program Development Office2142 TAMU

College Station, Texas 77843-2142http://giving.tamu.edu

“I can seeA&M’s future.”

NON PROFIT ORG.U.S. Postage

P A I DDALLAS, TX

Permit No. 2650

The Agriculture ProgramThe Texas A&M University System2142 TAMUCollege Station, TX 77843-2142

Change Service Requested

A forest glade by a still pond represents a worthy goal of land stewardship, the theme of thisissue of Lifescapes and a priority of Texas A&M’sAgriculture Program.

Among the articles inside are two that directlyconcern stewardship of Texas forests. One story isabout the fire prevention work of Texas A&M’sSpatial Sciences Lab, which begins on page 6, andanother concerns the efforts by Texas CooperativeExtension to help folks who own forests to managethem responsibly, on page 13.