School of Plant and Environmental Sciences
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SPES was formed in 2017 from three departments: Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences; Horticulture; and Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science.
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Browsing School of Plant and Environmental Sciences by Content Type "Poster"
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- Building Partnerships to Address Social and Technological Challenges to Enhance Farm Profitability and Improve Water Quality Through Better Grassland ManagementStafford, Carl; Clark, Robert; Ritchie, Liesel A.; Pent, Gabriel; Fike, John; Benner, John; Swanson, Carrie; Baker, Scott; Mize, Timothy; Temu, Vitalis; Payne, Kathryn; Gill, Duane A.; Mullins, D.; McGuire, R.; Teutsch, Chris; Thomason, Wade; Grev, Amanda; Blevins, Phil; Clarke, C.; Poore, Matt; Booher, Matt; Stanley, Tom; Halich, Greg; Bovay, John; Love, Kenner; Byington, amy A.; Baldwin, Elizabeth; Haugen, Inga (2023-05-15)With 2.1 million acres of pastureland and 1.25 million acres of hay land in Virginia, the rural Virginia landscape is predominately grassland. These lands form the base of the $3.96 billion-dollar livestock and dairy industry in Virginia. Managing these livestock in a profitable manner for farmers and beneficial to the environment is important. A cultural tradition with roots in colonial times has been to run animals in large fields year-round throughout Virginia. Livestock often graze from spring until fall (about 220 days), and farmers feed hay the remainder of the year. Spikes in the cost of fuel, fertilizer, and equipment are making traditional grazing/haying systems less profitable. The Virginia Cooperative Extension Farm Enterprise budgets show that that the cost of hay accounts for over 50% of the cost of sustaining livestock annually. University of Kentucky shows that most cow-calf producers maximize their profitability by shifting from grazing 220 days to grazing 275 to 300 days. Extension agents working with livestock producers found that they could improve their profitability by at least $75 per cow by extending their grazing season. The same phenomenon applies to other types of grazing livestock. If ten percent of the livestock producers in the state adopted better grazing management to extend their grazing season by 60 days, profitability is expected to for Virginia grazing livestock producers by over $5 million per year. Practices such as rotational grazing and stream exclusion are directly tied to National and State goals to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. Virginia’s Phase III WIP (Chesapeake Bay Watershed Improvement Plan) seeks the exclusion of livestock from all perennial streams and achieving good rotational grazing practices on 347,000 acres of pasture. A number of agencies and private sector groups have been providing cost share and technical guidance to incentivize livestock stream exclusion and the installation of pasture management infrastructure. Installation is only part of the challenge. Farmers also need to be taught how to how to manage the system in a profitable manner and have been slow to adopt good pasture management practices. Preliminary data show that 87% of Virginia’s cow-calf producers manage their grasslands using traditional methods. Only six percent have extended their grazing season beyond 265 days.
- CyberBioSecurity through Leadership-as-Practice DevelopmentKaufman, Eric K.; Adeoye, Samson; Batarseh, Feras; Brown, Anne M.; Drape, Tiffany A.; Duncan, Susan; Rutherford, Tracy; Strawn, Laura K.; Xia, Kang (2022-03-28)CyberBioSecurity is an emerging field at the interface of life sciences and digital worlds (Murch, 2018). The solution to the global cyberbiosecurity challenge is not merely technical; society needs cyberbiosecurity professionals who engage in leadership with a boundary-crossing approach that involves collective effort. Such an approach emerges from leadership-as-practice development (LaPD), characterized by its efforts to “change patterns and thinking that could transform a culture of mediocrity to one of excellence and resilience'' (Raelin, 2020, p. 2). While LaPD has been used in some professional learning contexts and it aligns with some signature pedagogies of the professions, the opportunity remains for embedding LaPD in graduate education to meet the needs of emerging fields. The objective of this proposed project is to catalyze transformative cyberbiosecurity graduate education in a way that increases cognitive integrative capability among cyberbiosecurity scientists and professionals. As noted by Pratch (2014), “leaders who possess integrative capacity are better able to assess problems and find workable solutions than those who do not” (p. 1). In this project, we intend to embedding LaPD in online graduate and train-the-trainer modules, testing various pedagogies associated with boundary-crossing graduate education. The approach will include use of collaborative leadership learning groups (CLLGs), which are “anchored in practice, bringing together learners who can identify and work together on the challenges they face collectively” (Denyer & Turnbull James, 2016, p. 269). Our specific research questions include: What signature pedagogies best support the emerging discipline of CyberBioSecurity education? To what extent do collaborative leadership learning groups (CLLGs) increase students’ cognitive integrative capability?
- Experiential Learning in the Time of COVID Pandemic: Study in the USA-Southern California and ArizonaAbaye, Azenegashe Ozzie; Reiter, Mark; Ashford-Kornburger, Dana; Ziegler, Peter; Badon, Thomas; Mason, John; Wilbur, Jessica; Haymaker, Joseph (2022-11-07)The COVID pandemic has had an impact on higher education, especially on experiential learning opportunities. Travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the cancelation of several study-abroad programs. To provide the much-needed in-person experience, we created an experiential learning course titled “Study in the USA" structured to accommodate variable domestic destinations. The key driver of the course is experiential learning, hands-on and face-to-face experience with industries involved in food production. The purpose of this course is to provide students with new insights through comparison and contrasting regional production practices across the United States. Specific objectives of the course are: 1) Provide students with a baseline understanding of experiential learning so they can apply academic learning in work settings appropriate for their career plans, 2) Engage students in developing skills and competencies relating to producing food in the time of COVID-19, and climate change, and 3) Develop a deeper understanding of challenges faced by people who are engaged in all aspects of agricultural enterprises. Overall, the course provided far more than academics to help students recover from the pandemic, it provided a perfect platform for social interaction which was missing for several years due to the COVID pandemic.
- Improved pasture resources in the Madiama Commune of Mali, West Africa: Working with women groups at the village levelEl Hadj, Meriam; Abaye, Azenegashe Ozzie; Moore, Keith M. (2007)The objectives of this project were to evaluate the chemical characteristics (crude protein, in vitro dry matter digestibility, fiber, etc.) of ensiled vs. fresh C. tora, examine the effect of additives (water or honey) and other forages (grasses) on the quality of the ensiled material, and provide feed during the dry season.
- Life Cycle of the root-knot nematode (3rd printing)Eisenback, Jonathan D. (Society of Nematologists Education Committee, 2023-06-30)Educational poster.
- Promotion and Adoption of Soil Health in Virginia: The Power of a Simple Demonstration and StoryBendfeldt, Eric S.; Thomason, Wade E.; Niewolny, Kimberly L.; Parrish, Michael J.; Lawrence, Chris; Holm, Kathy (2019-07-17)Soil is a foundational resource for farming, natural resource conservation, and health in the 21st century. Virginia farmers have made significant progress in protecting and conserving natural resources. Controlling soil loss and nutrient runoff — non-point source pollution — from all possible sources continues to be critical for water quality protection and clean-up efforts throughout Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The current emphasis on soil health encourages an integrated holistic, systemic approach to soil management. Soil health principles bring to light the importance of soil organic matter (SOM), carbon, fungi, bacteria, and soil insects as key drivers to the system and integral for building and enhancing soil’s physical and chemical properties. Virginia Tech, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, along with community partners, have worked to find common ground around a similar educational message for agricultural professionals, technical service providers, and the farming community. The message emphasizes soil as a living ecosystem and the need to care for the soil's biological properties as well as the physical and chemical properties. Simple in-class and on-farm demonstrations (i.e., slake test, rainfall simulator) and stories of farmers’ experiences (i.e., through panels, short videos and technical clips) are powerful in promoting and encouraging the adoption of core soil health principles in Virginia. The power of a simple demonstration and story complements on-going research and demonstration efforts while enabling outreach to a broader educational audience. For example, a rainfall simulator demonstration at the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction’s Annual Membership meeting enabled Virginia Cooperative Extension and Virginia USDA-NRCS to reach not only 120 farmers within a Mennonite community with a soil health message but also women, youth, and children in the community who are stewards of land and market and family gardens.