SAS Soil to Society Quarterly Newsletter |
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Welcome to planting and conference season! These last couple months of work have featured the planting of next year's rotational and variety trials, as well as participation in various conferences throughout the country. We love this time of year to gather with other scientists, professionals, and community members interested in plant health and food quality. |
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Harvesting winter wheat test plots at the Spillman Agronomy Farm in Pullman, WA. Photo Credit: Patricia DeMacon |
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The Soil & Cropping Systems Team completed harvest and the corresponding data collection on soil health management trials of wheat, barley, and peas in Pullman and Mount Vernon, quinoa and wheat micronutrient fertilization trials, and a buckwheat rotational trial at Viva Farms. WSU graduate students have been busy evaluating data and soil samples. There's always a quick turnaround with harvest and planting, and winter wheat was planted in mid-October for next year's trials. Many of their management treatments including cover crop planting, residue retention, and tillage intensity occur in the fall, so they took soil samples to evaluate the effects of these practices on soil carbon cycling and biological communities. Also, Johns Hopkins researchers made another trip out to the sites to collect samples of soil microarthopods and to scout for earthworms. |
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The major accomplishment for the Plant Breeding Team since August has been the harvest of the 2023 crop and planting the 2024 winter wheat crop in multiple locations. Samples from the 2023 crop have largely been processed for yield and test weight. The additional characterization of mineral and end use quality will require much of the winter to complete. The samples are currently being cleaned and weighed for analysis. A genomic selection model for spring wheat has also been developed and will be used this winter to target crosses to improve iron and zinc concentration in spring wheat. Barley plant breeders have continued there selections for low phytic acid, high beta glucan varieties. They are currently readying these harvested populations for analysis. Excitedly, seed quantities of Meg's Song, a promising hulless barley variety have been passed along to the Population Nutrition and Social Science Team to be used in their various experiments. In addition, a lentil diversity panel seed increase has been harvested, cleaned, and sent to New Zealand to be grown out over our winter. The returned seeds will then be analyzed for resistant starch and folates, and planted in two locations in Washington. Researchers have also optimized protocols to study the effects of heat and drought stress, in controlled conditions, on protein and starch concentration and functional characteristics and RNA Seq to investigate genes associated with protein and starch in lentils. Grant researchers at the WSU Breadlab have been milling and baking with 100% whole wheat from the 2023 Western WA crop since October. From puff pastry to bread, many lines have been identified that not only tolerate whole grain baking but actually excel at it. They also found that yields for Western WA organic wheat fields were up to 150% of conventional wheat averages for all of WA and harvest and planting environmental conditions were excellent. |
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[Left] Gagandeep Kaur in front of her poster presentation at the ASA-CSSA-SSSA annual meeting. [Right] Project manager, Ali Schultheis, at Soil to Society's vendor table at the Farm and Food Symposium. |
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Members from both our Plant Breeding and Soil and Cropping Systems Teams attended the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America international annual meeting in St. Louis last month. Soil to Society researchers Dr. Kevin Murphy, Dr. Kimberly Garland-Campbell, and PhD student Gagandeep Kaur all presented at this meeting. Gagandeep was awarded third place among all student for her poster presentation titled "Optimizing Soil Health and Cropping Systems for Producing Nutrient Dense Crops in Dryland Agriculture." Congrats Gagandeep! PhD student Aicha Djibo Waziri also presented on her work on this grant at the Cereals and Grains Conference in Schaumbug, Illinois in October. Her presentation was titled "Cross-Study Analysis to Identify Breeder-Friendly Quantitative Trait Loci (QTLs)/Genes for Wheat Biofortification." Project leadership also participated in the Spokane Conservation District's Farm and Food Symposium in Spokane Valley, WA. This conference, centered on regenerative agricultural practices and their potential health benefits in food products, was a great opportunity to meet producers and eaters from around the state. |
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PhD student Elizabeth Nalbandian preparing quinoa flour cookies for baking. Photo Credit: Shelly Hanks, WSU Photo Services |
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The Food Science and Products Team is wrapping up a project related to the physicochemical properties of alternative grains (proso-millet, buckwheat, wholewheat, and quinoa) and their influence on pancake quality. Their summer research interns collected a significant portion of the data for this project through the SAS Summer Research Opportunity. This team is also finalizing the testing protocols for assessing pulse protein functionality and experimenting with using pulse proteins as egg replacers and testing their influence on cake quality. This team is also continuing to develop scanning electron microscopy and confocal laser scanning microscopy techniques to identify changes in fiber, protein, and starch during baking. These techniques will also be used to identify modifications that could be performed for the fiber, protein, and starch to improve product quality. They are also waiting for the grains from this year’s harvest from the agronomy teams for evaluations using all the developed methods. The Food Science and Products team also initiated a collaborative project with the Population Nutrition and Social Science team to study the effect of convenience on intake of intact whole grains. Participants will be randomized to receive whole grains in their traditional dried form, or as ready-to-eat single serving pouches. Preparation and processing of the grains will be completed using the microwave assisted thermal pasteurization system in Pullman. The processing will start in December 2023, and participant recruitment starts in January 2024. |
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Example of a choice experiment. Photo Credit: Dr. Andrew Thorne-Lyman. |
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In addition to the collaborative study mentioned above, the Population Nutrition and Social Science Team is working to finalize their food choice experiment, surveying consumer's preference for whole grains and legumes. This requires participants to choose between whole grain versus refined grain products at various price points, then repeats the process with plant protein versus meat products. Team researchers are also working on completing a pea and lentil manuscript that analyzes the most common ways in which these crops are consumed by the general public. They will then repeat this process with barley, buckwheat, and quinoa, utilizing a separate approach for wheat that looks at the potential of replacing refined wheat foods with whole wheat options. |
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Human Health and Nutrition Team researchers have completed the in vitro digestion and fermentation on bread samples made from small and large wheat varieties as designed by the WSU Breadlab. They also hired a new postdoc that has started working on sample processing (DNA extraction) from this experiment. |
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The Education Team has been working on updating and improving the high school summer internship program. Potential mentors were invited to a mentor interest meeting to learn more about the changes and best practices in mentoring a high school student. The application will open on December 15th, and interns will have a month to complete the application. The education team has also been working on developing curriculum for high school teachers to implement into their courses. Currently, they are developing the lesson plans and gathering resources. The teachers interested in this curriculum will have an opportunity to attend a training session for the curriculum this upcoming summer. |
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This figure shows the social network analysis data comparing the connections and collaborations of the Soil to Society Team between year 1 and year 3. Photo Credit: KSU OEIE |
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Project External Evaluators at Kansas State University's Office of Educational Innovation and Evaluation (OEIE) collects social network analysis (SNA) data from the S2S program every year through the annual Progress and Collaboration survey. The SNA depicts the collaboration network of the S2S program survey respondents. The 15-20 minutes of the day that it takes to fill out their surveys allows them to gather salient evidence such as the SNA sociograms displayed above. Their reports provide evidence necessary for S2S leadership to report back to the funders. Comparing some of their preliminary findings from Year 3 to the previous sociogram (Year 1), they have found the following: |
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OEIE congratulates the program on increasing their network in all the categories listed above and sends their appreciation to the team for taking the time to take our surveys. Your feedback is important! |
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Infographics by Kansas State University's Office of Education Innovation and Evaluation illustrating the evaluation plan for the upcoming year. |
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Thank You to Our Partners! |
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This research was supported by the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Sustainable Agricultural Systems (SAS) program, grant number WNP00882. |
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