SAS Soil to Society Quarterly Newsletter |
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As September begins, we wrap up the second year of this five year grant. We celebrated this checkpoint by gathering together in Pullman, WA for an all-team annual meeting. During this meeting, we heard preliminary findings from project researchers, toured field trials and laboratories, and planned for the remaining three years of grant work. We are very proud of the progress we have made so far, and are excited to reach out projected outcomes by 2026. Thanks for following along on our journey! |
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Ph.D. Candidate Beck Klein and Dr. Katalin Szlavecz (via zoom) presenting the preliminary findings of their soil sampling at the annual meeting. Photo Credit: Ali Schultheis |
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The Soil & Cropping Systems Team is maintaining their various rotational and micronutrient trials in Mt. Vernon, WA and Pullman, WA. They are primarily focusing on soil ecology, analyzing soil samples taken in May for microarthropods, earthworms, and nematodes. To determine nematode prevalence, they are collaborating with Dr. Zsolt Toth at the Research Institute for Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry in Budapest. They plan to resample both sites in the fall when moisture is higher and harvesting is finished. |
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The Plant Breeding Team is patiently waiting for their variety trials to ripen so that they can analyze them for organic nutrient levels of including arabinoxylans, polyphenols, and phytic acid due to their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Additionally, they will look at flour ash, kernel size, protein concentration, and nutrient concentration (specifically zinc, iron, and manganese). The goal of these trials are to determine if there are specific genes that correlate to higher levels of desirable nutritional qualities. |
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The Food Science and Products Team is experimenting with processing our six target crops using three different processing methods: extrusion processing, microwave assisted thermal sterilization (MATS) and microwave assisted pasteurized system (MAPS). The extrusion process uses a raw material, often flour, and subjects it to high temperatures and pressure to create expanded snack foods, cereals, and pet foods. Both the MATS and MAPS processes use microwave heating to make ready-to eat products that are both safe and shelf-stable. This serves to make them more approachable to eaters, lower in sodium, and less prone to waste than conventional ready-to-eat food products. |
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Dr. Juming Tang explaining the difference between the MAPS and MATS processed hummus before our team got to taste test both at the annual meeting. The MAPS processed hummus was preferred by a small margin. Photo Credit: Kaitlynn Davis |
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The Population Nutrition and Social Science Team is continuing to analyze population dietary data from NHANES to determine the public's perception of our six target crops and how they are most commonly consumed in the U.S. Drs. Pablo Monsivais and Namrata Sanjeevi presented their preliminary results at the annual meeting. Dr. Andrew Throne-Lyman also presented his preliminary results at the annual meeting, detailing him and Dr. Kate Schneider's progress toward developing a choice experiment survey to identify what different sub-populations within the U.S. consider when making food decisions and how feasible shifts toward whole grains and legumes consumption are. |
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Master's Candidate Devin Connolly presenting his master's research on the impact of quinoa and food processing methods on the human gut microbiome through in vitro fermentation at the annual meeting. |
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The Human Health and Nutrition Team researchers have experimented with and finalized their protocol for future in vitro digestion and fermentation experiments. They are continuing to put each of our six target crops--and products made with these crops--through this process as they receive them from our Plant Breeding Team. |
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The Education Team has launched the first year of our summer research opportunity for Washington-state high school students. All students have begun working with team researchers on their assigned projects and we are excited to hear about their results and overall experiments in time for the November Quarterly Newsletter. If you want to learn more about their projects in the meantime, follow us on our socials to catch our intern highlights occurring in September. |
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High school intern, Gwen, making pancake batter with various flour and water proportions to test for sensory properties in Dr. Girish Ganjyal's lab. Photo Credit: Kaitlynn Davis |
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Since the annual meeting, project External Evaluators at KSU OEIE have been working with project leadership to finalize the Year 3 Evaluation Activity Timeline and develop an infographic of the social media pilot study from Year 2. Thus far, the following timeline (below) has been proposed. OEIE is excited to incorporate the feedback and thoughtful ideas that emerged from the annual meeting into this year’s evaluation plan. Some changes to this year’s evaluation plan include: A sustainability amendment to the annual Progress and Collaboration Survey for external partners, advisory board members, and invested party members (formerly referred to as stakeholders). Instead of the originally planned bibliometric and altmetric study this year, this activity will be replaced by another (TBA). The graduate student survey was changed to a focus group for this year. The social media study will be restructured based on feedback from leadership to be more focused on certain platform(s).
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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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Graduate student, Emily Klarquist, is presenting for WSU's Fall 2023 Seminar Series on November 6th at 2:10pm. Her presentation is titled "Biofortification Research Methods for Plant Breeding Programs." Click for more information. |
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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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