Fall 2021

“It’s a high-risk, high-reward project — a somewhat needle in the haystack trip,” said expedition lead Lisa Ballance, director of OSU’s Marine Mammal Institute. “At the same time, we have some good indicators that where we are headed, this animal is there.”

The five-year project is funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Sustainable Agricultural Systems grant program.

Robust research continued at the College of Agricultural Sciences through FY21 despite the challenges of a pandemic and lockdowns. We maintained last year’s significant 22% increase over FY19 and secured an additional $59M in funding, the second highest year of grant funding in the history of the college.

Coyotes can eat by scavenging cougars’ prey but it’s a risky proposition as coyotes often end up killed by cougars too, a new study of predator interactions by Oregon State University shows.

“Beavers are a really storied part of this landscape and they are an iconic species for Oregon,” said Clint Epps, a wildlife biologist at Oregon State and co-author of the paper.

Robyn Tanguay, a distinguished professor in the College of Agricultural Sciences, is the recipient of the eight-year grant in the field of predictive toxicology from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

For OSU researcher Chris Janousek, learning more about such areas as a wetland habitat around a slough that connects to Padilla Bay could help prioritize land management practices along the West Coast.

“On some grand level, the smoke, the heat, and the drought are connected, and we could probably have a climate change discussion at the macro scale,” says Gordon Jones an assistant professor of general agriculture. 

"I was able to get down to the whale Tuesday afternoon and examined it and found it to be a 30-foot juvenile gray whale that had been dead for several days," said Jim Rice, the stranding program manager with the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University. 

Rather than ocean oxygen levels improving, as they usually do this time of year, hypoxia off the Pacific Northwest coast is as bad as it’s been at any point in 2021, according to collaborative research by Oregon State University, the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife and Oregon’s crabbing industry.

One place at the forefront of the research is Oregon State University, where assistant professor Elizabeth Tomasino said winemakers could benefit from knowing which wildfire-induced chemical changes in their grapes and wine would lead to them being rejected by consumers.

Prof. John Chapman is an invasive species specialist at Oregon State University. He and a team of researchers were in Alaska this summer studying an invasive isopod that has now reached Ketchikan and Sitka, and is destructive to an important invertebrate called the blue mud shrimp. Chapman discusses his work with KCAW’s Robert Woolsey.

Researchers at Oregon State University have developed a method for forecasting the locations where a distinct population of New Zealand blue whales are most likely to occur up to three weeks in advance.

A team at the Oregon State University has begun a three-year study looking at the effects of poor air quality on cattle

Kim Anderson conducted tests on air quality during the 2018 wildfire season. “People think air inside their house is perfectly clean, and that if we close all the windows when it is smoky outside there will be zero contaminants inside. That’s just not true,” she said in a press release from OSU in 2020.  

Fisheries managers in Oregon are increasingly identifying and grappling with threats posed by illegally introduced or invasive species overlapping with native fish populations. 

OSU Fish and Wildlife specialists say salmon and trout are so adapted to cold water that they have very little tolerance to warm waters.

“It appears that, overall, agencies are doing well with adjusting the timing of hunting seasons, reducing season lengths and maintaining later hunting seasons as supported by previous research,” added study lead author Jonathan Dinkins, an assistant professor of Animal Sciences.

A new study of the genetic profiles of wild and hatchery coho salmon demonstrates important distinctions in how the two types of fish form mating pairs.

Dry farming was more prevalent before farmers turned to irrigation, said Amy Garrett, president of the Dry Farming Institute and Oregon State University Extension small farms programs instructor. She’s met longtime dry farmers raising crops that researchers weren’t aware could be grown without irrigation.

The research team, which included Environmental & Molecular Toxicology faculty Robyn Tanguay and Lisa Truong and graduate fellow Claudia Santillan, sought to answer important but largely neglected questions regarding the massive global sunscreen market, predicted by market data firm Statista to be worth more than $24 billion by the end of the decade.

Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute has been awarded a $2 million grant to collect data about distribution and density of marine mammals and seabirds that will be used to inform decisions about offshore wind energy development.

This research uses nonlethal and minimally invasive monitoring techniques (i.e., analyzing feces, respiratory vapor, blubber biopsy, drone images).

Tide gates control water movement in rivers, which allows for more dry land and agriculture. But, these gates also obstruct the natural flow of water. Guillermo Giannico is a professor at Oregon State University and joins us with details on how these gates affect the wildlife around them.

The voices of gardeners growing plants to connect with their heritage, culture and identity.

Oregon State researchers will work with scientists at Washington State University and the University of California, Davis, on the four-year project, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The College of Agricultural Sciences is fortunate to benefit from the contributions of many current and former members of the U.S. military — students, faculty, staff, alumni, and many others.

In honor of Veterans Day 2021, we have begun to compile some of their stories here.

Thank you for all who serve.

The American food system wastes food and resources, in part because raw materials are discarded during processing. This waste, especially of protein sources, is highly concerning as scientists predict that climate change will exacerbate existing protein deficiencies. The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research is providing a $333,777 Seeding...

Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu, Ph.D., holds a courtesy faculty position in the Department of Horticulture. Her lab focuses on understanding the impacts of multiple stressors on bee health and how best to formulate strategies to mitigate or counteract such stressors. She uses an array of transdisciplinary tools and approaches across various fields such as bee physiology, bee nutrition, bee toxicology, bee neuroethology, multiomics, pollinator biology, and apiculture practices.

Vanguard Scientific of Aurora, Oregon has donated a MIDAS XII to Oregon State University. This equipment significantly augments the capacity to extract essential oils from agricultural commodities such as hemp and hops and provides exciting new opportunities to faculty from across campus for research and industry partnerships. Installation costs for the entire process line was provided by a donation by Natural Plant Products of Salem OR with additional financial support from the College of Agricultural Sciences, Global Hemp Innovation Center, Linus Pauling Institute, the College of Pharmacy, and Department of Food Science & Technology. FST thanks everyone for their donations and support.

The OSU scientists working with the school’s Global Hemp Innovation Center are exploring whether spent-hemp biomass can be used to feed sheep, dairy cows and poultry.

Thanks to everyone who attended the Dean’s Dinner on Friday, October 15, 2021. So wonderful to gather together again and celebrate our AgSci community and honor our award winners.

Dr. David W. Bohnert is the recipient of the Western Section American Society of Animal Science Extension Award, presented to him during the 2021 Western Section Meeting held in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Bernadine Strik, Ph.D., a veteran professor of horticulture and a berry crop specialist and researcher at Oregon State University, was honored with the Duke Galletta Award for Excellence in Horticultural Research by the North American Blueberry Council (NABC). 

Dr. Christina A. Mireles DeWitt, Director of the Seafood Research and Education Center and Interim Director for the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station, was recently named as one of 11 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Fellows for 2021.

A thank you to Northwest Farm Credit Services for their support of student programs

New research from Oregon State University Extension Service found slugs and snails are strongly attracted to bread dough, a discovery that could lead to better ways of controlling these serious pests of agriculture, nurseries and home gardens.

“All in all, fall is the perfect time to select and plant a tree,” said Neil Bell, horticulturist with OSU’s Extension Service. “Wait for the leaves to start changing color and go for it.”

“The texture of a soil is its proportion of sand, silt and clay,” said James Cassidy, a soils instructor at OSU. “Texture determines all kinds of things like drainage, aeration, the amount of water the soil can hold, erosion potential and even the amount of nutrients that can be stored.”

Fall is a time to enjoy the harvest of summer, but don’t hang up your trowel and pull off your gloves just yet – September through November is the best time to plant garlic.

“There’s an old saying that the most important ingredient in the garden is the gardener’s shadow,” said Linda Brewer, senior faculty research assistant at OSU's Department of Horticulture. “And the most important ingredient in the compost bin is the composter’s shadow.”

“Saving seed can be really fun and is a great way to learn about plants,” said Weston Miller, a horticulturist with Oregon State University Extension Service. “If you choose the right types of vegetables, you can keep them going year after year without buying them again.”

July 15, 1941-August 22, 2021

Don, passed away in his sleep on Sunday, August 22, 2021. Just 4 weeks prior he learned that he had an aggressive, untreatable cancer. It was just enough time for all his family to come and be with him.

November 6, 1940 - October 7, 2021

Mike remained active until the last months of his very full life. In recent years, Mike and Gladys traveled to Mongolia to see the annual national celebration, took a safari across Kenya, cruised the Christmas markets of Europe, and ventured to the Galapagos and Machu Pichu.

June 30, 1929 - October 7, 2021

Ron attended U.C. Davis, where he graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Plant Science and Viticulture. He then attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he earned his PhD in Botany and Plant Pathology. Post graduation, Ron accepted a professorship position at Oregon State College (University), in Corvallis, specializing in plant pathology, where he taught for 25+ years.

January 16, 1962 - September 2021