CALS Perspectives Magazine Winter 2015 by NC State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS)

NC STATE UNIVERSITY

perspectives

Winter 2015

The M Th Magazine i off th the C College ll off A Agriculture i lt andd Lif Life S Sciences i

‘We need another GREEN REVOLUTION, and we need it in half the time.’ ‘It’s not about being a democrat or republican. It is about agriculture and d.’

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industry’s heartbeat.’

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Feeding a Growing World

‘Hungry Hun u gry ry ppeo peop e pllee eo eop are ree mean e people peop people.’ peo e e.’

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The Zeitgeist of the 2014 North Carolina Agriculture and Biotechnology Summit

sely

Becky Kirkland

The Green Revolution Legacy

e need another green revolution, and we need it in half the time.”

Those are the words of National Geographic writer

Joel Bourne Jr., speaking at the 2014 North Carolina Agriculture and Biotechnology Summit, a two-day think tank hosted in November by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the N.C. Biotechnology Center. The subject on the table was food – and how

During the Agriculture and Biotechnology Summit, Dean Richard Linton (left) hosted a session with industry leaders (center, left to right) Jim Blome of Bayer CropScience, Dr. Wayne Holden of RTI International and Nevin McDougall of BASF Corp., along with NC State Provost Warwick Arden, moderator (right). (Story, page 2)

to keep it on the table for a global population projected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050. Among the conference discussions and presentations from interna-

productivity in the developing world. It was led by Dr. Norman Borlaug, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his development of high-yielding

tionally renowned participants, there emerged consistent themes:

wheat varieties. And it was Borlaug’s colleague, Dr. Ralph Cummings,

Agriculture – what the farmer produces – is our most important indus-

who, from 1956 to 1966, helped build research programs and agricul-

try; resources are precious; and biotechnological advances are essential

tural research universities in India and led the first import of Borlaug’s

to meeting future food security needs.

wheat varieties, which transformed India’s agriculture. Cummings, a

As former N.C. Gov. Jim Hunt said at the summit, “With advances

1933 CALS soil science graduate who had a career of world leadership

in agriculture and biotechnology, we can have more food to feed people

in fighting hunger, oversaw NC State’s technical assistance programs in

who are hungry. Excellent education and scientific research are the keys

Peru and the Philippines. He also served as head of the CALS Agronomy

to our future.”

Department and as NC State administrative dean of research. Among

And N.C. Sen. Brent Jackson summed it up with, “If farmers are the soul of agriculture, biotechnology is the industry’s heartbeat.” Food production is the world’s most critical grand challenge. The time is now, and the college is positioned to help find the answers to the big questions surrounding food production. In this issue of Perspectives, we take you through the summit’s two days, sharing dialogues on technology and choice, GMOs and food safe-

his many accolades is the Presidential End Hunger Award from USAID. It’s a legacy CALS is proud of as we embark upon programs that will make possible the next green revolution. Throughout this issue you’ll find news of our research, extension and teaching efforts in grain production, plant sciences, microbial biology, farm safety, water pollution, horticulture, food processing and so much more. It all exemplifies how we are taking action. Now.

ty, the power of plants, innovation in agriculture, facts about waste and want, and the future of food. The conversations take us from pondering the end of plenty to focusing on how our state – and our college – can

Richard Linton

be a global engine for food production, innovation and enterprise.

Dean

It’s important to note that Bourne references the previous Green Revolution: initiatives taking place between the 1940s and 1960s that included the application of modern technology to improve agricultural

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

NC STATE UNIVERSITY

perspectives

Perspectives is online at the CALS News Center: www.cals.ncsu.edu/agcomm/news-center/

The Magazine of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Winter 2015 Vol. 17, No. 1

F E AT U R E S 2

Design and Layout: Vickie Matthews

Staff Writers: Natalie E. Hampton, Terri Leith, Dee Shore, Suzanne Stanard

5 7

Printed on recycled paper. 32,500 copies of this public document were printed at a cost of $18,616, or $.57 per copy. Printed by PBM Graphics, Durham, N.C.

Strange Invader Extension takes on hydrilla, the ‘King Kong of aquatic weeds.’

College Profile Dr. José Alonso’s groundbreaking explorations land him on a list of the world’s most influential scientists.

Sylvia Blankenship, Associate Dean for Administration

Celeste D. Brogdon, Director of Alumni and External Relations

Focus Forward NC State University’s largest outreach effort, the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, enters its second century with a new strategic plan focused on agriculture, food and 4-H youth development.

Joe Zublena, Associate Dean and Director, North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service

Keith D. Oakley, Executive Director, Advancement, 919.515.2000

High-Order Thinking With help from a CALS scientist, students from one of the most underserved counties in the state will operate a biotech company right out of their high-school lab.

Richard H. Linton, Dean and Executive Director for Agricultural Programs

Steve Lommel, Associate Dean and Director, North Carolina Agricultural Research Service

‘Dynamic, Fluid and Awesome!’ Master planning ensures the beautiful functionality of the JC Raulston Arboretum – and continually reaffirms the unique prescience of its namesake.

William R. “Randy” Woodson, Chancellor

Sam Pardue, Associate Dean and Director, Academic Programs

Growing the Grain Industry Solutions benefit both crop and animal producers.

Perspectives is published by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at North Carolina State University. Third Class Postage paid at Raleigh, NC 27611. Correspondence and requests for change of address should be addressed to Perspectives Editor, Box 7603, NC State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7603.

Of Waste and Want Meeting the looming global food crisis is the issue at hand as CALS co-hosts the 2014 North Carolina Agriculture and Biotechnology Summit.

Managing Editor: Terri Leith

Staff Photographers: Becky Kirkland, Marc Hall, Roger Winstead

contents

NOTEWORTHY 21

News NC State receives grant to improve African sweet potatoes • Chill out with JuVn8 grape smoothie • Important implications: CALS team studies the distinct inflorescence structure of the dogwood • Extension farmworkers health and safety education program connects growers, immigrant farm workers and communities • CALS research sheds light on toxic arsenic problem in Southeast Asian well water • Extension’s facilitation team adds value to communities • Reunion, Soilbration bring alumni, friends back to CEFS

Alumni Collins, Talley honored as 2014 CALS Distinguished Alumni • Barrett Kays breaks new ground in career spanning soil science and landscape architecture • Remembering T. Carlton Blalock, former CES director and National 4-H Hall of Fame laureate

Giving Full STEAM ahead: Alternative admissions program benefactors host students and families • Collins Endowment receives $1 million from Altria • $2-million gift from Gail and Joe Dunn funds new student leadership program honoring Adolph Warren

The Cover: The 2014 N.C. Agriculture and Biotechnology Summit produced a cornucopia of defining ideas about feeding future global populations. (Story, page 2)

Waste and

Want

Meeting the looming global food crisis is the issue at hand as CALS co-hosts the 2014 North Carolina Agriculture and Biotechnology Summit. by Suzanne Stanard

he world population is projected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050. Between now and then, we will need to produce more food than we have in the previous 10,000 years. How will we feed a rapidly growing and changing world population? How will we enhance technologies sufficiently enough – somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 to 100 percent – to double the food supply in just 35 years? Not to mention doing it with less land, a decreasing water supply and new pests and diseases that plague both plant and animal production. These astonishing statistics – and the myriad questions they spawn – were the bases of an intensive two-day conference hosted by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at NC State University and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. Nearly 500 participants convened at the McKimmon Conference Center in Raleigh on Nov. 18 and 19 for the 2014 North Carolina Agriculture and Biotechnology Summit. “The summit brought together the very best scientists and food, agricultural and life sciences experts from North Carolina and around the world to discuss the issues, technologies and obstacles facing global food production,” said CALS Dean Richard Linton. “This event was a tremendous success, and I believe it will generate even more innovation and collaboration among industry, government and academia to help solve the most critical grand global challenge.” 2

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In his opening keynote speech on the first day of the summit, Dr. Steve Savage, agricultural technology consultant of Savage and Associates, said, “There is no single technology that will feed the world. What will feed the world are farmers.” This sentiment resonated throughout the two-day event, from its first mention Tuesday morning to closing remarks delivered that Wednesday afternoon by former N.C. Gov. Jim Hunt. “This is the work we do in the college every single day,” Linton said. “We’re helping farmers become more productive, improving the quality of food and exploring ways to grow it faster, safer, more sustainably and resistant to diseases, pests and drought.” Following Savage’s presentation on day one was a lively panel discussion on GMO labeling, during which Washington Post reporter Tamar Haspel deftly moderated a wide-ranging conversation among those on both sides of the issue. Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy, director of the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), delivered an eye-opening keynote address during lunch on day one: “Can Plants Do Everything?” According to Ramaswamy, the answer is a resounding, “Yes.” “Plants can do a lot for food security,” he said. “The cornucopia of chemistries that plants can make is mind-boggling.” He later exclaimed as he held up his smart phone, “Even our phones depend on plants.”

Marc Hall

Dr. Rebecca Boston of CALS Plant and Microbial Biology has a question for one of the summit speakers.

He described feeding the world as the “mother of all wicked problems” and implored the audience to consider the “low-hanging fruit” that should be addressed immediately to help alleviate global food shortages: Stop throwing away so much food. “In the developed world, almost half of food is lost at the dinner table,” Ramaswamy said. “In the United States, we’re wasting 131 billion pounds of food per year, which equals about 1,200 calories per person per day. Another consequence of this food waste is the loss of one quadrillion liters of water per year worldwide.” In another startling statistic, Ramaswamy said that a billion people across the world go to bed hungry each night, while another billion deal with obesity-related health issues like high blood pressure and heart disease. After Ramaswamy’s talk, the afternoon featured two panel discussions: “Technology Solutions for our Future” and “Do We Have a Food/Technology Dilemma?” Late afternoon keynote addresses by Dr. Todd Armstrong of Elanco and Jay Byrne of v-Fluence Interactive focused on informing and educating the public about the important role of biotechnology in feeding the world. A special “Dinner Dialogues” session bridged the summit’s two days by engaging industry leaders in critical conversations that addressed the grand challenge of feeding the world. NC State Provost Warwick Arden moderated a conversation among Jim Blome, president and CEO of Bayer CropScience; Dr. Wayne Holden, president and CEO of RTI

Marc Hall

Becky Kirkland

Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy, NIFA director, describes feeding the world as “the mother of all wicked problems.” Farmer Beth Foster (right) gives a keynote address on food security and sustainability.

International; and Nevin McDougall, senior vice president with BASF Corp. “Having these industry leaders together at the same table for such a thoughtful and thought-provoking conversation was significant,” Linton said. “I think that one of the summit’s biggest successes was serving as a springboard for more conversations like this one. I really believe that we have the leadership in North Carolina to be game-changers.” Steve Troxler, commissioner of the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, kicked off the summit’s second day. “We’re about partnerships in North Carolina, and I’m proud of our network,” Troxler said. And during remarks about why food is a serious global security issue, Troxler made perhaps one of the summit’s most tweeted statements: “Hungry people are mean people.” Joel Bourne Jr., CALS agronomy graduate and contributing writer for National Geographic, followed Troxler with a compelling presentation, “The End of Plenty,” in which he explored food insecurity and the potential path for a “greener revolution” to stave off a continual food crisis in much of the world. “Three million children die every year of malnutrition,” Bourne said. “It’s the primary underlying cause of the global burden of disease. And one billion people lack access to clean water.” Citing Norman Bourlag’s work to bring about an astounding “green revolution” in the

National Geographic writer Joel Bourne Jr. , a CALS alumnus, speaks of “The End of Plenty” and describes the need for a dramatic increase in production to meet future demand. winter 2015

3 Marc Hall

Becky Kirkland

Marc Hall

Panelists Dr. Steve Shafer and Dr. Cecilia Chi-Ham (left photo) discuss the food/technology dilemma; former N.C. Gov. Jim Hunt (middle) delivers a call to action; and CALS alumnus and farmer Bo Stone (right, center), with fellow panelists, considers the issue of food-product GMO labeling.

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Baker suggested, set an appointment with an elected official. “Advocate, educate, cultivate. Share your science,” she said. “It’s not about being a democrat or republican. It is about agriculture and biotechnology. We’ve got a world to feed. “As Paul Harvey said, ‘God made a farmer.’ It’s up to everyone here today to tell ‘the rest of that story.’” Also during lunch that day, two sets of awards were presented: the Innovation Fair Awards and the CALS Outstanding Research Awards. The Innovation Fair, a marketplace of ideas where CALS scientists and their interdisciplinary collaborators showcased ongoing and emerging scientific research, took place throughout the summit’s second day. Dr. Keith Harris, assistant professor of food science, won first place in the Innovation Fair Awards competition. Dr. Linda Robles and Dr. Kamy Singer, both postdoctoral research associates in plant and microbial biology, took second and third place, respectively. The CALS Outstanding Research Awards winners, Dr. Anna Stepanova, assistant professor, and graduate student Alice Broadhead, both of the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, were determined by online voting on YouTube videos created and submitted by the candidates. This competition celebrated the ingenuity and innovation of the college’s scientists and awarded flexible funding to help support their research programs. After lunch, a series of keynote addresses focused on what can be done at the local, national and international levels to advance food production, security and sustainability.

Speakers were Beth Foster, farmer and secretary/treasurer of the Blackland Farm Managers Association; Sen. Brent Jackson (NC-10); Richard McKellogg, director of produce and floral merchandising for Lowe’s Foods; and Larry Wooten, president of the N.C. Farm Bureau Federation. In the final session of the summit, “The Time is Now: Action Planning to Shape the Future of Food,” 35 facilitators representing state agencies, non-profit organizations, private businesses, Cooperative Extension and Industrial Extension led small-group discussions about how to seize new opportunities while meeting the challenges presented throughout the summit. Outcomes from the facilitated sessions will be used by action teams to be convened in the year ahead. This session was spearheaded by Dr. Mary Lou Addor of Cooperative Extension and Larry Roberts of the Roberts Business Group. Who better to wrap up the summit than former N.C. Gov. Jim Hunt, one of the earliest advocates for biotechnology in North Carolina? Hunt charged the audience to make a difference in the world. “With advances in agriculture and biotechnology, we can have more food to feed people who are hungry,” he said. “We can create a better world, and we should.” Reflecting on the event, Linton said he believes North Carolina is uniquely positioned to be a global leader in agriculture and biotechnology. “The time is now,” he said. “We are positioned to find answers to the big questions surrounding world food production. And this summit put us one step closer.”

1960s which is credited with saving more than a billion people worldwide from starvation, Bourne said, “A dramatic increase in production is required to meet population demand by 2050. We need another green revolution, and we need it in half the time.” Bourne suggested a number of potential solutions, including aquaculture, which in some parts of the world is spawning a “blue revolution” of undersea farming; desalinating ocean water; treating municipal wastewater; making biofuels out of non-food crops like algae and switchgrass; and educating girls in developing countries on family planning, to reduce fertility rates. “We could go a long way in easing the looming food crisis,” Bourne said. “It’s time to get started.” Following Bourne’s talk was a multimedia session, “Innovation in Action,” that spotlighted a dozen of the college’s researchers and the important work they’re doing to address the grand challenge of feeding the world. Dr. MeeCee Baker, president and CEO of the agricultural public affairs firm Versant Strategies, delivered a lunchtime keynote address that rallied summit participants to be advocates for agriculture and the life sciences. “We are confronting gross misunderstandings of agriculture,” she said. “Food fears and other misinformation about agriculture are fueled by the media, especially social media.” Each day, Baker said, “Be an advocate for agriculture. Keep the conversation moving along.” She advised the audience to try weekly to “educate someone, deliberately. There are many things we can do to make a difference.” And at least once a month,

GROWING F

the Grain Industry Solutions benefit both crop and animal producers.

Becky Kirkland

or years, the poultry and livestock industry has been North Carolina’s largest source of agricultural income and jobs. But with that industry’s future here in peril because of a 200-million-bushel-a-year feed grain deficit, agricultural leaders from private industry, commodity groups, government and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences went searching for a solution. And that solution has proven to be a winner not just for livestock but also for crop producers looking for new opportunities. Today, thanks to the North Carolina Feed Grain Initiative, North Carolina farmers are planting some 500,000 acres more in feed grains than they did in 2010. That has cut the amount of feed imported to the state from the Midwest grain belt and overseas by nearly 19 percent.

Being able to buy these grains locally has made a big difference – millions of dollars’ worth of a difference – for livestock and poultry producers, because it cuts the cost of transporting grains to feed North Carolinagrown animals. When the initiative started four years ago, the 200 million bushels of feed grains brought into North Carolina represented more than two-thirds of the total consumed each year by the livestock industry. And the price of getting it here was soaring. Dr. Terry Coffey is chief science and technology officer with the state’s – and the world’s – largest hog producer, Murphy Brown LLC. He explained that with feed grains constituting 60 to 70 percent of the cost of raising a hog for food production, the company was finding it less expensive to produce hogs in

by Dee Shore states closer to the feed-grain supply than to its headquarters in Warsaw, North Carolina. “And if you look at the long run, if your major cost input is becoming more and more expensive relative to the cost of your competition, then your business will become economically unviable,” he added. Keeping North Carolina poultry and livestock producers viable long term meant breaking the decades-old tradition of importing feed grains by rail and by ship and, instead, buying local. But being able to buy local grains meant that farmers here needed to produce more local grains. How to make that happen? From the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ standpoint, that meant launching an all-out research and outreach push to help growers understand how they could increase yields of grains they already grew and to identify other grain crops that might be profitable. Sorghum, a corn-like grain often grown in deserts, seemed to be a possible match for the southern coastal plains’ sandy soils. And so, in 2011, Murphy Brown teamed with the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and several Cooperative Extension agents to begin a pilot program for North Carolina farmers wanting to try sorghum production. In the meantime, Drs. Wes Everman, Ron Heiniger and Randy Weisz, all in the CALS Department of Crop Science, signed on to start testing the crop the coming season. Murphy Brown and other agricultural companies began contracting with growers to buy the sorghum at attractive prices – prices so attractive that winter grower meetings with the Crop Science specialists and Extension agents were packed with interested farmers. Everman, who guides the college’s sorghum-related efforts, recalled that “all of a sudden, we were filling rooms with 300 or 400 people wanting to hear about grain sorghum” – a situation he found “rather frightening.” “Our estimates were that somewhere around 40,000 to 100,000 acres of sorghum were going to go in the ground that first year

winter 2015

Photos by Becky Kirkland

without us ever doing a lick of research,” he said. To avoid crop failures, growers needed to have research-based information on everything from how far apart to plant their seeds to how to dry the crop before harvest. So the NC State scientists completely changed their research plans, quickly pulling together comprehensive production guides and fact sheets and offering training seminars and webinars. Meanwhile, a group of NC State economists – Drs. Nick Piggott, Michele Marra and Kelly Zering, as well as Extension Associate Mitchell Buck, all from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics – began preparing financial information and tools that would help growers make decisions about whether to grow sorghum and how to do so profitably. Everman said, “The growers picked up on it very quickly, and the county Extension agents ran with it. That first year we had around 72,000 to 73,000 acres of sorghum – a tenfold increase in a single season, which is unheard of.” Production went even higher in 2013, but the weather didn’t cooperate. Many sorghum producers were rotating the crop into their fields after harvesting their winter wheat, but it was such a rainy spring that some of them couldn’t harvest the wheat on time, Everman said. That meant sorghum went into the fields later than it should have, and it suffered from diseases brought on by continued wet weather. “All told, I think we topped 100,000 acres that year, but a lot of those acres weren’t successful in the eyes of the growers,” Everman said. “So this year, they planted probably half that.”

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Still, Everman and agricultural economist Piggott think there is a good future for sorghum in the state. “The future is encouraging for further expansion of feed grain production. The livestock producers are transforming into motivated purchasers of local feed grains,” Piggott said. “Importantly, they will pass the savings incurred from not having to procure feed grains from the Midwest on to the feed grain growers with higher local prices.” Everman expects North Carolina sorghum production levels to vary for a few years but to level off at around 100,000 to 200,000 acres. “Farmers are like everybody else – they are creatures of habit, and they want a reliable income,” he said. “So once we get sorghum to be reliable for them, they will buy in a little bit more.” Making sorghum reliable means coming up with production strategies that ensure sorghum’s profitability. And that is the focus of ongoing work by College scientists, economists and Cooperative Extension agents. They have found, for example, that rotating winter wheat with summer sorghum, rather than the traditional soybean crop, offers several advantages: Sorghum can yield a higher financial return than soybeans, and sorghum can also reduce problematic nematode and weed populations in fields that have been used for soybeans. The college is also comparing hybrids, while Murphy Brown works with seed producers to generate varieties that are more suited to North Carolina conditions. Scientists meanwhile are looking more deeply at weed and disease issues, Everman said, including how to best prevent or manage a disease that causes the grain to mold, which can sicken hogs. At the same time, CALS students are studying whether the biomass left in the field after sorghum is harvested binds up nitrogen so that wheat doesn’t get a good

Dr. Wes Everman (right) and Dr. Randy Weisz check up on a field of sorghum, a crop they’re working with farmers to grow as a profitable feed grain.

start – and, if that’s the case, then what can be done about it. Students also are studying a natural chemical called sorgoleone, which sorghum exudes in its root hairs. The chemical inhibits the growth of plants near the sorghum, Everman explained, “so the students are looking at what impacts it has on the weed populations nearby. “With our troubles with herbicide-resistant weeds like Palmer amaranth, is this another tool to help manage them in a rotation?” he asked. “But then detrimental effects on a double-crop wheat system have been shown.” As CALS faculty work to expand the knowledge base surrounding sorghum, they are being joined by faculty from nearby states. Given what’s happened in North Carolina, Virginia Tech and Clemson universities have joined in, while people in Delaware and Maryland have expressed interest, Everman said. As a young faculty member, Everman has found it exciting “to see NC State at the forefront of such an important issue – able to provide information that farmers needed when they needed it” and to anticipate the questions they’ll have about feed grains production in the future.” At the other end of the spectrum, retiring professor Weisz said he’s pleased at the promise the initiative has helped create for North Carolina’s agricultural future. As he pointed out, the survival of the industry he has worked with for decades – small grains – is tied directly to the survival of animal agriculture here. “It is critical to wheat growers,” he said, “because about 50 percent of North Carolina’s wheat goes to the animal industry.” Coffey also emphasized the important relationship of animal and crop production and the initiative’s impact on that relationship in North Carolina. The initiative has “not just been a win for the livestock producers of this state, it’s also a win for the landowners and the farmers and related crop production industries,” he said. “And it can improve the economic picture in all of North Carolina because we can keep the money that we’ve been spending elsewhere on feed ingredients. “I think it’s transforming agriculture in North Carolina,” he added. “I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.”

‘Dynamic, Fluid and

Awesome!’

Master planning ensures the beautiful functionality of the JC Raulston Arboretum – and continually reaffirms the unique prescience of its namesake.

One of the arb infrastructure projects J.C. Raulston was planning before his death was an education center that would seemingly disappear into the landscape. In 2002, the opening of the Ruby C. McSwain Education Center (shown here) fulfilled that vision.

Terri Leith

by Terri Leith

Terri Leith

n 1975, when Dr. James Chester “J.C.” Raulston joined the horticultural science faculty at N.C. State University, he didn’t yet have a master plan to create the university arboretum that would someday bear his name. But it wasn’t too long before he had one. By fall 1976, he had enlisted the assistance of

Courtesy JCRA

Raulston modeled the creation of the arboretum’s Klein-Pringle White Garden (above) on the white garden at England’s Sissinghurst Castle. Among new millennium Master Plan projects was the move and expansion of the Color Trials (below), displaying new cultivars of bedding plants.

Fielding Scarborough, an NC State landscape architecture graduate student, in coming up with just such a plan, a guide for building the arboretum. It provided an overview for what an eight-acre portion of the Research Farm Unit 4 on Beryl Road could (and ultimately would) become: a place for researching new plants, an outdoor classroom for teaching horticulture classes, a nursery industry outreach resource for new landscape plants and a gorgeous garden to attract visitors from far and near. “When you build a botanical garden or arboretum, the correct way to do it is to develop a master plan based on a mission statement and then move to implement that plan – usually starting with infrastructure (i.e., buildings), then moving on to plants,” says Bryce Lane, the retired Horticultural Science Department Alumni Distinguished Professor who, from July through December of this year, served his second stint as an interim director of the arboretum in NC State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “But we basically built this place backwards – no buildings, no infrastructure,” Lane says. “J.C. started with plants, retrofitted old buildings, then raised money for new buildings.” winter 2015

It’s not surprising that the world-renowned horticulturist “started with plants,” given that Raulston’s expertise and passion guided the selection of the plants that came to make up what is now a 10.5-acre collection of more than 7,000 woody plants. (It’s the most diverse collection of woody plants in the United States, according to Raulston’s former student Tony Avent, owner of Raleigh’s Plant Delights Nursery.) Budget constraints also played a role in the order of things, says Lane: “Plants came first, because those were free! J.C. was well connected to nurseries.” “There was a method in everything J.C. did,” adds Lane, who came to the CALS Department of Horticultural Science in 1981 and worked with Raulston “on a number of fronts – teaching and then garden projects out here with students.” Before Raulston’s December 1996 death in a car accident, he had been hard at work planning and raising funds to develop that infrastructure, starting with an education

It was and is an elegant facility with a rooftop garden and grotto fountain cascade – a teaching, office, conference and visitor center that seemingly disappears into the landscape, just as Raulston envisioned it would. The continuation of his vision has been overseen by succeeding arb directors Lane (who first served as interim for the two years after Raulston’s death), Dr. Bob Lyons, Kim Powell, Dr. Denny Werner and Dr. Ted Bilderback, who retired this past summer. Equally important, the master planning process did not stop with Scarborough’s concepts that launched the evolution of the space from Research Farm Unit 4 to the Horticulture Field Laboratory to the NCSU Arboretum to JC Raulston Arboretum. “Fielding Scarborough’s first master plan was more of a road map than a master plan per se,” says Lane. “Then came this incredible

sands of dollars,” says Lane. “It is phenomenal that they would take all the time to do it. And that volunteer group is still active.” In 2006, the group – including garden and landscape professionals, CALS horticulture alumni, volunteers and other arb enthusiasts – came together and worked on the plan, a process that included extensive interviews with potential stakeholders, so that the plan would reflect all their ideas and needs. The co-coordinators of that Master Plan Committee were Suzanne Edney and Harriet Bellerjeau. The two landscape design professionals had close ties to J.C. Raulston and to the arboretum as volunteers over the past 30 years, as they honed their businesses. They wished to give back to the place and person that gave them so much encouragement in their field. Courtesy Suzanne Edney

(Left photo) In 1976, graduate student Fielding Scarborough (left) joined J.C. Raulston in presenting a guide for building the arboretum. In 2007 and 2013, more “incredible Collaborations” brought forth updated master plans for growth and improvements to the arb. Shown above at a November 2014 gathering are Master Plan Committee members (from left) Dave Josephus, Arnette Clark, Harriet Bellerjeau, Jeff Evans, Kate Hanser and Suzanne Edney. Courtesy JCRA

building. He had enlisted Andy Hensley, an architect and landscape designer, to draw up a plan that included the education center. (Hensley’s plan called for the center’s distinctive placement, with the Main Path along the Perennial Border transitioning onto the rooftop of the building.) And in 2002, the Ruby C. McSwain Education Center had its official opening at the JC Raulston Arboretum (named in February 1997).

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collaboration of faculty, nurserymen and landscape architects.” He is referring to the “grassroots” Master Plan of 2007 and its 2013 update, both developed by a group that has continued to guide and contribute to the arboretum’s growth as new installations and improvements come into being. “The individuals and architects who drew it up in 2006 were all volunteers. Otherwise it would have cost tens of thou-

Says Edney, “J.C.’s vision for building a place to display plants from all over the world began with securing an eight-acre portion of the research farm. His enlistment of faculty, students and members of the landscaping community was essentially the beginning of a community volunteer effort. “By 1984 there was a healthy volunteer base assisting J.C. to implement and maintain his more complicated ideas for the gardens.

The Tour Guide Program was also put into place,” Edney recalls. In the early 2000s, after the completion of the McSwain Education Center complex and as the arboretum’s reputation grew among garden enthusiasts from around the world, it came time for a major overhaul of the total garden design, she says. “It wasn’t until 2006 that the all-volunteer Master Planning Committee was formed to take on the task of revisiting the design of the grounds with an added two acres.” Edney says that, by then, the JCRA was in need of a master plan to continue a legacy that included “outreach to the public for education

The Scree Garden (above), a loose-gravelbased area, is one of the installations from the 2007 Master Plan. At right are newly named JCRA director Mark Weathington (left) and Bryce Lane, retired horticultural science professor, who served this past year as interim director.

and pleasure, as well as continuing its vital role in researching plants from all over the world that would be suitable for introduction into the nursery trade of North Carolina and then into landscapes beautifying our state.” Edney and Bellerjeau had helped to build the volunteer program, so “it was natural for us to think that we could assemble like-minded designers, landscape architects, artists and nurserymen who also had ties to the JCRA and wanted to give back.”

Their next step was to approach Werner, then the incoming director, to like the idea as well, she recalls. “He was very interested in seeing this grassroots effort succeed. With his blessing we spent the summer collecting and collating (with other volunteers) the needs, ideas and desires of the members, board, staff, students, volunteers and the public as to what they envisioned for the JCRA’s future.” The committee had a mantra from Werner: “It’s all about the plants.” “That was always foremost in our minds,” says Edney. “We, as designers, wanted to present the exciting plant collection in a beautiful and fully Courtesy JCRA accessible manner – accessible to the public, as well as the staff and volunteers for maintenance. So a very broad,

spacial, conceptual planning approach was taken, creating areas that could be developed over time. “We are now in an implementation stage that will continue for years. As priorities are identified, the Master Plan Committee has been designing the details for specialty areas,” she says. “We have also encouraged invitations to previous graduates from NC State, hoping they become involved in the designing of specific areas.” Overseeing the ongoing implementation of the grassroots plan and its recent update is Mark Weathington, who was named in December as the new JCRA director, after serving as assistant director since 2007.

“Master planning enables us to be more strategic and less reactionary in our growth, which provides the opportunity to focus on the areas where we can be most effective,” Weathington says. “The 2007 plan set the tone and provided the priorities for the garden. It was quite conceptual in nature and provides the framework and flow for the 2013 update.” Meanwhile, he says, “the newest plan builds on the 2007 one, fleshing out more details and applying what we have learned in the intervening years. The process has not changed a great deal in that time. The designers still meet with staff for several hours as a group once a week to refine the plan.” Among the Master Plan projects and accomplishments: In 2007, the A.E. Finley Rooftop Terrace renovation, Scree Garden (loose-gravel-based) installation and pedestrian entrance improvement; in 2008, the Southwestern Becky Kirkland Garden renovation and expansion into the Xeric Garden (low-moisturerequiring plants), as well as an accessible central path installation along the main Perennial Border; in 2009, the Asian Valley expansion, first plantings in newly acquired land (Plantsman’s Woods) and Color Trials moved to newly acquired land; in 2010, the Japanese Garden renovation and Lath House (shade garden) construction; in 2011, the Monocot Garden; in 2012, the Plantsman’s Wood accessible path; and in 2013, the Dwarf Conifer beds and the paver path through Asian Valley. Additionally, the JCRA houses the university’s first green roof, atop the McSwain Center, “which is a step or two above the typical green roof planting,” says Weathington. “Our Scree Garden and Xeric Garden provide an environment that is quite different than the typical North Carolina garden, allowing us to grow a range of plants not typically

winter 2015

Courtesy JCRA

The A.E. Finley Rooftop Terrace atop the McSwain Center is the university’s first green roof. Its creation was part of plans enlisted by Raulston; its renovation was a 2007 Master Plan project.

seen in the area. The Lath House showcases some of the newest and most exciting plants at the JCRA, and the Japanese Garden is always a visitor favorite.” Other recently completed projects include a facelift for the Bobby G. Wilder Visitor Center, accessible pathway through the Scree Garden, and the Southeast’s first crevice garden. A consensus is that Raulston would have approved. “J.C.’s vision was to diversify the American landscape. His plan to collect, grow, evaluate and distribute plants is still at the heart of what we do today,” says Weathington. “All of our newly created spaces allow us to grow and evaluate a wider diversity of material in ever more ornamental ways. “I see what we do as a straight line trajectory from J.C.’s original vision. The trajectory has been steeply upward though. I think he would be amazed and delighted to see where the JCRA is now – collections, gardens, Extension and education programs.” Says Edney, “J.C. liked change. He was always moving forward with new ideas. Implementation of new and better ways to display the diverse plants he brought in from all over the world for evaluation in a safe and accessible garden setting is what he strived for.” ow, more Master Plan projects are afoot. In the McSwain Education Center, Lane rolls out a Master Plan concept drawing of the arb and points to the current location for bedding plants. They were formerly in the big central area now known as the Great Lawn, an area for large-scale events, such as the Gala in the Garden, the JCRA’s annual

fund-raising event. It is one of the “showcase areas” in the garden. Another, the Finley-Nottingham Rose Garden, is now under construction, he says, due to be completed in spring 2015. Weathington explains that the formality and structure of the new rose garden “will help anchor the southeast portion of the garden, which was added to the JCRA only a handful of years ago. It will also provide an opportunity to discuss how breeding goals change over time.” Also planned is the Pavilion area, in the former rose garden space, to be used for weddings or other events. “It’s a naming opportunity. We’re waiting for a donor,” Lane says. Then next to be worked on will be the Beryl Road Pedestrian Entrance.

Terri Leith

perspectives

2010 Master Plan accomplishments include the Lath House (shade garden) construction (above) and the Japanese Garden renovation (right).

Chip Calloway, renowned landscape architect, is providing pro bono design of the updated Pedestrian Entrance, which is in the concept stage, Lane says. Another project in the early planning stages is the Edible Garden. Richard Hartlage, landscape designer and CALS horticultural science alumnus, has agreed (also pro bono) to design it. The Edible Garden, an aesthetic approach to a food crop garden, “is a reflection of a new push, a garden that takes fruits and vegetables and incorporates them in a way that’s ornamental. Richard is very good at that,” says Lane. Adds Lane, “Everything that’s being done here is working toward promoting gardening in this area. We have a children’s gardening program that is bringing children back into the garden. Parents are concerned that their kids get back outside. That’s essential to the future of horticulture. “Within a 3-mile radius of this place, we have grad students and families from all corners of the Earth. The next few years we’re going to tap into making diverse groups feel part of this place.” He also looks forward to the continued growth of the arb’s strong ties with the state nursery industries. “That relationship will grow,” he says, through efforts such as the Courtesy JCRA

The arboretum’s Choice Plants Program identifies plants of merit to potential propagators.

The JCRA children’s education programs cultivate the next generations of horticulturists.

Says Dole, “The Master Plan is doing a wonderful job of making the JCRA easier to navigate for visitors and making it easier to host the many programs the JCRA has to offer. More importantly the JCRA is a beautiful place to spend time, and the Master Plan has made it even more so. “The staff, volunteers and former directors of the JCRA have worked hard to make it a great garden and organization,” says Dole, “and the new director will have much to build upon.” That new director, Weathington, says, “I see the JCRA as the center of horticulture in the Raleigh area and the Southeast. Our trajectory will continue upward with a robust education program, meaningful events, innovative gardens and vital Extension and green industry support. “I think the direction our education programming is taking is incredibly exciting. The Raleigh metro area is the fastest-growing area in the country,” he says. “Many of these newcomers, young and old, are looking to connect with the land. The JCRA provides that link.”

nd it’s immeasurably valuable to the Horticultural Science Department, the college and the community. “The JC Raulston Arboretum is the face of Horticultural Science and CALS,” says Dr. John Dole, head of the department.” To many people the JCRA is the most tangible way they interact with horticultural science and CALS. It brings horticulture to the general public and supports the landscape and nursery industries.” Moreover, the arboretum supports many CALS instructors and courses, says Dole, “and its internship program has trained many students for work in public gardens, industry,

academia and government. The JCRA is the source of much horticulture information to the general public through its educational programs, website and gardens. It helps the landscape and nursery industries by promoting great plants for people to grow.” Adds Weathington, “The JCRA serves as a living laboratory for students and faculty, from not only horticultural science, but also forestry, plant biology, entomology and the College of Design. It gives students an opportunity for hands-on learning. It provides germplasm resources for our ornamental plant breeders and researchers. It also provides a public face for the department, where we can show the many facets of the work being done there. “The JCRA is actively involved with the green industry, providing Extension help which supplements and supports the university’s Extension specialists and agents. The JCRA is also actively cultivating the next generation of horticulturists through a young but actively growing children and family education program.” Lane also notes how the arb well serves the land-grant university mission: “First, in the teaching arena, this instantly became a living lab for many of the courses we teach in horticulture. It has enhanced the horticultural science undergraduate program in more ways than we could have imagined. Second, in research, the arboretum is in and of itself a scientific document. It is a library of genetic information to use in breeding programs. And third, it has become a public garden, an extension garden for plants programs.” He credits the Master Plan group for that perfect fulfillment of the mission: “By virtue of the fact that they interviewed the stakeholders, all of that came about, because the three functions plus more were represented in the planning. That group’s being so thorough made sure research, teaching and extension all got covered. Because they didn’t leave a stone unturned!” Weathington says, “The master plans have really been the blueprint for developing and guiding the growth of the JCRA. With the most recent plan and its update, we have renovated, changed or created new garden spaces for about a quarter of the arboretum. The master plan has enabled us to seek out in-kind donations, pro bono design and labor and major gifts.”

Courtesy JCRA

Choice Plant Program, which identifies plants of merit to potential propagators. “I can’t emphasize enough how one individual’s ideas have had such exponential impact,” he says. “J.C. brought plants here to see if they would grow in North Carolina and then invited nursery professionals to come and see the plants. Here is this public garden where people come to see this beautiful place that is responsible for many of the plants we can now buy. “I’m excited about where this garden is poised to go in the future,” he says, and he encourages everyone “to become part of the plan, the garden, everything, by becoming a friend, a volunteer. “What the Master Plan enables us to do is articulate what we’re about, so people can join in, the donor can give or the family can join. They can literally be part of this community.” In a garden that is still evolving, “nothing is sacred,” he says. “This is about spaces, plants and people and what’s needed at a given time. “Pieces of this puzzle have been ticked off: It’s dynamic, it’s fluid, it’s awesome!”

For more information, see Chloropyll in His Veins: J.C. Raulston, Horticultural Ambassador, by Bobby J. Ward (2009, BJW Books), www. bobbyjward.com, or go to the JCRA website: http://jcra.ncsu.edu/index.php.

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High-Order

Thinking

With help from a CALS scientist, students from one of the most underserved counties in the state will operate a biotech company right out of their high-school lab.

by Suzanne Stanard

Becky Kirkland

or students at Bertie Early College High School (BECHS) who want to be scientists, that dream could become reality before they even graduate. Dr. Matt Koci of the College of Agriculture and Life Science’s Prestage Department of Poultry Science has teamed with BECHS science teacher Bruce Boller to develop a model biotech company that will be run by the school’s students. The company will produce researchquality recombinant proteins – proteins made from a foreign gene and introduced into bacteria using biotechnology – to support active agricultural research projects at NC State and other North Carolina universities. Over the next several years, Koci, associate professor of mucosal immunology, along with Rizwana Ali, Prestage research specialist; Lucas Vann, senior scientist at NC State’s Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center; and Dr. Amy Orders, assistant director of environmental health and public safety at NC State, will work with Boller to teach BECHS students how to use bacteria to produce recombinant protein. “Working in their laboratory at BECHS, as well as attending summer short courses at NC State, the students will go through all the steps of initial process development, process scaleup, production and validation,” Koci said. In other words, students from one of the most underserved (limited resource) counties in the state will operate a biotech company right out of their high-school lab. CALS’ Dr. Matt Koci (top) and BECHS science teacher Bruce Boller (inset) teamed up to develop a model biotech company that will be run by Boller’s students.

perspectives

Becky Kirkland

As part of their training, the BECHS students will come to NC State each summer for an intensive week-long biotechnology “boot camp.”

Boller said. “Then I started Biotech 2 as a pure research course, and I spent the last two summers in Dr. Bob Rose’s lab cutting my teeth on structural biochemistry. “I wanted to provide meaningful projects for my students, so I reached out to people I knew who have research labs. Matt was one of them, and he had this great idea, and here we are.” Koci said that funding from the CALS Dean’s Enrichment grants and the Wynne Fund for Innovation kick-started the project. So, how will the BECHS Biotechnology Company work? The model is simple, Boller said. “Our seniors will serve as mentors to junior apprentices, and then the following year, after the seniors graduate, the former apprentices will lead their own programs as seniors,” he said. “Our school has a fifth-year option so that students who graduate can come back for another year, take online classes and continue working with me. “My ultimate goal would be to have students in my program for two or even three years so they can start out as the lab rat, and then become part of the management, and by the third year, they’re literally running the company.” As part of their training, BECHS students will come to NC State for a week each summer for an intensive biotech “boot camp.” During their visit in July 2014, the students’ packed schedule included everything from hands-on lab training to visits with biotech companies in the Research Triangle Park (RTP). “Next summer we’re going to focus on how to scale up production, working with Lucas Vann at BTEC, as well as having the

students meet with colleagues in RTP to help them develop career skills, like resume writing and interviewing,” Koci said. “Bruce has a fully equipped lab where students learn the fundamentals of molecular biology, biotechnology and research,” he added. “But it’s difficult for most of these students to connect abstract independent laboratory modules back to their daily lives or more importantly to the jobs and careers they see in their community. We’re trying to change that.” The overall goal of this project is to develop an innovative biotechnology teaching model that can be used to give students authentic learning experiences that touch on multiple aspects of the biology, chemistry, physics, economics and guidance elements of the North Carolina Essential and Common Core Standards, according to Koci. “This will help the students link these concepts through higher-order thinking, and more importantly, link biotechnology and science to their daily lives and possible careers,” he said. “We hope that this program ultimately will lead to increased numbers of students from Bertie and other counties who pursue careers in science.” Koci and Boller also said they hope to replicate this project at other high schools throughout the state. “Right now, it’s just baby steps,” Boller said. “But we hope to grow this big enough to create satellite labs and provide teacher workshops. We really want to help other schools be able to offer this awesome opportunity to their students.” Awesome, indeed.

On top of that, Koci said, the students also will interact with various members of the state’s biotechnology industry who will help them develop resumes, as well as interviewing, networking and leadership skills. And they’ll attend national scientific meetings to network, broaden their exposure to science and explore research being done across the country. “Once they have established the core competencies and a reliable expression process, they will then work, with the help of their mentors, to develop a business and marketing plan to find additional university research laboratories that will use their services,” Koci said. “Through this process the students will learn entrepreneurship, accounting, management and other essential job skills.” BECHS is no ordinary school. One of a handful of “early college” high schools in North Carolina, BECHS focuses on agriscience and biotechnology and provides students the opportunity to start earning college credits in their freshman year. Every student will earn an associate’s degree along with a high school diploma. Many will be the first in their families to attend college. Boller, a veteran instructor who developed one of the nation’s first high-school biotechnology courses, recently earned a master’s degree in science education from NC State. He and Koci crossed paths a few years ago as part of that experience. “I’ve been teaching in Bertie County for 26 years and working with NC State professors for most of that time,” Boller said. “I started teaching AP biology 20 years ago, and when I started investigating the subject matter, I got hooked up with the N.C. Biotechnology Center’s teacher workshops.” For years, Boller attended the workshops every summer. The more he learned, the more knowledge his students gained. He also won grants that, over time, have helped equip a lab that could hold water with many of those on NC State’s campus. It’s no surprise Boller was named the 2014 Outstanding 9-16 Teacher of the Year by the North Carolina Science, Mathematics and Technology Education Center and the 2013-2014 Bertie County Schools Teacher of the Year. “After those courses at the Biotech Center, I started teaching Biotech 1, which covers techniques, some genetics and chemistry,”

winter 2015

FFOCUS OCUS

Forward

NC State University’s largest outreach effort, the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, enters its second century with a new strategic plan focused on agriculture, food and 4-H youth development. by Dee Shore

or North Carolina Cooperative Extension, 2014 was a momentous year. Not only did the organization celebrate the 100th anniversary of the federal legislation that led to its formal founding, the state Extension Service at NC State University also embarked on a strategic plan aimed at laying the groundwork for success in its second century. Leading the strategic planning effort was Dr. Joe Zublena, associate dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and director of its Extension Service. Zublena recently an-

perspectives

swered questions about the strategic planning process, what changes are happening now and what’s ahead. Why did Cooperative Extension at NC State embark on a strategic planning process? When I came on board as state Extension director, if you looked at our organization as a compass, there were little arrows going everywhere. Everybody was occupied. Everybody

was meeting somebody’s needs, but we are working in many, many different directions. At the same time, we were absorbing federal and state budget cuts by keeping positions vacant as people retired or left for other reasons. And that meant our people both on campus and off were being spread too thin. We were at a point where we realized we couldn’t continue to maintain the size and breadth and scope of our programs, trying to be the master of many, many areas with fewer people. It was clear in this new fiscal environment, we needed to identify and focus on our core program areas – to get everybody to face north, so to speak. And we needed to make changes, especially in our county operations, that would support our ability to have the greatest impact possible in those areas. You went through a process of meeting with stakeholders across the state before developing the plan. What did you learn in the process? And how did what you learned shape the plan? It’s been a long journey – one that started more than a year ago. But what we were after

credit, because they gave us the frameworks we needed to move forward. Our job as leadership then was to look at what we could financially afford, what we could accomplish, within those frameworks.

Natalie Hampton

How does the strategic plan affect how we will carry out that service in the coming century?

Dr. Joe Zublena (right) discusses the future of Extension with a listening session participant. (Opposite page) More than 600 employees at the 2013 state Extension conference helped craft the strategic vision.

was a true grassroots effort – a democratic effort to reshape our future – and I think we definitely accomplished that. Our background work included a specific survey to county governments, because they are a huge partner – they pay a significant portion of our county agents’ salaries, and they own the facilities where they work, and they pay for the equipment they use. We received 179 responses to our survey. And we looked at Cooperative Extension institutions from eight states to see how they had coped with major financial reductions. In November 2013 at our state Extension conference, more than 600 employees helped us begin crafting a strategic vision for the future, sharing their thoughts on what we were best at, what things we might be able to let go of, where we could find financial flexibility and what our staffing model should be. From there, we did 14 different listening sessions with thousands of stakeholders across the state. It was very open, and we found that in a lot of cases people didn’t know much about Extension’s work beyond their specific area of interest – you had farmers and Master Gardeners talking to 4-H volunteers and Extension and Community Association members. Along the way, someone said that, even though we may underestimate a lot of the times what Extension does, Extension is prob-

ably the only group that could have gotten people with such different approaches and interests to come together in a democratic process like this to talk about their communities and try to come up with common ground. And that was very validating because it was exactly what we were trying to do. After the listening sessions, a vision team made up of 45 key leaders throughout Extension, from outside the organization and from our State Advisory Council distilled all that we had heard and found certain themes that were very consistent: People told us to go back to our roots of food, agriculture and youth. They said maintain our local presence. They said they wanted high-tech, but they didn’t want to give up the high-touch approach we have been known for. They valued Extension’s knowledge and its unbiased and trusted nature. And they wanted us to keep our staff – staff retention and staff morale were important. The vision team then gave us seven sets of team recommendations, then I worked with our key organizational administrators – Sheri Schwab, associate director for county operations; agriculture program leader Dr. Tom Melton and Dr. Mitzi Stumpf-Downing as interim program leader for 4-H and family and consumer sciences – to develop the strategic plan. I have to give the vision team a lot of

Our strategic plan calls for us to move forward in three overarching program areas – agriculture, food and 4-H youth development. These are the core program areas where we hear we are most needed, best equipped to provide solutions and can make the greatest impacts on the state’s communities and economy. And for the first time in our 100-year history, we will have a base staffing model for our county centers, to ensure targeted expertise in each of these areas. Each of our 100 counties and the Eastern Band of Cherokee will have access to a support specialist as well as agents in agriculture, 4-H and family and consumer sciences. The county Extension director duties will be covered by one of those positions. This model is designed to address structural problems that emerged as we dealt with budget cuts. At present, some of our counties are without that base level because they’ve lost agents due to attrition and those positions haven’t been filled. If you’ve had a lot of turnover in your county, you may have had two vacant positions for two years, while the next county is fully staffed. We also established higher starting salaries for our agents so that we can be more competitive in hiring. And we set aside funds to increase the salaries of current employees who are under that new starting base. In addition, we have extended our career ladder. Right now, agents hit their maximum promotion, if they are good agents, in six years, and there’s nothing beyond that for the (rest of their careers). So we needed to provide agents with more opportunities to grow and increase their salaries with promotions. When we did all this, we ended up with enough money to fund about 45 additional positions. If these positions are matched by

winter 2015

Zublena looks for great programmatic accomplishments to happen in a short period of time.

ized agents to take some of the burden off the base structure by bringing a greater level of expertise in agriculture. Some of the program areas that Extension has put effort into in recent years fall outside of the strategic plan’s core areas of agriculture, food and 4-H youth development. Will Extension stop working on those areas? When it comes to those programs that no longer align to our core – housing and energy conservation, family financial management and parenting programs come to mind – we realize these are important issues in our

perspectives

direct them to the best places to find information. We don’t want them to just say, “Sorry, we don’t do that.” We want them to be able to point the customer to a reliable source. Another option is that these areas may be addressed through our 4-H programs designed to build life skills. They could fit with 4-H in some instances. What can employees, partners and other stakeholders expect from Cooperative Extension at NC State University in the coming months? What kind of progress is being made with the plan?

The coming months, through June 2016, will be a transition period in which we will be implementing changes. There is going to be some turbulence, particularly in making some of these structural changes related to the base staffing model. Everybody is wondering, ‘Do I have to worry about my job?’ In some counties, the base structure is larger than what they currently have, and they are happy with that. In other cases, the opposite is true. So this is requiring every county Extension director and every district director to work closely with county governments in making the decisions as to how it’s going to unfold. On the programmatic side, I think there are going to be great things accomplished that people will be able to see in just a short period of time, especially if they look at our expanding web-based information portals. There are dozens of these portals already, and they really are top notch. The goal is to provide our customers with more than they expect – more information, more cutting-edge information, all in one place. So we will continue to have our high-touch local presence, and we will complement that with innovative online tools that are the best in the country. Is there anything else you’d like Perspectives readers to know about Cooperative Extension’s direction and what it will mean for North Carolina as we embark on our second century? An essential objective throughout this process was to make sure that our customers continue to have access to trusted, research-based information, and to exceed their expectations. I think this plan has super potential to position us to do that, while maintaining and optimizing our longtime relationships with N.C. A&T State University’s Extension program and other valued partners. It’s redefining who we are. The college has the research to back us up, and it also has a recent strategic plan that aligns nicely with ours. In five years, I think it will be well known that Extension at NC State University is the go-to place for agriculture, food and youth development – and no longer the best-kept secret.

state and that there is a need. But we found that few of our county agents were reporting programming and impacts in those areas and our capacity to make large cumulative statewide impact were less, so we felt there were opportunities to shift the audiences for those programs to the college departments that have tenure-track specialists with that expertise or to other agencies or associations with aligned expertise. In the next two years, we will be transitioning away from those areas not in the core so that when someone calls our county centers asking for help, the Extension staff can Dee Shore

the counties, we could have 90 new positions. These positions will be targeted to help grow the agriculture economy and will be distributed based on local needs as determined by statistics such as agricultural cash receipts, number of farm operators and population. In addition to these additional positions, we are also looking at area specialized agents to cover larger areas with more focused expertise. An example of these include two positions in commercial horticulture and two in commercial vegetables, because these are growing areas where we recognize a strong need. We also want to use these area special-

Strange INVADER Extension takes on hydrilla, the ‘King Kong of aquatic weeds.’

ith Lake Gaston losing a battle against what one weed scientist calls one of the worst of the worst aquatic weeds, NC State University joined with Virginia Tech to create a cross-state Cooperative Extension aquatics associate position to help people and governments protect the hydroelectric reservoir. Hydrilla is an invasive weed that has threatened property values on the lake for decades. Dr. Brett Hartis, who’d boated, fished, swam and even gotten married on the lake, was chosen in 2012 to fill the unique position aimed at helping manage the weed. Hartis recently left the position to join the Tennessee Valley Authority’s aquatic plant management program, but the university’s work there continues. The Extension aquatics associate position, funded largely by the Lake Gaston Weed Control Council, takes the knowledge that university researchers have gained about hydrilla and its management and apply that knowledge to Lake Gaston, which lies in both North Carolina and Virginia. The associate also makes what’s learned on the lake available to people throughout North Carolina and nation. The work is varied: Hartis developed a long-term hydrilla management strategy for the lake, educated local officials and residents about the weed, and oversaw the work of herbicide applicators paid by the weed control council. He also trained and managed the 20 to 30 volunteers who map hydrilla’s presence or absence across the lake’s entire 350-mile shoreline to provide basic information needed for weed management planning. The position is part of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Department of Crop Science and its weed science faculty.

Aquatic weed management fits the faculty focus, Hartis says, because just as weeds threaten the economic value that farmers derive from their fields, hydrilla affects income from tourism and real estate associated with lakes and rivers. Calling hydrilla “one of the worst of the worst” invasive plant species – “the King Kong of aquatic weeds” – he notes that it spreads rapidly and can grow as deep as 20 feet in clear water. The first type of hydrilla to cause problems in the United States was introduced in the 1960s in Florida by someone growing plants for aquariums. No one knows precisely how the type of hydrilla that plagues Lake Gaston got there, but some contend it, too, was introduced via the aquarium trade, first to the Potomac River, then spread by wildlife and boats. Hydrilla was first found in North Carolina at Umstead State Park in 1980. “Since then it spread to reservoirs, where you would expect this type of plant to go,” Hartis says. “There are no other native plants there when reservoirs are built, so it’s kind of an open pasture for this weed to take hold.” Today hydrilla is “popping up all over the state, in places we’ve never seen it before,” Hartis adds. It’s shown up in the state’s natural bay lakes, such as Lake Waccamaw near Whiteville, and its streams and rivers, such as the Chowan River in eastern North Carolina. There, it poses a significant environmental threat. “When you throw it into a natural bay lake or in a coastal system that thrives on native submerged vegetation that we don’t have in reservoirs, you’ve got a No. 1 competitor that can out-compete all those plants and completely change the ecology of those areas,

Becky Kirkland

by Dee Shore

Dr. Brett Hartis grabs up armfuls of the “worst of the worst” of invasive plant species, one that reproduces through fragmentation: “Every little piece you chop becomes a new plant.”

all the way up the food chain,” he says. “Hydrilla likes to form a monoculture, forcing everything else out, and only the things that benefit from hydrilla will survive. Well, nothing has evolved here to benefit from its presence, so it’s just overall bad news.” Not only does hydrilla spread in thick mats that make areas unsuitable for recreational pursuits such as swimming, boating and fishing, it clogs drinking water and irrigation pipes; hurts plant, mussel, snail and fish populations; and can harbor bacteria harmful to birds.

perspectives

Becky Kirkland

Once established, hydrilla is hard to get rid of, Hartis says. “It persists because it’s not like a traditional plant which reproduces via seed. It reproduces through fragmentation, so every little piece you chop up becomes a new plant,” he says. If someone pulls the plant out of the water or kills the plant above the sediment, it can survive because of tubers that secure it to the lake bottom. And a piece of the plant that catches on a boat motor can dry out completely and yet regrow if the boat carries it back to a water body, he says. Right now, hydrilla covers about 600 of Lake Gaston’s 20,000 acres, and another 2,400 acres have had evidence of hydrilla recently enough to continue to need treatment, Hartis says. Funding from state and local governments to control hydrilla allows for chemical treatment of just 1,000 to 1,500 acres a year. That forces the weed control council, made up of volunteers appointed by governments of the five counties surrounding

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the lake, to make hard decisions about where and when to use herbicides. Hartis worked closely with the council, with a goal of ensuring “our management programs are based on the newest and most sound research … and helping people understand why we do what we do.” And getting to such an understanding isn’t a simple and straightforward matter, Hartis adds. It was hard for homeowners who didn’t see hydrilla in an area that had been treated to understand why treatments continued in those areas while other areas with visible hydrilla weren’t being treated at all. “The reason my job was even formed was that even 20 years after hydrilla was found in the lake, we weren’t getting anywhere long-term. What we had been doing is bouncing around every other year, treating different areas on and off, on and off, to keep homeowners happy,” he says. “But that was keeping hydrilla in my lake. To get rid of it you have to treat hydrilla for six to eight years, even when you can’t see that it’s present. We found that out because of research conducted at NC State.” J. Rives “Judge” Manning Jr., weed control council treasurer, says the council has spent “upwards of $1 million a year” to manage hydrilla on Lake Gaston, but funding has decreased in recent years because of the economic downturn. And because funds are tighter, it’s even more important to ensure that they are well spent, he adds. “In the early years, without an expert weed control person who’s familiar with chemicals, our efforts were a hit-or-miss proposition. Some years the acres of hydrilla were increasing rather than decreasing,” Manning says. Because of that, the council held several meetings over the past 10 to 15 years with NC State and Cooperative Extension officials “to try to create a position for someone with (the) knowledge, credentials and expertise to work on Lake Gaston,” Manning says. “It was

only after Dr. Joe Zublena came on board (as director of the state Cooperative Extension Service) that it became a reality.” For each of the two years Extension has had an associate working on the lake, hydrilla acreage decreased, Manning notes. “That’s a plus.” While the weather had some to do with the decrease, Hartis believes that taking a more strategic approach will ultimately lead to solid, lasting results that have economic impact. A lake choked with weeds could affect property values and tourism, depriving people and local governments of a significant source of income in counties that are among North Carolina’s poorest. Because hydrilla can also become an important economic and environmental problem in other areas of the state, Hartis was frequently called on to provide educational programs beyond Lake Gaston. For example, with North Carolina Sea Grant, he helped develop a video about the threat posed by hydrilla in Chowan River to the state’s estuaries. NC State University field trials have shown the weed can survive in water as saline as the sounds, where it can threaten the important seafood industry. Extension’s outreach efforts – along with the research of NC State’s Dr. Rob Richardson, an aquatic weeds scientist, and agricultural technician Steven Hoyle – helped make Lake Gaston a model for those working to manage hydrilla. And because the NC State aquatic weed science team is creating what council vice president Pete Deschenes calls a “repeatable and scientific process,” it is one that can have widespread impact. The outreach program “is helping us within the communities on the lake understand the problem,” Deschenes adds. “And that’s important because county and state governments need to understand how potentially devastating a hydrilla infestation can be.”

NC State’s outreach and research efforts have helped make Lake Gaston a model for those working to manage hydrilla.

Becky Kirkland

COLLEGE Profile by Dee Shore

Dr. José Alonso’s groundbreaking explorations land him on a list of the world’s most influential scientists.

rowing up amid farm fields and orange groves along the Mediterranean coast of Spain, José Alonso couldn’t help but develop a fascination for plants. Over the years, he has cultivated that curiosity through research and technology development that, in 2014, landed the NC State researcher on Thomson Reuters Corp.’s list of the world’s most influential scientific minds. The multinational mass media and information firm bases its list on the number of citations a scientist has had in papers published between 2002 and 2012. It acknowledges the listed scientists as “the people who are on the cutting edge of their fields, … performing and publishing work that their peers recognize as vital to the advancement of their science.” Alonso, a professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, made the list in the area of plant and animal sciences. With his wife and longtime scientific partner, Dr. Anna N. Stepanova, he runs a lab that studies hormone interactions in plants. The lab takes a multifaceted approach, blending genetics, molecular biology, genomics, metabolomics, cell biology, computation and more in pursuit of answers to some of the most fundamental questions about how plants grow and respond to their environment. The

lab also develops new genetic technologies designed to speed plant biology studies. It is work that has implications, albeit indirectly, for agriculture, the profession of generations of Alonso’s Spanish ancestors. Alonso supposes that he would have been a farmer himself were it not for his father’s death when José was just six months old. With the family farming chain broken, Alonso felt free to pursue biology studies at the University of Valencia. As he got deeper into those studies, he became increasingly interested in molecular biology and genetics. He went even deeper in his graduate studies at a national research institute in Spain, where he studied the molecular biology of oranges. “It was good for the family,” he says, “Oranges were an important crop where I grew up, so they understand that. But the molecular part they didn’t understand.” Alonso’s family’s understanding of his research likely got even harder when he came to the United States in the 1990s to do postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania. While there and at the Salk Institute in California, he studied Arabidopsis, a flowering plant that has become such an important model system in plant biology that NASA intends to grow it this year in containers on the moon.

Arabidopsis was the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced, and Alonso had a small part in that. But the main thrust of his postdoctoral work was to get to know more about ethylene, a plant hormone that plays a role in ripening fruits, opening flowers, growing roots and shedding leaves. Alonso’s goal, which continues today, involves understanding, at a molecular level, how the hormone is produced, how cells sense its presence and what happens in the plants’ cells after that sensing. “If you are a plant cell, you receive a lot of signals – signals that indicate that it’s hot, for example, or that something is chewing you. Because you are in a plant, you can’t run or hide like an animal can. You have to just stay there and deal with it. You have to sense what is happening in your environment, take this information and somehow change your own metabolism to cope with that,” Alonso explains. “Depending on what is happening in the environment, you have to have a program telling you, ‘Ah, it’s time to flower’ or ‘It’s time to grow’ or whatever else it is you need to do. You have to integrate the signal from the outside with that internal program. “So how does that happen on the molecular level? That’s the basic question we try to understand,” he explains.

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Alonso (right) and Dr. Anna Stepanova, his wife and CALS colleague, study hormone interactions in plants.

from the mutant plants more than 1 million times. “That’s a huge amount of interest,” Alonso says, noting that the original paper on the collection has generated more than 3,500 citations in scientific papers exploring such agricultural important topics as how plants respond to pathogens and to light. ince joining NC State University’s faculty in 2001, Alonso and Stepanova have continued to focus on tool development and on

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figuring out more about how plant hormones communicate signals and how these signals influence growth. But over the years they have shifted away from studying what happens with a single hormone to looking at the more complex interactions among hormones. Most recently, their focus has been on auxin and ethylene. One of their lab’s most important findings is related to ethylene’s regulation of the production of auxin, a hormone key to plant development. They found that ethylene activates auxin biosynthesis in root tips, and then auxin travels to sensitize cells where they divide, enabling them to respond properly to ethylene, Alonso says. “These studies have allowed us to decipher the first complete auxin biosynthetic pathway in plants, and we still work on auxin biosynthesis,” Alonso explains. “We now know which genes are involved, but we don’t know how these genes are regulated. So now we are asking, ‘What is regulating these genes?’” Meanwhile, Alonso wants to make answering such questions easier and faster for him and his colleagues. His lab was one of the first to find ways to adapt the ribosome footprinting technique to a plant species. Previously used in mouse, worm, human and yeast genetics, ribosome footprinting is opening the way for investigating in great detail the mechanisms at work in protein synthesis and its regulation. The lab has also adapted the genetic engineering approach called recombineering for plant biology. The technique – developed by other scientists for use in bacteria genetics – allows scientists to replace, delete and insert genes, creating multiple mutations simultaneously. Thanks to this work, NC State now has a plant recombineering center that creates genetic material not only for Alonso’s lab but for scientists worldwide. Right now, that work is limited to Arabidopsis, but, as happens often with scientific advances made with Arabidopsis, Alonso says, the technique can be adapted for other plant species, including food crops such as rice, corn and tomatoes. He is concerned, though, that funding cuts for research on the model organisms, and for basic science in general, will slow the practical application of basic science for the generation

of scientific solutions for today’s problems. “Most of the big advances in society started with basic science,” he says. “There has to be some people doing basic science research, understanding how things work, and then other people figuring out how we can apply this for the benefit of society. Without both, we will not progress very much.” Alonso believes that keeping basic plant science moving forward means maintaining resources for research in model plants like Arabidopsis, and so he’s become involved in international efforts toward those ends. He is an elected member of the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee, which hosts the International Conference on Arabidopsis Research when it’s held in North America. Last summer, he served as co-chair of the conference, which attracted 625 researchers from 34 countries. While Alonso works to grow support for the worldwide Arabidopsis community, he and Stepanova also strive to inspire the next generation of scientists. Their lab has a website, Plants4Kids.org, filled with plant experiments, in English and Spanish, for elementary-school students and their parents. Once a month at a downtown Raleigh museum, they give children plant seeds and explain ways they can use the seeds in science experiments. He leaves those engagements especially happy when he encounters children eager to know more. Such curiosity is critical, he says, for scientific advancement. And it’s likely that the scientific discoveries that Alonso has made are due in part to his own insatiable curiosity – and his restlessness in pursuing that curiosity. Alonso not only creates more time for research by combining the tasks of commuting and exercising through riding a bike to work, he also limits his social life. And he foregoes regular vacations. During vacation time, he sets aside the tasks of running the laboratory for the chance – “the fun,” he calls it – of conducting more hands-on work at the laboratory bench. “I want to understand how things work, and that definitely keeps me busy,” he says. “When you get into these types of questions, there are always more follow-up questions you want to address. “You can never know enough, right?”

Becky Kirkland

As Alonso attempted as a postdoc to find out more about the molecular-level processes involving ethylene in a plant’s response to its environment, he created a large collection of Arabidopsis mutants. “Basically what we did was generate more than 150,000 plants, each one of them with a mutation in a different place in the genome,” he says. “And what we did was we mapped where the mutation was and then made seeds for the mutants available to everybody.” The collection revolutionized the way in which scientists study gene functions in plants. Today, if scientists are interested in a particular gene, rather than spending four or five years looking for it, as they had to do when Alonso was a postdoc, they can simply go to a website and order (from an Ohio-based stock center) the Arabidopsis seeds that are missing the gene in question. “The scientists can then consider what’s different about the plant, and, by doing so, gain a better understanding of what that particular gene does,” Alonso says. Thus far, scientists have requested seeds

NEWS CALS Communications

noteworthy

NC State receives grant to improve African sweet potatoes C State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences will receive $12.4 million over the next four years from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve a crop that is an important food staple in subSaharan Africa – the sweet potato. The grant, announced in September, will fund work to develop modern genomic, genetic and bioinformatics tools to improve the crop’s ability to resist diseases and insects and tolerate drought and heat. Sweet potatoes are an important food security and cash crop with potential to alleviate hunger, vitamin A deficiency and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. More than 13.5 million metric tons are produced in sub-Saharan Africa annually; they are predominantly grown in small plot holdings by poor women farmers. A priority crop for the Gates Foundation’s Agricultural Development Program, the sweet potato has a complex genetic blueprint. Lack of knowledge about the crop’s complex genome Roger Winstead

CALS’ Dr. Craig Yencho is the project director.

and lack of modern breeding tools for the crop currently hamper efforts to expand production. Dr. Craig Yencho, a CALS professor of horticultural science who heads the university’s sweet potato breeding program, is the project director. He says that sweet potatoes have a number of valuable characteristics that make them an attractive African crop. “Sweet potato is a hardy crop that can be planted in drought-prone and low-fertility soils,” Yencho said. “Orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, which are an excellent source of vitamin A, rank first in nutritional quality among root and tuber crops grown in sub-Saharan Africa, providing vitamins for millions of people.” He adds that – besides the crop improvement work – it’s important to build a network of young scientists who can use the new breeding tools and techniques built in this golden era of genomics. “NC State has a long history of commitment to developing Africa’s sweet potato breeding programs,” Yencho said. “We will work very closely with the sweet potato breeding community to identify young breeders for advanced training to build long-term capacity in use of genomic breeding. During the project term, we will make efforts in training to ensure that new researchers and partners are fully capable of employing newly developed tools.” Chancellor Randy Woodson praised Yencho’s work on sweet potatoes in Africa and in North Carolina, which leads the United States in sweet potato production. “Dr. Yencho’s work on this important crop has led to a number of new varieties and improvements in sweet potatoes grown across the world and is an excellent example of NC State’s think-and-do mentality” Woodson said. “The inter-

The grant will fund development of modern tools to improve the sweet potato’s ability to resist diseases and insects and to tolerate drought and heat.

national collaboration he’ll head will use interdisciplinary teams to gain critical knowledge – and share that knowledge – to help feed a continent.” Woodson added that the $12.4 million grant is the latest example of continually increasing private support for NC State as the university prepares to launch the most ambitious fundraising campaign in its history. “This type of generous support enables NC State to extend the impact of our life-changing work across the nation and throughout the world,” he said. NC State co-primary investigators include Dr. Fred Wright, professor of statistics and director of the Bioinformatics Research Center; Dr. ZhaoBang Zeng, William Neal Reynolds Professor of Statistics and Biological Sciences; Dr. Dahlia Nielsen, associate professor of biological sciences; Dr. Jennifer Schaff, director of NC State’s Genomics Research Laboratory; and Dr. Lina Quesada-Ocampo, assistant professor and Extension specialist in plant pathology. Partners on the grant include the International Potato Center; Michigan State University; the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University; the University of Queensland; the National Crops Resources Research Institute in Uganda; and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Ghana. – Mick Kulikowski winter 2015

The grapes-to-smoothie process begins at Cottle Farms.

hen Kendra Stallings first saw bottles of JuVn8 smoothies on the shelf at a Food Lion in Emerald Isle, she couldn’t contain her excitement. At the beach for a family vacation, Stallings showed the smoothies to her parents, who each then announced to anyone within earshot, “My daughter made these!” Stallings earned her NC State master’s degree from the Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences this past May. During her time in that College of Agriculture and Life Sciences department, she developed the recipes for JuVn8 muscadine smoothies that now grace the shelves of grocery store chains throughout the Southeast. “As soon as I started in Dr. [Keith] Harris’ lab for grad school, we received a request from a local farmer to help develop two muscadine smoothies: one with blueberries and one with strawberries,” Stallings said. “That’s how my project began. And it ended with a product that they could commercialize.” The road to JuVn8 started in 2008, when Faison farmer Ron Cottle and former Extension agent Whit Jones approached Harris with the idea of creating a smoothie from frozen muscadine grapes, strawberries, blueberries and apple-juice concentrate.

“This project has dramatically moved forward since then,” Harris said. “Muscadine Time was our first effort to put smoothies into a bottle. The smoothie was heat processed to be shelf stable, but we quickly discovered that the long, intense heat overcooked it.” So Harris and his team began to investigate ways to modify the process to preserve the smoothie’s real fruit flavors and also maintain safety. This was about the time that Stallings joined his lab, in summer 2012. “My work began right downstairs in our basement pilot plant,” Stallings said. “I started by looking at other smoothies on the market, to get sugar levels and pH values, to give us some guidelines of what was selling on the market. “And I just started mixing and tasting, and once I had formulations that I thought were in a good pH range and sweetness level, we held informal taste panels to get feedback.” The next step was a formal taste panel conducted by the FBNS Department’s Sensory Service Center, which included analyses of flavor, texture and other attributes of the smoothies. Once the formulations were set, Cottle chose the two that he wanted to commercialize: blueberry muscadine and strawberry muscadine. From seed to bottle, the smoothies are produced entirely on Cottle’s farm, an expansive fruit and vegetable operation headquartered in Faison. Cottle Farms grows a complete line of vegetables, in addition to 100

acres of muscadines, 70 acres of strawberries and 115 acres of blueberries (plus markets 1,000 additional acres of blueberries for other growers). Cottle Farms produces blueberries year-round, with growers in Florida, Chile and British Columbia. The only smoothie ingredient not produced on the farm is the apple-juice concentrate. “One of the best things about this product is that it minimizes all the loss we have on the fruit, especially the fruit that’s too ripe for grocery store shelves but still tastes good,” Cottle said. “That’s where it all started. We have all of this byproduct. It’s a shame to let it go to waste.” After the grapes are harvested, they’re placed into a cold-storage facility on the farm until they’re rinsed and sorted. Those deemed too ripe are removed from the line and routed to a processing facility where more cleaning and sorting takes place. Then they’re ground – fruit, peel and seeds – into a puree that’s stored in 50-gallon drums. The grape puree is then combined with the other fruit ingredients, pasteurized, bottled and shipped right from Cottle’s farm. “There are different levels of pasteurization, and the one used here is gentler, meaning that time and temperature are lower than the extreme heat processing,” Harris said. “The treatment kills off the pathogens that might harm you, but it does not eliminate all of the potential spoilage microbes and needs to be kept under refrigeration.” Becky Kirkland

Becky Kirkland

Chill out with JuVn8 grape smoothie

Dr. Keith Harris of FBNS and Kendra Stallings, JuVn8 recipe developer, display the smoothie, now available in grocery stores.

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Becky Kirkland

Ron Cottle produces the grapes for JuVn8.

That’s why you’ll find JuVn8 chilling on the grocery store shelf alongside national brands like Odwalla, Pom and Bolthouse. “Keith and his team have been such a great help throughout this process,” Cottle said. “We wouldn’t be where we are today without them.” Market research, advertising, photography and design – even the unique name of the smoothie – are all products of a family effort. Cottle’s sister, Joy Cottle, designed the logo and bottle label and manages all promotional efforts. Her son stars in the brand’s TV ads. “Our biggest challenge is getting people to try it,” Cottle said. “It’s not a question of

whether they’ll like it or not. Almost all of the feedback we get from in-store demos is positive. People love it. There are some who just aren’t familiar with the muscadine or who don’t normally drink smoothies. And the people who do buy smoothies tend to be loyal to one brand.” Grocery store demos have proven to be successful, Cottle said, as sales consistently grow during the weeks surrounding the demos. JuVn8 can be found in a number of grocery chains across North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, including Food Lion, Lowe’s, Harris Teeter and Whole Foods. – Suzanne Stanard

r. Bob Franks of NC State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has a bone to pick with those who determined that the dogwood is the state flower of North Carolina. “It actually should be called the ‘state inflorescence,’” Franks, associate professor of plant and microbial biology, said with a laugh. And Franks would know, having spent the past five years working on a National Science Foundation-funded grant to study the inflorescence architecture, or variation in the arrangement of flowers, of the dogwood. “What most people think of as the dogwood flower is actually the dogwood inflorescence,” Franks said. “So those big white petals are not technically petals, they’re bracts made to look like petals. It’s a different strategy to attract insects for pollination.” Franks, Dr. Jenny Xiang and Dr. Deyu Xie, his colleagues in the CALS Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, have worked together since 2010 to gain a better understanding of the evolution and development of different inflorescence architectures. “Despite the importance of inflorescence architecture to humankind, little progress has been made in understanding how developmental and genetic changes have shaped inflorescence architectures in the diversity of flowering plants on earth,” said Xiang. “In this project, we’re using a multidisciplinary approach integrating phylogeny, developmental biology, genetics and biotechnology to under-

Becky Kirkland

Important implications: CALS team studies the distinct inflorescence structure of the dogwood

Researchers Qing Ma and Xiang Liu (left) join Dr. Jenny Xiang and Dr. Deyu Xie (right) at the NC State University Phytotron, where they can control the conditions under which the dogwood plants are grown.

stand the basis for the diversification of inflorescence architecture in the dogwood genus.” Dogwoods are an ideal candidate for this research because all the different species exhibit very distinct inflorescence structures, Franks said. But they’re complex and difficult to work with. He typically works on Arabidopsis, the first fully sequenced plant genome and a model system that’s much easier to manipulate than dogwood. “For 14 years we’ve had the full genome sequence of Arabidopsis,” Franks said. “It’s one of the best, if not the best, plant model systems. And dogwood species, in the genus Cornus, are very far toward the other end,

in terms of being very difficult to work with. There are not many genomic resources available yet, and they’re also difficult to transform – to change the genes in a quick and easy fashion – in large part because they’re woody. “But one of the nice things about dogwood is the variation in the inflorescence types in the different species, and so now our collaboration is trying to understand that on a more mechanistic level.” Xiang, who has devoted her career to the study of dogwoods, explained that this highly theoretical research could have significant practical application.

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Becky Kirkland

“We’re working to understand what kinds of changes in the gene network may have led to the difference in the flower arrangements in the different lineages, because changing the inflorescence architecture is important for reproductive success and speciation.” she said. “This greater understanding of the molecular mechanisms of inflorescence development and evolution may enable efforts to breed agricultural varieties with inflorescence structures to allow greater agricultural productivity. Essentially, if you have bigger inflorescence, then you might have bigger yields.” Franks added, “Jenny’s point about the inflorescence architecture in agriculture is definitely a very important one. A lot of people are interested in manipulating the inflorescence structure in grains in order to increase harvest index.” One of the dogwood project’s first big successes – a huge “technical hurdle,” Xiang said – was when she and her collaborative team became the first scientists to regenerate the dogwood by tissue culture. Then, in 2012, the team published an article for genetic transformation and began making transgenic plants. “So now we have a bunch of different genetically engineered plants under observation, and we have made great progress to overcome one of the biggest hurdles of using dogwoods as a model, which is the generation time. We’ve been doing a number of different things to cause them to flower early.” Xiang Liu, lab manager and research specialist in Xiang’s lab, was able to silence one of the genes that controlled vegetative growth, whittling the plants’ flowering time from three to five years down to six months. Xiang’s lab also is running tests on heat resistance in transgenic plants that carry a heat-tolerance gene, and they’ve discovered that these plants survive long after the control plants die under high temperatures. “We’re still working on adding more data, and this work is not published yet,” Xiang said. “This project is a direct application of our early research.” The team’s work relies much on the successful plant culturing in the NC State University Phytotron, a collection of climatecontrolled chambers and greenhouses that allows scientists to control the conditions

Drs. Deyu Xie, Jenny Xiang and Bob Franks (right) are studying the dogwood to get a greater understanding of the molecular mechanisms of inflorescence development and evolution.

under which plants are grown. The Phytotron recently completed a major renovation, thanks to a $1.79 million National Science Foundation grant. According to the Phytotron’s director Dr. Carole Saravitz, the cost of the lab’s renovations will be paid off through energy savings over the next 10 to 15 years. “The Phytotron growth chambers were being cooled with the original chillers from 1968, and we were slowly running out of capacity,” she said. “The major renovations were to the Phytotron cooling system. We also updated the lighting inside the growth chambers with more efficient fluorescent lights and resealed the greenhouses.” In other dogwood research, Xiang also has initiated an effort to identify genes associated with disease resistance and drought tolerance. “The first step is to understand the genetics,” Xiang said, “Then if we can confine the genes responsible for disease susceptibility and resistance, and using the genetic transformation systems we’ve developed here, we have the potential to actually manipulate the diseases and develop trees that are resistant to them.” Xiang spearheaded an effort in the college to establish the Dogwood Fund to support the research and development of dogwoods

with enhanced disease resistance and floral variety. Gifts to the fund will fuel plant exploration, genetic research and development of disease and stress resistant dogwood varieties. Contributors also have opportunities to participate in study abroad trips in Eastern China with Xiang. Xiang and Franks will apply for renewal when their grant expires in July 2015. Xiang also has collaborated with scientists from the universities of Georgia and Tennessee to apply for funding to initiate a project to sequence the dogwood genome. “One of the things that excites me about my work is the commonality that you see in natural systems,” Franks said. “It’s amazing to me that even across very diverse life forms such as animals and plants, there are some very similar molecular processes at work. There’s something beautiful to that, that suggests a unity of the developmental process and strongly supports that there is a common evolutionary origin to all these life forms. “I’m learning new things all the time,” he said. “It doesn’t stop.” – Suzanne Stanard

either gray skies on a mid-October Sunday afternoon nor the harvest season’s imminent end prevented several dozen immigrant farmworkers and their families from trickling in to North Carolina Cooperative Extension’s al fresco pesticide safety training session near Newton Grove. Soon, after harvesting the county’s sweet potatoes, many of the field worker families who live in nearby trailer homes and those who arrived in crew leader Francisco Valdéz Jr.’s re-purposed school bus, would pack up and head for Florida, where berries and citrus crops await their hands and backs. Today’s relatively small audience represents but a fraction of the 150,000 temporary immigrant workers in North Carolina on H-2A visas for temporary and seasonal work. That number positions our state as the country’s top H-2A worker host, according to a 2012 report by the N.C. Council of Churches. The workers – mostly Spanish speakers from Mexico and Central America – are essential to North Carolina’s agriculture and agribusinesses. But despite the bucolic setting for this early autumn event, a migrant’s life is fraught with dangers, notes Luís Cruz Santiago, farmworkers health and safety educator for Cooperative Extension’s Community and Rural Development program in Wayne County. Thanks to the first two years of a $125,198 Philip Morris International pilot project grant, Cruz’s efforts help workers avoid some of those dangers, such as pesticide poisoning, heat stroke and green tobacco sickness, a nicotine poisoning contracted through clothing saturated by wet tobacco. Cruz, who is point man for an Extension team, teaches today with teammate Cíntia Aguilar, Extension community and rural development associate with NC State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Aguilar and Dr. Susan Jakes, Extension associate state community development program leader, are the grant’s co-principal investigators. Other team members include Dr. Tom Melton, associate Extension director and state program leader for agriculture, natural resources and community and rural

Art Latham

Extension farmworkers health and safety education program connects growers, immigrant farm workers and communities

Wayne County Extension’s Luis Cruz Santiago teaches a pesticide safety class in Newton Grove. Behind him is a tableful of long-sleeved shirts to be given out to field workers to help protect them from residues. More educational projects and events are planned for this and next year.

development; Kevin Johnson, Wayne County Extension director; and Tyler Whaley, Wayne County agriculture agent for field crops. “The CALS-based ‘Extension Farmworker Health and Safety Model: A Community Effort’ is a new outreach program for NC State in its continuing partnership with Philip Morris International,” says Jakes. “We have been welcomed on farms across Wayne County, thanks in part to the mutually advantageous relationships of trust between Extension agriculture agents like Tyler Whaley and local producers. We really want to use this opportunity to partner with the producers to help get across important safety messages they are concerned about, in addition to what is in the curriculum.” Why the concern about worker safety? Cruz cites recent data, also gathered by the N.C. Council of Churches, that indicate that farm workers suffer from the country’s highest toxic chemical injury and skin disorder rates. In fact, agricultural work is one of the top three most dangerous occupations in the United States. One in four farm workers report having been injured on the job. In North Carolina, 19 percent of U.S. Occupational

Safety and Health Administration-investigated workplace fatalities in 2012 were related to agriculture, forestry or fishing. Cruz and Aguilar bring a crucial, possibly life-saving message to the workers’ families, as well as helpful dry goods. On a nearby card table lie various little treats for the kids, such as crayons and coloring books that emphasize safety around pesticides – positive reinforcements for correct answers for learning how to avoid dangerous pesticides and their residues. Another table holds most of the 277 clean, long-sleeved shirts donated this summer by employees of CALS and the Wayne County Extension center, as well as a box of brand-new red shirts, supplied by Carolyn Mitkowski, Biological and Agricultural Engineering multimedia designer, through donors at the Cary Creative Center, where she is a volunteer. Aguilar warms up the kids by asking in Spanish their names and who brought them today. Ironically, those who most want to protect their children might inadvertently be danger vectors. Youngsters can be exposed to pesticide residues clinging to their parents’ hair, skin, clothes, work boots and lunch pails. The poison can be transferred by a simple, loving hug.

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experience has stood him in good stead with local producers. Craig West of the 4,000-acre West Family Farms in northern Wayne County, where Cruz trained the producer’s Mexican H-2A visaholders last spring, says, “It was good to have somebody who could communicate better with the workers than I could, and somebody who had a little common sense about what goes on out here.” The West family produces tobacco, soy, peanuts, sweet potatoes, wheat and cotton.

“It works well for us,” adds West, a 1989 NC State graduate in agronomy. “We have a certificate saying they have been trained, and each of them gets a card to prove it, so later nobody can say he hasn’t. And I have a document they sign, saying each one of them has been trained. “I’m glad that Cooperative Extension has the foresight to do something like this,” he says. “It’s been very helpful.” – Art Latham

CALS research sheds light on toxic arsenic problem in Southeast Asian well water very day, more than 100 million people throughout South and Southeast Asia drink well water contaminated by toxic levels of arsenic. But two NC State University scientists are conducting fundamental research aimed at changing that. Drs. Matt Polizzotto and Owen Duckworth, both in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Department of Soil Science, are studying arsenic and other elements and minerals in the groundwater and soils in Cambodia. Using high-powered microscopy and spectroscopy, they are learning more about the geochemical and hydrological processes that contribute to natural arsenic contamination. The ultimate goal is to use such an understanding to find ways to eliminate, or at least better manage, the problem.

While most popularly known as a nearperfect poison for murder, arsenic can also lead to serious health complications – skin diseases, cancer and even death – in levels that occur naturally in some locations. And that means that Polizzotto and Duckworth’s National Science Foundation-funded efforts have important implications far beyond the areas where they are currently focusing. In South and Southeast Asia, the contamination problems are linked to development projects meant to solve health problems related to drinking water from pathogencontaminated ponds and rivers, as well as to the Green Revolution, the series of 1940s to 1960s research and outreach initiatives that increased agricultural production worldwide. Millions of wells were drilled around the Courtesy Matt Polizzotto

Lack of health insurance also challenges worker families, and 20 percent of eastern N.C. field workers don’t know where to go for the care needed for some of their children. Aguilar connects these families with Extension resources such as food safety and pre-K programs. “The goal,” she says, “is to educate families, especially the kids, as they can become ‘parent educators’ about worker protection standards.” The lesson Cruz teaches today, however, is from the “José Aprende Sobre los Pesticidas / José Learns About Pesticides” curriculum, for children ages four to 12. The Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs developed José, with Cruz recently nationally premiering an updated version in North Carolina. AFOP is funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and OSHA. AFOP also supplies materials to educate outreach workers about worker protection standards and heat stress prevention. Local trainers such as Cruz then train farmworkers. Today’s session is labeled a “family event,” but it’s not by any means Extension’s sole foray onto the worker safety field. Using Extension-developed materials, and with the cooperation of 33 producers, Cruz educated 616 workers at 23 on-farm sessions in Wayne and contiguous counties in 2014. The basic “text” from which Cruz works to teach adults is Extension’s “Pesticide Safety Tool Kit” – designed by CALS’ Dr. Catherine LeProvost, Applied Ecology Department, along with Dr. Greg Cope, Extension department leader and NC State agromedicine coordinator, and Julia Storm, agromedicine information specialist, both of the Applied Ecology Department. The team geared the kit to Spanishspeaking workers without formal educations. Both units – AFOP’s “Jose” and CALS’ Tool Kit – meet standards set by EPA and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Good Agricultural Practices programs. Cruz, a Fayetteville State University graduate, comes from a migrant farmworker family that settled in Sampson County. In 2013, as a crew leader assistant for blueberry producers in New Jersey and Elizabethtown, he assisted with worker training and development. His farm-life background and in-field

Dr. Matt Polizzotto works with local residents in Cambodia to find ways to manage arsenic contamination in their water.

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Courtesy Matt Polizzotto

Becky Kirkland

Based on early research results, Polizzotto remediation is really says, it appears that arsenic’s presence or abfocused on doing sence in water is tightly tied to the presence things that are sort of manganese in the soil. of quick fixes to “If you have a lot of manganese around in point sources of high the solid material, then you are not going to concentrations – not have a whole lot of arsenic in well water,” he fixing big, wide probsays. “But if you produce conditions that get lems that we don’t rid of these potentially reactive manganese exactly understand minerals, then you are particularly vulnerable where they are comto arsenic contamination.” ing from (and) that Duckworth goes into more detail, pointare slow and low ing out the importance of iron in the process: concentration. That’s Arsenic, he says, sticks to iron in soil, and as what this is.” the iron dissolves into the water, the arsenic Polizzotto and dissolves off it. Duckworth both “And our idea is that manganese is like believe that tackling Dr. Owen Duckworth (left) and Polizzotto continue their arsenic geochemical armor that keeps the iron from such a complicated research in their NC State lab. dissolving. As long as there’s manganese problem requires a there, it will effectively protect the iron. It bemultifaceted approach. That’s why they deglobe, and millions of irrigation channels were comes the preferential thing to be dissolved,” cided to work together on the research. installed to carry the well water to crops. he says. “And if it dissolves, the iron doesn’t Polizzotto has studied the Asian arsenic probBut over the years, people realized that a go. And if the iron doesn’t go, the arsenic lem since he was a Ph.D. student at Stanford lot of the well water in South and Southeast doesn’t go.” in the 2000s, and he has spent his career Asia contained arsenic and that individuals Duckworth compares the research to opensince then focusing on environmental contamiwere getting sick by drinking the well water ing a watch and figuring out which gears turn nants, particularly those that pose threats to and by consuming rice grown in fields irriarsenic. “The iron turns the arsenic gear, and drinking water or are affected by agricultural gated by the water. manganese is the gear that controls what practices. Another problem: Farmers have seen goes on with the iron. So if you think about it When Duckworth learned more about the decreased yields as a result of the arsenic as a chain, you have to look a couple of gears arsenic research, he was eager to join in. To contamination. over from the arsenic wheel to understand the project, he brings what he calls a basic “It’s a widescale problem,” Polizzotto says, what is making it turn.” “nuts-and-bolts approach,” looking at molecu“and there are a whole host of challenges While Polizzotto and Duckworth continue lar-level interactions among elements, minerthat make getting to a solution complicated.” their Cambodia arsenic research to understand als and microbes in the soil and groundwater. One of the biggest issues is that each well has a different arsenic level – and that level can vary in wells separated by mere yards. Not only that, each well has a different overall chemistry of elements and minerals in various forms. “It makes it very challenging to figure out not only where the problem is going to be most severe but also how to deal with it,” Polizzotto says. The Cambodia project is designed to get a better handle on these questions. “We want to know where the arsenic is coming from and what bio-geochemically defines the risk it poses,” he says. Arsenic contamination in groundwater can’t be traced to a single, specific source, and that makes their research daunting. As Cambodian families watch as Ph.D. student Elizabeth Gillispie takes a water sample for study. Duckworth says, “The field of environmental

the gear works behind contamination, Polizzotto is also working in nearby Bangladesh to find new ways to actually the prevent contamination that occurs via irrigation waters to rice and, subsequently, to people who eat the rice. Using arsenic-tolerant rice would help crop yields, but it wouldn’t lower the threat to people. And filtering arsenic out of the water at the well isn’t practical, given the pumping rate of 70,000 liters per hour, Polizzotto says. So working with Dr. Dean Hesterberg of the CALS Soil Science Department and Dr. François Birgand of the CALS Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Polizzotto is taking what they know about the factors that influence arsenic concentrations to engineer ways to remove the element from the water.

Their solution: modified irrigation channels that slow the flow of water so that arsenic has more time to stick to soil particles as it passes through the channels while other nontoxic chemicals in the water have more time to react with air to form minerals, such as iron oxide, that, in turn, bond with the arsenic and remove it from solution. This allows the arsenic to settle in the channels so that the amount of arsenic reaching farm fields is decreased. While early results show that the approach is working, Polizzotto, Hesterberg and Birgand continue with the research because big questions – including where, specifically, the arsenic is ending up within the channels – remain. And where the arsenic ends up has big implications for how sustainable a solu-

tion the channels might be, Polizzotto says. Eventually, he believes that the research will help generate solutions not just in Bangladesh, but also in Cambodia and around the world. That’s because the research frameworks developed in both Asian projects could apply to other environments and other contaminants. Indeed, Polizzotto currently has a project looking at manganese in North Carolina well water. “Asia is an extreme case both in terms of number of people impacted and concentrations in wells, but there are arsenic and manganese problems in North Carolina,” Duckworth says. “So I’ve been excited to be involved in this project. It’s been really rewarding.” – Dee Shore

a.cil.i.tate: to make easy or easier. Thanks to the efforts of N.C. Cooperative Extension’s facilitation team, planning, implementing and collaborating have become easier for groups and counties across the state. Since 2010, more than 110 Extension professionals have received training from a core team of about 20. This group now has the skills to assist groups with collaborative work, strategic planning and more. The program has 3 major areas of application: county team development, organizational and association, and statewide. This is part of Extension’s effort to provide “high-touch” service, connecting the organization with home communities, said Dr. Mary Lou Addor, program leader and organizational development specialist for Cooperative Extension. As director of NC State University’s Natural Resources Leadership Institute, Addor has experience in facilitating discussion of environmental and natural resource issues. This February, the N.C. Extension Facilitation Program is receiving a national team award from the Joint Council on Extension Professionals at the JCEP national meeting in Las Vegas, Nev. Extension professionals who have provided facilitation services in their communities say the skills they provide have helped in many ways and positioned Extension as the

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go-to agency for training, planning and creating consensus around issues. “Facilitation skills are fundamental to meaningful engagement,” Addor said. “From the simplest act of writing a better meeting agenda to data gathering and idea sharing, to developing options and solutions, Extension agents, specialists and county Lori Ivey, Stanly County Extension director, leads a discussion at the Extension directors 2014 N.C. Agriculture and Biotechnology Summit. on this team assist land preservation and an Institute for Emergcolleagues, associations and other organizaing Issues discussion on building manufacturtions in productive meeting management and ing as a career in Lincoln County. facilitation of complex, strategic issues.” One community issue that Guth helped “Facilitation is a tool and skill still needed guide discussion on was the fate of an old in so many places,” said Leigh Guth, Lincoln Rosenwald School that once served AfricanCounty Extension agent in family and conAmerican students. “In Lincoln County we sumer sciences. “Lou [Addor] has continued have a historic Rosenwald School that was in to provide us with support and training. It has disrepair. We had to do something or it would been a real joy in Extension to have this opfall down,” Guth said. portunity.” Lincoln County Commissioners needed In Lincoln County, Guth has led facilitation help in listening to the needs of the commuefforts on a number of issues, including farm-

Becky Kirkland

Extension’s facilitation team adds value to communities

learn help Extension cultivate new working relationships.” “In Extension, we use facilitation all the time, to arrange meetings and conduct strategic planning,” said Cabarrus County Extension Director Robbie Furr, a member of extension’s facilitation team. Across the state, Extension facilitators have helped support strategic planning efforts at other county centers and for groups outside of Extension. “It’s not difficult,” Furr said, “but it helps to have someone from the outside. I couldn’t do strategic planning for my own county, but a skilled facilitator knows how to handle it.” Furr explained that bringing in an outside facilitator allows those within the county Extension group to focus on their own strategic goals. Furr conducted two IEI listening sessions in Cabarrus County – one related to manufacturing and the most recent related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. The STEM sessions brought together professionals from schools and distance education providers to examine the gaps in the local STEM education program and how those gaps can be addressed. For all the IEI sessions, feedback is collected and returned to NC State’s IEI for further discussion at the state level. Furr said facilitation is an important service for Extension to offer. “In this role, we are the conveners. No matter what side

Becky Kirkland

nity and making a decision on the school, so they asked for Guth’s help. Guth arranged a meeting with 25 members of the local AfricanAmerican community, county commissioners and county government officials. Guth led the group through a process of describing what the Rosenwald School meant to the community when it was operational. “The commissioners heard the community members’ concerns,” she said. “We asked, ‘what do we do we need to do now?’ We talked about it, shared it and recorded it.” As a result of the efforts, Lincoln County received a $500,000 grant and some additional funds to help restore the school. The effort to restore and create a purpose for the facility continues, and more partners have become involved. “It has taken a long time, but many good things do,” Guth said. Guth enjoys supporting her community as a facilitator, though she still gets nervous doing facilitation, having constantly to think on her feet. “I personally cannot say enough about this program. It can only benefit Extension,” she said. “Not only do we support our partners and internal clients, we are building professional relationships across our own disciplines, counties, districts and NC State’s campus, as well as with organizations like Emerging Issues and NC State’s Industrial Extension Service,” Addor said. “The team-building and problem-solving activities that facilitators

you’re on, we’re your friend,” he said. “This gives us an important tool in our toolbox.” As a community resource development agent in Edgecombe County, Jamilla Hawkins is no stranger to working with community groups. But she also has used her facilitation training for statewide initiatives. In November, she and about 30 other teams members helped facilitate discussion at the N.C. Agriculture and Biotechnology Summit at NC State University. With Rebecca Liverman of Washington County, Hawkins helped the five-county Turning Point Workforce Development Group develop a mission and strategic plan two years ago. The group members developed three primary goals that they are still working toward, Hawkins said. Hawkins, Liverman and Guth also provided facilitation training to N.C. Health and Human Services Department employees who were part of a community transformation grant program, saving the state agency countless dollars in training costs. Hawkins led Edgecombe County’s Human Relations group in a revitalization process to develop priority goals, based on a new vision. She helped an Edgecombe entrepreneurs group to develop a plan for a small business incubator and is working with a local tourism group on drawing attention to historic Shiloh Landing, a place on the Tar River where slaves were brought to be sold on the town commons. “I use this training in every facet of my work,” Hawkins said. Among the tools she has learned: ice breakers to help groups become more engaged, a “cafe” of ideas where groups rotate among tables to share thoughts on various issues, rules of engagement like the “parking lot” where an out-of-place idea can reside temporarily and colorful sticky notes for brainstorming. Hawkins and the other facilitators feel their skills have enhanced their value to their communities. “People say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know Extension did that.’ We’re education professionals, and we can provide a real service that people can use without having to pay a lot for facilitation,” she said. – Natalie Hampton

At the November summit, a facilitator (left) takes part in a team-building and problem-solving session.

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Courtesy CEFS

Reunion, Soil bration bring alumni, friends back to CEFS hat do Firsthand Foods CEO Jennifer Curtis, University of Georgia faculty member Suzanne O’Connell and Western Illinois University Organic Research Director Joel Gruver have in common? All developed a passion for what they do now through earlier work with the Center for Environmental Farming Systems. In October, CEFS celebrated its 20th anniversary with three big events: a Soilbration on the Goldsboro farm Oct. 17, the annual Sustainable Agriculture Lecture with Dr. Fred Kirschenmann and a reunion of faculty, students, interns and others at NC State University Oct. 18. CEFS is a partnership of NC State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, N.C. A&T State University and the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Curtis, O’Connell and Gruver were among the CEFS (and NC State) alumni who gave short “CEFS Talks” about how their CEFS experience led them to new opportunities. Other talks were given by Cary Rivard, former intern and CALS graduate student, now a fruit and vegetable specialist with Kansas State University; Danielle Treadwell, former CALS graduate student, now associate professor of horticultural science at the University of Florida; and Sarah Morgan, Fayetteville veterinarian and NC State graduate. Prior to the reunion dinner at Talley Student Union, Dr. Fred Kirschenmann presented the annual CEFS Sustainable Agriculture Lecture on “The Future of Food and Agriculture.” A longtime advocate for sustainable agriculture, Kirschenmann is Distinguished Fellow of Iowa’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. In 2006, Kirschenmann spoke at the dedication of CEFS Alternative Swine Unit. It was at the Alternative Swine Unit dedication that Curtis first met CEFS Director Nancy Creamer. A former vegetarian with no knowledge of the meat industry, Curtis became a consultant to CEFS NC Choices sustainable and niche meat initiative. The project was so successful that Curtis went on to start Firsthand Foods of Durham, a local, sustainable meat company. As a graduate student, O’Connell studied

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Panelists (from left) Dr. Paul Mueller, Susan Perry-Cole, Dr. Roger Crickenberger, Shorlette Ammons and Alex Hitt talk about their valuable experiences with the CEFS.

grafted tomato production in high tunnels and soil nutrients from cover crops. But perhaps her best memories were of international travel experiences to Uruguay with a CEFS group, and later to Honduras and Croatia. At UGA, she teaches sustainable and organic horticulture practices. At CEFS, Gruver managed the Student Organic Farm – now called the Small Farm Unit – and the summer sustainable agriculture internship program. As assistant professor of soil science and director of organic research at Western Illinois, he is perhaps best known for purple-and-gold organic popcorn in school colors that he helped develop to draw attention to the organic program. This specialty popcorn has become a colorful spirit item for the university. In addition to the “CEFS Talks,” guests at the local, sustainable dinner in the Talley Student Union heard from a panel of CEFS supporters. Several, including NC State faculty members Dr. Paul Mueller, emeritus, and Dr. Roger Crickenberger, N.C. Agricultural Research Service, helped hatch the idea for CEFS in 1994. Others reflecting on their CEFS experience were Alex Hitt of Peregrine Farm in Alamance County and CEFS board member; Dr. John O’Sullivan, retired co-director of CEFS from N.C. A&T State University; Shorlette Ammons, CEFS community-based food systems outreach coordinator at N.C. A&T State; and Susan Perry-Cole, CEFS Board of Advisers.

Mueller recalled how CEFS grew out of group discussions about how to address sustainable agriculture. But the founding faculty members never dreamed the program would become as large as it is today, he said. “What started as a place thing (based at Cherry Research Farm in Goldsboro) has become much more than that. I never could have imagined it at the time,” Mueller said. Hitt said he and his wife, Betsy, were farming on 5 acres, with only 10 years of experience when CEFS “welcomed us into the group. The ride has been amazing.” The interns who come to CEFS each summer have brought excitement to Goldsboro, according to Ammons. “Kids here were amazed that people would come to Goldsboro from all over,” she said. The dinner and Kirschenmann’s speech attracted more than 300 people to NC State. Kirschenmann also delivered the keynote address on Oct. 17 at the CEFS Soilbration in Goldsboro, which included a series of speakers and presentations focused on soil health. Other speakers included conservation agronomists Ray Archuleta and Steve Woodruff of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service. In addition, the Soilbration included site visits to the Farming Systems Research Unit, Small Farm Unit, Agroforestry Program, Organic Research Unit/cover crop demonstration and the Pasture-Based Dairy Unit. – Natalie Hampton

noteworthy

ALUMNI

Collins, Talley honored as 2014 CALS Distinguished Alumni C State University graduates William K. Collins and Windell L. Talley were named the 2014 College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Distinguished Alumni at the CALS Alumni Awards Reception and Ceremony, Sept. 5. Held at the University Club, the event kicked off the weekend of the 2014 CALS Tailgate at PNC Arena, prior to the NC State-Old Dominion football game and in conjunction with NC State’s Ag Day celebration. Also announced during the reception were CALS Outstanding Alumni Award winners, recipients of the Young Alumni Award and a Gamma Sigma Delta, Honor Society of Agriculture, alumni initiate. Josh Starling, executive director of the N.C. FFA Foundation, served as emcee for the awards ceremony. Also participating were CALS Dean Rich Linton and Joy Hicks, president of the CALS Alumni and Friends Society. Hicks told the group that there are more than 28,000 CALS alumni across the globe, “and tonight we honor a very prestigious few

Becky Kirkland

of these thousands of alumni. Tonight’s honorees showcase the impact that CALS alumni have on society.” The 2014 Distinguished Alumni, Collins and Talley, received awards given for implementing progressive state, national or international programs; development of technology or a science; or other outstanding achievements in the field of agriculture. Collins, who was raised on a farm in Vance County, earned his 1954 undergraduate degree in agronomy and his 1961 master’s degree in plant breeding from the College. After receiving his 1963 Ph.D. in crop breeding from Iowa State University, Collins worked The 2014 CALS Alumni Awards winners gather after the University Club for R.J. Reynolds reception and ceremony. Tobacco as an agronomist. In 1966,

Bill Collins (left) and Windell Talley stand by the CALS Distinguished Alumni display at the Sept. 5 CALS Alumni Awards Reception.

Becky Kirkland

he joined the faculty at NC State as an Extension specialist. In 1978, he was awarded the Philip Morris professorship. Between 1986 and 1994, Collins acted as associate head and then acting head of the CALS Department of Crop Science. During his academic career, he taught more than 1,000 students, authored a book about tobacco production that was published in five languages and named an “Honorary Tobacco Great.” After retiring in 1994, Collins became coordinator of the Tobacco Program at NC State. In 2005, he joined the CALS Advancement Office as senior director of development, raising funds for and managing the Agricultural Leadership Development Program, while continuing to steward the College’s relationship with the tobacco industry. Collins and his wife, Ann, are members of the W.C. Riddick Lifetime Giving Society and Pullen Giving Society. In 2014, Collins was instrumental in the creation of and fund raising for a $10+ million chair in his name supporting tobacco programs. Talley of Stanfield earned his CALS bachelor’s degree in poultry science in 1963. Shortly thereafter, Talley and his wife, Judy,

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purchased 90 acres of farmland and began their operation, Talley Farms. They raised turkeys initially, later expanding the farm and adding a small feed mill. By 1969, the Talleys had been selected by the National Farm Bureau as one of three Outstanding Young Farm Couples. Over the years, the feed mill was modernized and expanded to produce more than 100,000 tons of feed. Later, the Talleys’ sons joined in the farm’s operation after receiving their own NC State degrees, and the farm grew again to include turkey, egg and meat production, as well as beef cattle and feed. Talley served two six-year terms on the N.C. Board of Agriculture, the Governor’s Task Force on Farm Economy and the Governor’s Farm Workers Council. He is a past president of the N.C. Turkey Federation, the Stanly County Farm Bureau and the Stanly Cattlemen’s Association. He served on the boards of the National Turkey Federation, the N.C. Agricultural Foundation, Wingate University, Stanly County Community College and the Stanly Memorial Hospital. In 2006, Talley was

inducted into the N.C. Poultry Hall of Fame. CALS crop science graduate Dr. William H. Culpepper was honored as a 2014 Gamma Sigma Delta alumni initiate for his outstanding service to agriculture. A Nash County native, Culpepper is president and CEO of SePRO Corp., an Indiana-based aquatics and ornamental horticulture company he founded in 1993. Following these presentations were the announcements of the Outstanding Alumni and Young Alumni awards to CALS graduates in recognition of excellence and achievement in their fields of expertise and in service to their communities:

Outstanding Alumni Award Dr. Luis Felipe Arauz, Plant Pathology Dr. Travis B. Burke, Agricultural and Extension Education John Connors, Applied Ecology Dr. Jonathan C. “Chad” Gore, Entomology Dr. David Hardy, Soil Science

Dr. R. Daniel Lineberger, Horticultural Science Dr. Jose Montejano-Gaitan, Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences Dr. Daniel Pomp, Animal Science Bryant M. Spivey, Crop Science Michael T. “Bo” Stone, Agricultural and Resource Economics Dr. Kenneth R. Swartzel, Biological and Agricultural Engineering Charlotte Vick, Agricultural Institute Linwood “Lyn” Vick, Agricultural Institute Lynn Worley-Davis, Prestage Department of Poultry Science

Young Alumni Award Dr. Adrienne E. Crosier, Animal Science Dr. Jack P. Davis, Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Science Sonja T. Mitchell, Youth, Family and Community Sciences James A. Simpson Jr., Crop Science Wesley A. Wooten, Agricultural Institute – Terri Leith

r. Barrett Kays may never have outgrown the near-universal childhood love of playing in the dirt, but he’s not out making mud pies. Instead, the NC State University alumnus is designing soils that support some of the nation’s most complicated landscape architectural projects. Through his company, Landis Inc., Kays serves as a consultant on projects related to environmental restoration, economic development and community planning. It’s a wideranging practice that draws on his expertise in soils, hydrology, groundwater and environmental science. While some chuckle at the notion of “designing” soils, it is precisely this piece of his work that Kays has perhaps become most known for: figuring out how to make soils that not only stand up to major foot traffic and big rainstorms but also support inviting, thriving urban landscapes. His biggest – and first – project along these lines involved the Great Lawn of New York City’s Central Park. By the 1990s, the lawn had become what one official called a

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“dust bowl,” and Kays was hired to bring it back to life in what was believed at the time to be the largest landscape restoration project ever tried. Kays’ solution called for leaving in place two feet of a highly compacted, sink-hole-riddled Barrett Kays, shown here in his home garden, has consulted on some lawn, installing a of the nation’s most complicated landscape architectural projects. He drainage system currently leads the landscaping and drainage activities for the planned and adding 8,000 Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C. truckloads full of an innovative soil blend that was mostly sand of As he told Red & White for Life, the blog a particular size but also included loam and of NC State’s Alumni Association, “Typically organic matter. in the past, the way urban parks get destroyed The goal, as Kays recalled, was to support is when you have these large events with a a beautiful lawn even if there was the biggest lot of people, when they occur after a large rainstorm expected in 100 years and then a rainstorm event.” half million people came together three hours Today, the Great Lawn functions, Kays later for a concert or other public event. says, just as well as it did when the day it

Becky Kirkland

Barrett Kays breaks new ground in career spanning soil science and landscape architecture

Courtesy Barrett Kays

degrees: a bachelor’s that includes projects up and down the East in horticulture from Coast. There are rainwater catchment, stormOklahoma State water treatment, wastewater treatment and University, his NC green roof drainage system projects. There are State master’s in school site plans, lake restorations and envilandscape architecronmental assessments for highway projects. ture and doctorate in There are presentations and publications for soil science from NC groups of soil scientists, urban planners, landState’s College of scape architects and turfgrass experts. Agriculture and Life And there is plenty of expert testimony in The landscape restoration of the Great Lawn of New York City’s Central Sciences. court cases involving development impacts: Park in the 1990s was one of Kays’ biggest projects. As a doctoral Kays estimates that a third to a half of his student, Kays’ focused his dissertation on urwork entails this detective-type work. reopened 17 years ago. And its success has ban stormwater in North Carolina’s piedmont. And when he’s not out solving problems brought the soil scientist and landscape archi“When I finished up, I talked with different for his clients, there’s a good chance he’s givtect several awards – as well as prominent firms, and no one at that time was interested ing back to his alma mater. He’s contributed new projects for his Raleigh-based consulting in stormwater. So I ended up starting my own as a visiting instructor for landscape architecfirm Landis Inc. firm,” he says. ture, as a regular writer for the Soil Science Last summer, Kays turned in plans for a That firm, Barrett Kays and Associates, Department’s newsletter and as a past memcustom soils and a drainage system for the focused on environmentally sustainable deber of the College’s Agricultural Foundation planned President Dwight D. Eisenhower Mesigns for urban projects, as does his current board of directors and the soil science departmorial in Washington, D.C. firm, Landis. ment’s fundraising committee. In 2011-12, he The Eisenhower site, expected to host In the 35 years since he got his professional was named CALS Outstanding Alumnus for millions of visitors every year once it opens in start, Kays has amassed a 20-plus page resume soil science. – Dee Shore 2017, covers four acres along Maryland Avenue and within sight of the U.S. Capitol. Architect Frank Gehry’s plans call for using large, mature trees to create a shaded urban park, so the custom soil blend Kays came up with is designed Remembering T. Carlton Blalock, former CES director and to replace existing soil to a depth of 4.5 feet. National 4-H Hall of Fame laureate Not only must the soil be deep enough and rich enough to support the trees, it also must Dr. T. Carlton Blalock, 89, who served as director of the College of Agriculture drain when it’s really wet and retain moisture and Life Sciences’ Cooperative Extension Service from 1978 to 1981, passed when it’s dry. Kays contends that his system away Sept. 16. will be able to handle the biggest rainstorm that would be expected in 1,000 years with no runoff. Blalock also served as North Carolina’s State 4-H Leader from 1964 to 1970. A lifetime 4-H’er himself, he was Kays is also working with Longwood inducted into the National 4-H Hall of Fame in 2006. In 2011 he received the prestigious Watauga Medal, NC State Gardens, one of the nation’s top botanical University’s highest non-academic honor. And this year, during Extension’s Centennial celebration, he was named gardens, as it works to renovate its famed one of 11 recipients of the inaugural Extension Legend award. fountain area. Longwood Gardens, in Kennett During an illustrious career of agricultural leadership, he also served as president of the 4-H Development Fund Square, Pennsylvania, hosts outdoor events and the Cooperative Extension Service Fund and as executive vice president of the Tobacco Growers Association that attract visitors from across the nation by of North Carolina. the busload year-round. The gardens’ current loamy soil holds moisture well, but that creates problems when a storm precedes a big event. “If it’s rained in the last five days, you can’t put the crowds out on the lawn,” Kays says. “It’s way too mushy.” Kays’ challenge was to develop a soil that would drain well yet hold enough nutrients to support trees and other vegetation. It was a challenge that built on the knowledge he’d gained in work on all three of his university

Blalock grew up in a Master Farm Family in Lucama, Wilson County. There he participated in 4-H as a youth, serving as president on the local and county levels. A World War II veteran, he earned NC State University bachelor’s (1948) and master’s (1952) degrees in animal husbandry, as well as a doctorate (1963) in extension administration from the University of Wisconsin. He began working as an Extension dairy specialist in 1951. His many career honors and accolades include 1990 Man of the Year in Service to North Carolina and Virginia Agriculture, the 1981 Epsilon Sigma Phi Distinguished Service Award and the 1979 USDA Superior Service Award. The latter award recognized his early-1970s pioneering activities in North Carolina’s insect pest management education programs. – Terri Leith

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GIVING

ust a few months after making a $3-million gift to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to seed an innovative rural student access initiative, Joe and Debbie Gordon got to meet some of the students their generosity directly impacts. In August, the Gordons hosted students from the STEAM program and their families at a reception at their Raleigh home. The STEAM program, which stands for “Student Transfer Enrollment, Advising and Mentoring,” is an alternative admissions pathway for North Carolina students from rural counties interested in pursuing an agriculture major in the college. After high-school graduation, STEAM students participate in a summer session at NC State University and then take their first year of coursework at a North Carolina community college or other institution. Students who complete all requirements of the program are guaranteed admission into an agriculture major in CALS and enter the college as sophomores. STEAM students receive personalized course and academic advising to ensure that the credits they earn in their first year will apply toward their NC State degrees. The program is now in its second year and going strong. “We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of students applying to NC State over the last 20 years, and consequently, admission to NC State has become very competitive,” said Kimber Lunsford, CALS academic advisor and STEAM coordinator. “Last year, only about half of freshmen applicants to NC State were admitted. The average SAT scores and weighted high-school GPA for admitted students has also climbed dramatically. “STEAM is an important program, because it helps provide a pathway to our amazing ag-

Courtesy Keith Oakley

Full STEAM ahead: Alternative admissions program benefactors host students and families

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Raleigh veterinarian and CALS alumnus Dr. Joe Gordon and Debbie Gordon (front) welcome STEAM students to their home. The Gordons have made a $3 million donation to support programs to expand rural students’ access to N.C. State University.

riculture programs here in CALS for rural students who may not have the same access to standardized test preparation and Advanced Placement courses.” The program is invitation-only, and students who apply to NC State agriculture majors are eligible to be invited. Selection is based on academic record and a genuine interest in agriculture, and preference is given to students from rural counties. “We have already seen how this program can make a huge difference in the lives of our students,” Lunsford said. “STEAM students are hard-working and driven, and they have a genuine passion for agriculture. Our program can have a dramatic impact on them by giving them the opportunity to study in CALS and pursue their dreams.” Cory Venable, 19, is a sophomore from the first STEAM class. He completed his freshman

year at Central Carolina Community College and now is studying in the college’s Department of Agricultural and Extension Education. Venable, a Harnett County native, also received a scholarship from the Gordons this year. “The STEAM program has made a difference in my life by giving me the opportunity to attend NC State,” he said. “I plan to become a high-school agriculture teacher, and the STEAM program has given me many resources on campus and the ability to meet some amazing people that I may potentially work for or with one day. I’ve also made a close group of friends through the STEAM program that will last a lifetime.” STEAM is one part of a larger program – “Farm to Philanthropy” – funded by the Gordons’ endowment. Another initiative of the program is called A.S.P.I.R.E., or ACT Supplemental Preparation in Rural Education.

During the STEAM student celebration in August, the Gordons also signed the memorandum of understanding. The university will seek matching gifts to grow the endowment. “We hope to grow the STEAM program to allow more students who are not accepted as freshmen the opportunity to study with us in CALS, while continuing to provide the level of support and advising that is central to the STEAM program,” Lunsford said. “The potential for our program to change the lives of young people throughout North Carolina is really exciting.” – Suzanne Stanard

Courtesy Keith Oakley

A.S.P.I.R.E. helps rural students prepare for standardized college entrance exams by providing intensive test preparation courses through the Cooperative Extension centers in their home counties. According to a release issued by NC State, previous success with more than 230 students from 18 North Carolina counties has shown that test scores can be dramatically increased through focused support and meaningful mentorship. The “Farm to Philanthropy” funding will allow the successful program to expand to more of the state’s rural counties.

CALS Dean Rich Linton (left) joins the Gordons to put his signature on the agreement establishing an endowment to support the rural student access initiative.

Collins Endowment receives $1 million from Altria C State University programs in support of the tobacco industry have received a significant boost with a recent $1-million donation to an endowment at the university. On Nov. 14, Altria, one of the United States’ largest tobacco corporations, presented a $1-million check to the Dr. William K. Collins Tobacco Agronomist Position in Research, Teaching and Extension Endowment, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at NC State. Altria, previously Philip Morris Inc., of Richmond, Va., is the parent company of Philip Morris USA, John Middleton Inc. and U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company Inc. Philip

Morris USA has been for many years a strong supporter of NC State, in the mission to ensure that the university remains at the forefront in serving tobacco farmers, the tobacco industry and related agribusinesses. Accepting the donation to the endowment were Dr. William K. and Ann Collins, along with Dr. Richard Linton, CALS dean. Also present were Dr. Loren Fisher, CALS professor of Crop Science and Extension tobacco specialist, Frank Grainger of the North Carolina Tobacco Foundation and Keith Oakley of CALS Advancement. Linton thanked Altria’s Shannon Smalley, who presented the check, and also expressed

Becky Kirkland

his appreciation to the Collinses for creating the endowment. “This is all about a legacy of support of the tobacco industry and maintaining NC State’s leadership in tobacco agronomic programs in the Southeast,” he said. The Collins Endowment was announced this past April with establishing contributions by the Collins family toward a goal of more than $10 million to endow a tobacco agronomist position and a distinguished professorship in the college. In June, Linton announced more than $5 million had been raised toward that goal, at an event where the endowment then received more than $3.2 million in combined donations from tobacco companies R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Universal Leaf and Alliance One. Collins is a retired CALS Crop Science professor and Extension tobacco specialist and a world-leading tobacco production expert who previously coordinated the tobacco programs at NC State for 13 years. He is a CALS alumnus who earned his NC State bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agronomy and field crops; his Ph.D. in crop breeding is from Iowa State University. The establishment of the tobacco program endowment in his name honors Collins’ lifetime contributions to the university and provides NC State with much-needed support to continue research, extension and teaching in the specialized discipline of flue-cured tobacco production. – Terri Leith

Ann Collins (left) and Dean Rich Linton (right) joined Dr. Bill Collins to accept a check for $1 million from Altria’s Shannon Smalley.

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restricted fund, which kicks off the program immediately, and an endowment fund to be established in 2019, which will support the program in perpetuity. The Warren Leadership Program will be a one-year program for sophomore, junior and senior students in the college who have demonstrated interest in, and potential for, future leadership in agriculture and/or public service. Fellows will be selected through a competitive application process, with preference given to students involved with FFA. “Adolph Warren was the consummate educator,” said CALS Dean Richard Linton. “He helped countless young men and women achieve their full potential, be it in agriculture, education, or whatever path they chose. Our college is proud to count Adolph Warren as an alumnus, and we are so grateful to the Dunns for allowing us to build on his legacy by creating a program that will prepare new generations of young people for leadership in North Carolina and beyond.” Enrichment activities for the Warren Leadership Fellows will include government/public policy internships in the legislative and executive branches of state government; opportunities to participate in government/public policy experiences in Washington, D.C.; and campusbased leadership seminars, workshops and field trips that will enable students to meet with and learn from leaders in a variety of agriculture and public policy fields. According to Joe Dunn, the program was destined to find its home in CALS. “On September 11, 2013, we celebrated Adolph Warren’s life,” said Joe Dunn. “On that day, we heard Marshall Stewart share his personal The Dunn family (front, left to right), Bailey, Gail, Joe and Page Dunn, story of the impact join CALS administrators (top row, left to right) Dr. Sam Pardue, Dean Richard Linton and Dr. Marshall Stewart, at the endowment signing that Adolph had on

he late Adolph Warren of Sampson County’s Midway community, who served as a high-school agriculture teacher in the county for 30 years, was a big believer in encouraging students to achieve their full potential, no matter their career paths. This guiding principle led Warren, a 1952 graduate of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at North Carolina State University, to impact the lives of thousands of the county’s youngest citizens through his teaching, FFA leadership and as a mentor and friend for life. Now Warren’s legacy is being honored through a $2-million gift to the college from his daughter and son-in-law, Gail and Joe Dunn of Raleigh, to establish the Adolph Warren Leadership Program Fund and Endowment. “Dad’s passion and love for teaching agriculture followed him well beyond his years in the classroom,” said Gail Dunn. “He loved life and lived it well, regardless of where his daily travels would find him. There weren’t many places he went, in Sampson and surrounding counties, where he wasn’t greeted with big smiles, warm strong handshakes and talk of special memories. His love for people and his gift of leadership were omnipresent. If you were fortunate to have known him, you will remember his inspirational motto, ‘Bo, go do your thing!’ I’m blessed he was my dad!” Two funds recently signed into existence have established the Adolph Warren Leadership Program for students in the college: a

Courtesy Dunn Family

$2-million gift from Gail and Joe Dunn funds new student leadership program honoring Adolph Warren

CALS Advancement

event.

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Adolph Warren served as a high-school agriculture teacher in Sampson county for 30 years.

his life. When Dr. Stewart was just 14 years old, Adolph recognized his leadership qualities and plugged him in to a journey of leadership and mentoring, which ultimately led him to work for national FFA and lead the state’s FFA program. “Gail and I knew we wanted to honor Adolph by replicating the leadership experience Adolph provided to Dr. Stewart and so many other students,” Joe Dunn added. “We are so fortunate to have Dr. Stewart’s experience and passion to create a first-of-its-kind leadership development program at CALS, which will generate opportunities for student internships each year. These students will be equipped to provide agricultural leadership, public service, policy research and education. The exposure the program will provide these fellows is unsurpassed. Dr. Stewart is the author of the program. Gail and I are extremely excited to work with him and Dean Linton. What a blessing to have one of Adolph’s former students design and create a program to continue his legacy.” – Suzanne Stanard For more information about the program or to request an application, please contact Dr. Marshall Stewart, director of college strategy and leadership, at 919-515-1681 or marshall_stewart@ncsu.edu.

CALS Tailgate 2014 was action-Packed! The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ 23rd annual Tailgate, NC State’s second annual “Ag Day” celebration and the NC Stateversus-Old Dominion game gave CALS alumni, friends and Wolfpack fans an actionpacked football Saturday, Sept. 6. This year’s CALS tailgate moved to a new venue, the PNC Arena, adjacent to Carter-Finley Stadium. Tailgaters enjoyed food from McCalls Seafood and BBQ (along with the college’s own Howling Cow ice cream), exhibits from college departments and student organizations, and games of cornhole and mini-basketball in the new Family Fun Area. Nearby was the silent auction, with proceeds benefitting student scholarships. The NC State Pep Band was also on hand, revving up the enthusiasm for the game, an offensive shoot-out which ended in a Wolfpack victory 46-34!

CALS Tailgate 2014 was hosted by the CALS Alumni & Friends Society and the N.C. Agricultural Foundation Inc.

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NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID RALEIGH, NC PERMIT #2353

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Campus Box 7603 North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC 27695-7603

Courtesy JCRA

Showing the way

Dr. J.C. Raulston, the late world-renowned horticulturist and founder of the arboretum now named for him, established a legacy that lives on in the Master Plan today guiding the growth of the JC Raulston Arboretum. (Story, page 7)