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375 found

Acoustic Monitoring to Support Mass Cattle Treatment Decisions

Year Awarded  2023

FFAR award amount   $50,000

Total award amount   $104,128

Location   Atlanta, GA

Matching Funders   Cactus Research, Ergense, Five Rivers Cattle Feeding, McDonald’s Corporation, Veterinary Research & Consulting Services

Grantee Institution   Ergense Inc.

The livestock industry is plagued by bovine respiratory disease (BRD), an infectious condition that can spread through a herd and comprises an estimated 80% of antibiotic treatments. The standard procedure for cattle arriving at a feedlot is to isolate and observe them, after which workers decide if the entire pen should receive antibiotic treatment based on various animal health factors. To reduce treatment subjectivity, this research is developing an audio monitoring technique that uses machine learning to analyze acoustic signatures of animal vocalizations to inform the BRD treatment decision.

Building Team Chemistry: The Bigger Picture Behind Cows & Climate

Conor McCabe headshot

Conor McCabe

Animal Biology Graduate Student, UC Davis

An International Collaboration for Combating Fusarium Wilt in Cotton

Year Awarded  2023

FFAR award amount   $750,000

Total award amount   $1,922,439

Location   Clemson, SC

Matching Funders   Clemson University, Cotton, Inc., Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)

Grantee Institution   Clemson University

Cotton farmers worldwide have long witnessed Fusarium wilt (FOV), a fungal disease that causes rapid wilting and sudden death of cotton plants in nearly all cotton growing regions of the world. FOV cannot be eradicated through biological or chemical treatments, threatening cotton production and farmers’ livelihoods. Clemson researchers are developing germplasm to combat Fusarium wilt, specifically wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum vasinfectum race 4 (FOV4), which infects Upland cotton. They are also collaborating with Australian scientists and using new breeding tools to determine if recently discovered FOV4 resistance genes in U.S. cotton can also provide resistance in Australian cotton.

Scientists Unite to Combat Fusarium Wilt in Cotton

Insight on Livestock Methane Mitigation

Dr. Rod Mackie

Dr. Rod Mackie, Professor, Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 

Champaign, IL

Field trial of rice gene-edited rice for drought tolerance

Year Awarded  2023

FFAR award amount   $25,000

Total award amount   $50,000

Location   Berkeley, CA

Matching Funders   Good Ventures Foundation

Grantee Institution   University of California Berkely

Rice is one of the world’s most important staple crops and some varieties are extremely water intensive. More frequent occurrences of severe drought threaten rice production as well as global nutritional security. University of California, Berkeley, researchers are conducting field trials of gene-edited rice lines—groups of similar plants—that in laboratory settings conserve more water more efficiently than non-edited, or wild-type, rice.

Increasing Drought Tolerance in Rice

Elucidating the genetic basis for sub-tropical flowering in hemp

Year Awarded  2023

Total award amount   $840,000

Location   Ithaca, NY

Grantee Institution   Cornell University

Hemp growers have been largely limited to varieties of hemp cultivated in Canada or Europe, but these crops do not thrive in all growing regions of the U.S. Cornell University researchers aim to understand the genetic basis of photoperiod threshold, which is the amount of light a plant needs to achieve flowering and other types of development. Researchers will also use whole genome sequencing to understand the genetic basis for flowering time variation and develop molecular markers to speed breeding for southern-adapted cultivars. These selections will be further bred to produce cultivars with a photoperiod matched to North Carolina, Florida and similar locations.

Breeding and Characterizing New Cultivars of Grain and Fiber Hemp

Year Awarded  2023

FFAR award amount   $750,000

Total award amount   $1,500,000

Location   Ithaca, NY

Matching Funders   International Hemp

Grantee Institution   Cornell University

Hemp growers have been largely limited to varieties of hemp cultivated in Canada or Europe, but these crops do not thrive in all growing regions of the U.S. Cornell University researchers are also developing varieties of hemp that will deliver higher yields, especially at lower latitudes in the U.S. The research team is developing new hemp cultivars using marker-assisted selection that show promise in southern latitudes and have specific desirable traits. Cornell breeders are selecting for late-flowering individuals grown in trials in New York, North Carolina and Florida that also produce high yields of CBD, which has never been achieved before.

Improving Yields & Traits in U.S. Hemp Crops

ID: 22-000292, 22-000414