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AgCenter scientist gets $500,000 grant to improve cattle embryo viability
Zongliang “Carl” Jiang, assistant professor in the LSU AgCenter School of Animal Sciences, has been awarded a $500,000 grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to understand the molecular mechanisms that control embryo viability in cattle. In vitro fertilization, which creates embryos outside the mother, is widely used in both agriculture and treating human infertility. However, the efficiency of in vitro fertilization remains low. Less than 50% of in vitro-fertilized embryos survive and up to 40% of embryos that make it through early stages of development fail to implant and produce heathy offspring, Jiang said.
“Early embryonic loss has been identified as one of the main problems affecting fertility of agriculturally important animals — cattle, sheep and swine — with most of the losses occurring during the second and third week of development,” he said. “Our ultimate goal is to understand basic biology governing bovine early embryonic loss and therefore develop new approaches to improve fertility of animals.”
The information the researchers discover could be adapted to treat human infertility and improve assisted reproductive technologies. Photo by Rick Bogren
Taylor Foundation gives $1.4 million for nutrient runoff research
Patrick F. Taylor Foundation Chair and President Phyllis Taylor, center, provided $1.4 million to the LSU AgCenter for a four-year research project on reducing nutrient runoff from crop fields. Signing documents with her on June 13 are LSU President F. King Alexander, at left, and LSU Vice President for Agriculture Bill Richardson. Photo by Olivia McClure
Read the full story about the $1.4 million donation to the AgCenter for research.
AgCenter offers second annual field day expo
LSU AgCenter agent Sara Shields, left, and consumer horticulturist Heather Kirk-Ballard discuss flowers on display in a Louisiana Super Plants demonstration bed during the second annual field day expo on June 27 at the Dean Lee Research and Extension Center near Alexandria. The expo, which replaces a traditional field day, covered many topics including horticulture, 4-H and food preservation as well as research updates on corn, cotton and soybean production and cattle nutrition. The expo attracted about 175 people, who were also able to browse booths set up by agriculture companies and organizations. Photo by Karol Osborne
Bienville Parish 4-H’er elected state president
Tay Moore, of Bienville Parish, was elected state 4-H president during 4-H University June 18-20 on the LSU campus in Baton Rouge. Nearly 1,250 4-H’ers participated in this event that involved 42 contests and 10 Clover College educational sessions. Photo by Olivia McClure
Read the full story about the new 4-H state officers.
AgCenter helps farmers digest big data
The LSU AgCenter is partnering with Ag-Analytics to help farmers maintain and improve yields through the use of machine learning and big data.
Ag-Analytics, a secure farm management platform, works with farmers, industry and universities with the goal of helping farmers make better management decisions and mitigate risk.
The data partnership with the AgCenter is a first of its kind with any university. The system allows growers with a John Deere Operations Center to sign up for free and easily link their agricultural equipment to the Ag-Analytics platform. Farmers who opt into the LSU AgCenter study can choose to share their data securely and confidentially with LSU AgCenter researchers.
Thanos Gentimis, LSU AgCenter mathematician, plans to take the massive volume of data Ag-Analytics collects, apply machine learning techniques to it — teaching a computer program to recognize patterns in the data — and develop models that can predict yield.
“We can turn a tangled set of data into a valuable asset, but we can’t do this with data from just one field,” Gentimis said. “If we have a million acres, then we can train the model to make more accurate predictions and then apply it to a farmer’s field.”
The benefit to the farmers is a driver of the partnership. Improving yield-predictor models also would allow farmers to account for volatile weather, fluctuations in temperatures or precipitation, and other events that have affect yields.
Gentimis said that yield predictions are just the start. He sees these models expanding to offer farmers other management advice such as optimal planting dates and pesticide applications. Tobie Blanchard
