Winter/Spring 2008
Stopping the Spread | The Case of the Missing Bees
Organic Agriculture: Ideal for Pennsylvania?
As this issue of Penn State Agriculture arrives in your mailbox, beekeepers in Pennsylvania and across the
Northeast are hunkered down for the winter, hoping that their honey bee colonies survive the snow and
cold without succumbing to the mysterious ailment known as Colony Collapse Disorder. As we reported
in our last issue, CCD has decimated hives across the country and put at risk the pollination services
necessary for the production of many important crops.
Although we are still a long way from pinpointing the exact cause or causes of CCD, I am happy
to report that since I last wrote to you on this page, we are closer to having some answers. As you will
read in “The Case of the Missing Bees,” a multidisciplinary effort led by Penn State, in collaboration with
government agencies and other universities, has identified a virus thought to be playing a role in CCD.
Much work remains to be done, but we are hopeful that this ongoing research will generate the knowledge
needed to manage this threat to our beekeeping industry, our crop producers, and our food supply.
Whether pathogens such as the above-mentioned virus attack insects, plants, animals, or people, our battle against
disease-causing organisms is never-ending, requiring approaches that span from the molecular to the population level.
In “Stopping the Spread,” you’ll learn how researchers in the college collaborate across disciplines to better understand
infectious diseases, with an eye toward protecting animal and human health.
If you pay attention to trends affecting our nation’s food system, you may have noticed the growth of organic
agriculture and the rising consumer demand for organically produced food. “Organic Ag: Perfect for Pennsylvania?”
explores the state of organic agriculture in the Keystone State and describes the research and extension programming in
the College of Agricultural Sciences that serves this segment of the industry.
Also in this issue, you’ll learn about exciting progress in the development of the university’s new Arboretum, a
family for whom business innovation and Penn State ties are a way of life, how research on roots can help feed the world,
and much more.
We welcome your comments about Penn State Agriculture. In fact, we are seeking your feedback in a formal way,
as we consider how we can improve the magazine to better meet your needs. Stapled into this issue is a reader survey to
gauge your opinions about this publication. Please take a few minutes to complete the postage-paid survey and return it
to us. If you prefer, you can take the survey online by visiting www.cas.psu.edu.
Of course, we always invite your letters. Write to Editor, Penn State Agriculture, The Pennsylvania State University,
119 Agricultural Administration Building, University Park, PA 16802, or send e-mail to [email protected] or to me
at [email protected]. You also can find the magazine on the Web at http://aginfo.psu.edu/psa.
Robert D. Steele
Dean
Winter/Spring 2008
News & Views
Demand for Renewable Energy Fuels Hot New Careers 2
On Rooftops, It’s Blue, White—and Green 3
Out of Africa, On to Vet School 4
Penn State, Chinese University Establish Joint Root Biology Lab 4
Old-Growth Tract in Arboretum to Receive Special Attention 6
Penn State Breaks Ground for Botanic Gardens at Arboretum 7
Penn State Uses Airplane to Plant Cover Crops 8
Penn State Launches Water-Testing Program 9
Features:
4
Stopping the Spread by Krista Weidner 10
Penn State infectious disease research takes off
10
The Case of the Missing Bees by Steve Williams 18
How Penn State scientists are helping to solve the mystery
Organic Ag: Ideal for Pennsylvania? by Jeff Mulhollem 26
Market demand means opportunity for organic producers
Alumni Profile
Family’s Penn State Ties Are No Small Potatoes 36
Curricular
Students Learn Think Globally, Act Locally Is More Than a Slogan 38
College Giving
Former Extension Educator Makes Prudent Investments 39
18
Colleagues
26
Cooperative Extension Names Leader for Energy Programs 40
Entomologist Wins Prestigious Wolf Prize in Agriculture 41
On the cover: A graphic illustration of bacteria. Scientists in the
college are studying infectious diseases caused by bacteria and
viruses, from the molecular to the population level (see page 10).
Penn State Agriculture is published twice a
year for alumni, students, and friends of the
College of Agricultural Sciences. Robert D.
Steele, dean.
Editor: Chuck Gill
Associate Editor: Jeff Mulhollem
Assistant Editor: Nora Serotkin
Staff Writers: Gary Abdullah,
Jeff Mulhollem
Contributing Writer: Krista Weidner
Art Editor: Peter Kauffman
Photographer: Steve Williams
COVER PHOTO: BIGSTOCKPHOTO.COM
Editorial Advisory Board: Deanna M.
Behring, director of international programs;
Ann H. Dodd, assistant dean for strategic
initiatives; J. Marcos Fernandez, associate dean for undergraduate education;
Daney G. Jackson, director of cooperative
extension and associate vice president for
outreach; Bruce A. McPheron, associate
dean for research and graduate education;
Jillian P. Stevenson, associate director of
communications and alumni relations;
Mary F. Wirth, director of college relations;
and Jonathan D. Ziegler, assistant director
of marketing.
Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences
research, extension, and resident education
programs are funded in part by Pennsylvania
counties, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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51M2/08PROGRESS
Demand for
Renewable
Energy Fuels Hot
New Careers
As energy companies, agribusinesses, government agencies, and
environmental groups scramble to
promote and develop alternative
fuel sources, demand is growing
for people who will fill positions in
this burgeoning energy workforce.
And the need for trained and educated personnel will cross a wide
spectrum of fields, according to a
Penn State biofuels expert.
“Alternative energy is generating tremendous growth opportunities in terms of careers,” says Tom
Richard, director of Penn State’s
Institutes of Energy and the Environment. “Students pursuing an
education in a variety of scientific
and business-related specialties can
position themselves to be at the forefront of these new technologies.”
Tensions in the Middle East
and other oil-producing regions,
concerns about greenhouse gases
and their effects on global climate
change, and high prices for gasoline and home-heating fuel have
generated momentum in the quest
for clean, renewable, and affordable
energy. Some alternative sources,
such as wind power and corn-derived ethanol, are here today. But
others likely will take decades to
develop and perfect—requiring
the next generation of trained
scientists.
“For instance, as we study
new oilseeds for biodiesel or look
to generate ethanol from cellulosic sources—such as trees and
switchgrass—we’ll need expertise in agronomy, silviculture,
and plant sciences to grow these
biofuel feedstocks,” says Richard,
an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering.
“Rapid advances in the life sciences are creating demand for
microbiologists and biochemists
to develop the new enzymes and
industrial organisms to transform
these crops into ethanol, hydrogen, and other transportation
fuels.
“Processing technologies will
create jobs for chemical engineers,
as well as for agricultural and biological engineers,” he says. “Energy-related positions also will be
available in environmental engineering and similar fields.”
Richard adds that students interested in economics may find their
alternative-energy niche in agribusiness, finance, or venture capital.
Those interested in public service
may pursue careers in government
agencies that deal with environmental and energy-related issues.
“As these new possibilities
evolve, Penn State and other educational institutions are developing new curricula and offering
opportunities for undergraduate
and graduate research that will
prepare students to help shape the
country’s energy future,” he says.
—Chuck Gill
PHOTO: JASON JONES
News&Views
News & Views
Tom Richard, director of Penn State’s Institutes of Energy and the Environment
2
Penn State Agriculture
News & Views
On Rooftops,
It’s Blue, White—
and Green
With the installation of three more
green roofs on Penn State buildings, the university is reinforcing
its position as an ecological leader
among institutions worldwide.
In 2006, green roofs were installed on the new Forest Resources
Building (4,700 square feet) and
on the top of a horticultural facility
known as “The Root Cellar” (4,500
square feet) not far from Eisenhower Parking Deck. Over the
next couple of years, green roofs
will be installed on three buildings
under construction—the Dickinson School of Law at University Park (10,360 square feet), the
Dickinson Law School in Carlisle (11,687 square feet), and the
new health center on the University Park campus (12,500 square feet
on two separate roofs).
“That will give us close to an
acre of green roof space here at
Penn State,” says Robert Berghage,
director of the Center for Green
Roof Research in the College of
Agricultural Sciences. “When they
are all done, we will have one of the
highest concentrations—and perhaps the highest concentration—
of green roofs on any campus in
North America.
“The notable thing is that we
are applying our own research,”
Berghage adds. “Penn State is practicing what we preach. If we believe
in green roof technology and benefits enough to invest in them and
put them on our new buildings,
then obviously we have full faith in
them.”
Each spring semester, Berghage teaches a class called Ecological Roof and Living Wall Technology in which students get to work
on the green roofs and monitor
the associated changes in water
runoff and temperature. “The living wall aspect is new,” Berghage
explains. “Basically, living walls
are sort of green roofs, but vertical. They are mostly built indoors.
Winter/Spring 2008
The green roof atop a portion of the Forest Resources Building appears thick with low-growing
shrubs and spreading perennial plants, in this photo taken from the popular observation deck.
The growing medium is held by
mesh or containers. Living walls
have water trickling behind them.
Our class project will be to put up
a green wall in a greenhouse on
campus.”
Around the world, green roofs
are receiving a lot of attention. In
addition to the stormwater management and thermal benefits they
offer, according to Berghage, one
of the hot topics for green roofs
is that they provide habitat for
ground-nesting birds. “And some
people are even investigating growing food on roofs,” he says. “That is
interesting, but it probably doesn’t
have large-scale application for
commercial production.”
Penn State’s green roofs have
low-growing perennial plants such
as sedums and grasses that spread
and don’t require much maintenance. “They survive the winters—we may lose a few plants the
way you do in any landscaping,
but they are spreading plants and
they fill in the gaps,” Berghage says.
“On some of our green roofs, students plant and maintain them; on
others, it’s a classroom situation
where they help to monitor runoff and temperatures and do vegetative survey work.
“Penn State is definitely out in
front on green roofs, and the more
of these things that we build, the
further out in front we get,” he
adds. “We’ve made a commitment
to green certification of our build-
ings, and that contributes to an attractive environment and a reduction of the buildings’ ecological
footprints.”
Because they offer protection
from temperature extremes and
ultraviolet radiation, green roofs
actually last at least twice as long
as conventional roofs, which typically are expected to endure 17
to 20 years, Berghage notes. “A
bunch of things happen with a
green roof,” he says. “You provide
attractive surroundings and habitat for birds and insects, and reduce stormwater runoff and airconditioning demand. No wonder
they are starting to attract so much
attention.”
—Jeff Mulhollem
3
News & Views
Penn State,
Chinese
University
Establish Joint
Root Biology Lab
PHOTO PROVIDED
Out of Africa, On to Vet School
Diane Harris
Most students who aspire to become veterinarians
may picture themselves treating cats and dogs, or
perhaps large farm animals such as horses or cattle.
But for an adventurous few, the Vets in the Wild
program offers an opportunity to experience what it’s
like working with big game in South Africa.
Diane Harris, a senior Animal Bioscience major
in the College of Agricultural Sciences, recently
discovered this animal adventure lurking in the studyabroad options on an Animal Bioscience Web site.
“The Vets in the Wild program is offered through
the University of Pretoria in South Africa,” says
Harris, a native of Lancaster. “Through a series of
trips across the South African landscape, from Blyde
River Canyon reserve to Kruger National Park, it
gives veterinarians, pre-veterinarians, and vet-school
students a hands-on taste of what it’s like to work as
a veterinarian in the wild.”
While traveling, Harris and 14 other students
engaged in many outdoor activities with the animals
during the day and night.
“You hear it a lot, but it’s true—the animals
really are so much larger in real life,” Harris says.
“But they’re also very timid, except for the monkeys.
They were all over—a lot like squirrels in America—
and would try to grab your food if you weren’t
careful. We also encountered warthogs, lions, and
even a rare mating pair of lions.
“The animals are actually more active at night,
so we decided to go on a night drive,” she says.
“During the drive we saw a leopard—a sight so rare
that it alone brings people to Africa—and a pride of
lions just lounging in the middle of the road.”
4
Along with witnessing these animals up close,
Harris also had the opportunity to work with
them directly. “During my time in the program,
I transferred a sable, took part in a necropsy
on a snake to see why it died, and dehorned a
wildebeest with an infected horn,” she recalls. “I
attended the game-capture school and learned how
to transport and monitor animals once they were
darted [tranquilized].
“We also heard lectures on how to manage a
wildlife park, how to deal with disease in the park,
what diseases these animals can contract, and
how to track and manage animal populations,” she
says. “A lot of parks actually let nature care for a
lot of things. So while the role of the veterinarian in
the wild is important, it’s just as important to allow
for the influence of nature.”
It turns out Harris is no stranger to exotic
wildlife adventure. The summer before she enrolled
at Penn State, she accompanied her veterinarian
father—a Penn State alumnus and part-owner
of Smoketown Veterinary Hospital in Lancaster
County—on a veterinary continuing-education trip
to the Galapagos Islands. “That trip gave me the
chance to see wildlife that can’t be seen anywhere
else in the world,” she says. “I learned about
the value of preservation and also learned that I
love traveling and visiting new places.”
Harris plans to attend veterinary school after
graduating in May 2008. She may not know yet
where she will ply her trade, but she’s already
discovered that there is a world of possibilities.
—Kyle Bohunicky
For Jonathan Lynch, it’s all about
the roots. For decades, the Penn
State professor of plant nutrition
has been studying how the roots
of plants such as common bean,
corn, and soybean can be designed, selected, and developed to
improve yields in the low-fertility
soils of poor counties. His research
into root architecture, formation,
and characteristics is critical for
the world, Lynch believes, especially in parts of Africa, Asia, and
South America where people continually battle starvation.
“The United Nations estimates that 840 million people are
undernourished, and the number
of malnourished people is actually growing,” he says. “Agricultural
production in developing nations
is limited primarily by drought and
low soil fertility. Fertilizer use in
these regions is low and is not likely
to increase substantially in the foreseeable future. The development of
crops with better yield on poor soil,
therefore, has great promise for alleviating human suffering.
“If we understood roots better, we could give people seed for
better plants, and they could grow
more food,” Lynch adds.
Underlining the importance
of Lynch’s work, Penn State President Graham Spanier recently
stopped in Guangzhou, China, to
sign an agreement creating a Joint
Root Biology Laboratory with
South China Agricultural University. The pact formalizes a collaboration between Lynch and Professor Xiaolong Yan, who have been
partnering on root-biology research for 25 years.
At South China Agricultural University, Lynch explains, Yan
and his peers have concentrated on
improving the roots of soybean,
which is a vital crop for that counPenn State Agriculture
News & Views
A digital re-creation of a
root structure (right) shows
thousands of hair-like filaments. Plant nutritionist
Jonathan Lynch and his colleagues are using fractal
geometry to determine the
configuration of roots and
better predict their ability
to take up nutrients.
PHOTO: Jonathan Lynch
try. “Ten million Chinese farmers
this year will plant soybean genotypes that Yan has developed,” he
says. “Yan’s work has had a tremendous importance in his country.
“Here, we have focused our
root biology work more on common beans and corn, trying to develop plants that will grow better
and improve the food supply in
Africa and Latin America. But our
research and Yan’s are collaborative
and complementary.”
Robert Steele, dean of Penn
State’s College of Agricultural Sci-
ences, agrees root-biology research
is vital to the world’s future. “We
are involved, obviously, in a wide
range of important agricultural
research,” Steele says. “But perhaps none is as crucial as improving food supplies in developing
nations where drought and poor
soils are a reality. This project is
bringing the best scientists from
both universities together to tackle this important challenge.”
Lynch expects the world hunger situation to get worse in coming decades as the effects of global
climate change become widely felt.
“The real challenge is what is coming ahead,” he says. “Droughts are
expected to get worse in much of
the developing world. It will become increasingly critical for people in those regions to have crops
that can grow with little moisture
in poor soils. To do that, the plants
must have the right root traits.”
—Jeff Mulhollem
Jonathan Lynch
Winter/Spring 2008
5
News & Views
Old-Growth Tract
in Arboretum to
Receive Special
Attention
Most of the trees growing on land
that is now The Arboretum at
Penn State were cut and turned
into charcoal to feed the Centre Furnace iron-making operation between 1792 and 1858. But
one tract of about 42 acres, adjacent to what is now State College’s
Sunset Park, escaped the loggers’
blades and now is receiving special
attention.
Forestry experts in the College
of Agricultural Sciences are developing a plan to conserve the parcel
and its old-growth trees, remove
invasive plants and dirt-bike trails
and ramps, and use the project as
an educational model for students,
the local community, and arboretum visitors.
After iron production ceased,
the cutover lands around State
College were cleared for agriculture, resulting in vast farm fields
6
surrounding the borough. But the
woodlot remained, now presenting what arboretum director Kim
Steiner calls an educational and
conservation opportunity.
“A graduate student working
for the arboretum searched historic records and learned that the
woodlot was not cut because the
Centre Furnace operator was not
able to convince the original owner, James Hartley, or subsequent
owners, to sell it,” says Steiner. “Now known as the Hartley
Wood, the tract is unique in this
region, and another graduate student is developing a management
plan tailor-made to preserve it.”
That student, Samuel Grinstead of Bowling Green, Ky., has
taken a comprehensive inventory
of the woodlot as part of a yearlong study. This study ultimately
will provide information and recommendations to bring the exotic species under control and set
the woodlot on a solid course toward renewal. In March 2007, a
group of volunteers called the Arboretum Woodland Restoration
Above: Amber Hoover, a volunteer from State College,
helps to remove invasive plants and shrubs from the Hartley Wood. Below: Volunteers walk through The Arboretum
at Penn State from State College Borough’s adjacent Sunset
Park to reach the old growth tract.
Corps was organized to help implement the resulting management plan.
“The stand is a remnant of the
typical valley-floor oak and pine
forest that grew here before Euro-
peans arrived,” says Grinstead, who
is pursuing a master’s degree in forest resources. “Seventy-five percent
of the woodlot’s larger trees are
oaks, some of which are more than
300 years old.”
Penn State Agriculture
News & Views
The woodlot has an ecological importance for the arboretum,
points out Steiner, professor of forest biology. “As one of the few mature forests in this region, it contains native woodland herbs and
ferns that cannot grow without
the soil conditions and the shelter
of the tall oaks,” he explains. “For
thousands of years, the hardwood
trees, the rich, calcareous soil, and
a rock outcrop on the northwestern edge of the lot have provided homes for a variety of plants,
each in their niche in the native
ecosystem.
“We are extremely fortunate to
have this woodlot on the arboretum property,” Steiner adds. “It has
escaped complete destruction—
and perhaps even partial cutting—
since the arrival of the first settlers
to this area, and that is very unusual for this kind of forest.”
Grinstead has mapped trails
and features throughout the woodlot (including the 12.5 acres owned
by the borough of State College).
His inventory of the vegetation includes a very detailed record of the
size, age, and condition of overstory trees. According to his calculations, there are 1,009 trees of more
than 15 inches in diameter (at
breast height, 4.5 feet) on the university-owned section of the Hartley Wood.
Grinstead has “cored” 200 trees
to determine their ages and examined the cross-section of a massive
white oak that died in 2000. The
slice revealed that the tree had germinated in approximately 1673.
Grinstead’s assessment of today’s conditions indicates that exotic shrubs, such as multiflora rose,
bush honeysuckle, privet, and garlic mustard, have become prevalent and troublesome in the Hartley Wood and should be removed.
“We need to educate people about
the ecologically destructive potential of invasive plants,” he says.
“Unfortunately, some of the traits
that make exotics good ornamental
plants also make them good invaders of native habitats.”
—Jeff Mulhollem
Winter/Spring 2008
Penn State Breaks Ground for Botanic Gardens at
University’s Arboretum
Penn State officially broke ground in November
for Phase I of the H. O. Smith Botanic Gardens—a
long-anticipated step in making The Arboretum at
Penn State a reality.
Made possible by a $10 million gift from Penn
State class of 1948 alumnus and State College resident Charles “Skip” Smith, the botanic gardens are
named in honor of his late father, a State College
contractor and real estate developer and a 1920
graduate of the university.
The gardens will be located on the Mitchell tract,
a 56-acre parcel of land
along Park Avenue, and
will serve as the front
door to the larger arboretum. Construction is now
officially under way, with
completion of the first
phase scheduled for
spring 2009.
“The groundbreaking
for The Arboretum at Penn
State represents the realization of a dream that began in 1914 with the first
formal proposal to build
an arboretum on campus,”
says Arboretum Director
Kim Steiner, professor of forest biology in the College of Agricultural Sciences. “After nearly a century
of intermittent efforts, the good fortune of witnessing this important event has fallen to us as the result
of Skip Smith’s extraordinary generosity.”
The Arboretum is expected to be a major cultural and tourist destination in central Pennsylvania, attracting nearly 200,000 visitors annually.
“The Penn State Arboretum, with its connection to the network of green spaces on campus,
will engage us intellectually and physically,” says
Penn State President Graham Spanier. “It embodies our mission of teaching, research, and service,
and will further Penn State’s efforts in stewardship
and conservation in the region.”
Phase I of the H. O. Smith Botanic Gardens will
contain several key attractions, including an over-
look pavilion and conservatory terrace to allow
visitors to view the surrounding arboretum as it is
developed, an event lawn, rose and fragrance garden, and horticultural demonstration gardens designed to benefit homeowners and industry. Several of these spaces will be available for private
gatherings such as receptions and weddings, and
for public events, including festivals, plant sales,
and garden shows.
Occupying nearly 400 acres between Park Avenue and the Mount Nittany Expressway, The Ar-
Charles “Skip” Smith
boretum at Penn State will be open to the public.
The master plan for the botanic gardens includes
plantings of species from around the world and
state-of-the-art educational and research facilities. Future plans include a visitors’ center, conservatory, and children’s education center.
The Arboretum will be almost entirely funded
by philanthropic support. “We have much to do,
and more funds to raise, before all of the gardens
and the remainder of the arboretum are finished,”
says Steiner. “But I cannot imagine a more gratifying task than building the Arboretum, or one that
will have a bigger impact on the quality of the university and the community.”
Visit http://www.arboretum.psu.edu to learn
more about The Arboretum at Penn State.
—Laura Stocker
7
News & Views
Penn State Uses
Airplane to Plant
Cover Crops
Seeking to be a role model for farmers in the state and across the Northeast, Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences undertook aerial
seeding of a cover crop last fall.
Cover crops, such as the winter wheat Penn State planted, offer
great benefits because their roots
prevent soil particles from being
washed away by winter and spring
runoff, they lock up carbon, and
they take up nutrients such as
nitrogen.
The problem in Pennsylvania
and the Northeast is that crops
such as soybeans and corn often remain in the field until late
November, and farmers can’t get
a cover crop planted before cold
weather sets in and the growing
season ends. Aerial seeding is a solution to that problem, points out
“Aerial seeding
allows a cover crop
to be planted before
an existing crop is
harvested.”
Glen Cauffman, manager of Penn
State farm operations.
“Aerial seeding allows a cover
crop to be planted before an existing crop is harvested,” he explains. “That way, when the corn
or soybeans are cut and removed
and the sunlight gets to the
ground, the cover crop already
has a start. Aerial seeding is a very
‘green’ thing to do, and if it were
widely practiced in Pennsylvania,
it could have major environmental benefits.”
Although aerial agricultural applications such as crop dusting are widely practiced in the
Midwest and South, according to
Cauffman, they are relatively rare
in Pennsylvania. With the exception of spraying compounds to
kill gypsy moth caterpillars, Keystone State residents rarely see air8
A plane piloted by Rudy Vrbanic drops seed last fall on college cropland near the University Park airport in an effort
to establish a cover crop of winter wheat before corn and
soybeans are harvested.
planes involved in crop work.
“There are just a few farms in
central Pennsylvania using aerial seeding of cover crops,” says
Gwendolyn Crews, a soil conservationist with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service based in Mill Hall. “We do
have some programs that promote
planting cover crops in general,
but not aerial seeding. Planting
cover crops offers an environmen-
tal benefit by preventing erosion
through the winter and spring,
thus reducing the amount of sediment and nutrients, such as phosphorous, that reach local streams.
Aerial seeding is just a unique way
of accomplishing the benefit.”
Penn State aerial seeded winter wheat on 100 acres of corn and
soybeans about two miles northeast of the University Park campus. Pilot Rudy Vrbanic of Vr-
banic Aerial Seeding, based in
Indiana, Pa.—flying a specially
designed 1966 Piper Pawnee aircraft—handled the job for the
university. He has been doing aerial seeding for 27 years, with the
same airplane built in Lock Haven. He also does aerial fertilization (especially top dressing of
wheat) and gypsy moth caterpillar
spraying.
Vrbanic is aware that his work
is often viewed as entertainment
by Pennsylvanians who usually
don’t get to see aerial agricultural
applications. “I am only making
money when I am seeding, so every move—every turn—the plane
makes has a purpose,” he says with
a chuckle. “I realize some folks enjoy watching what they believe are
low-level aerobatics, but it’s just
part of the job.”
From an ecological point of
view, cover crops are a no-brainer, according to Sjoerd Duiker, associate professor of soil management. The more farmers can keep
living plant roots in the soils, he
believes, the better. Cover crops
fill a hole in the crop rotation.
“We try to remedy having bare
soil from November to May,” he
says. “Growing roots help to improve soil structure and stimulate
microbial activity. So the soil improves and there is less erosion.”
Cover crops are especially needed, Duiker points out, on
dairy farm fields, where farmers periodically apply liquid manure over the winter months. “It
is much better to apply manure
on living vegetation than on bare
soil,” he says. “Cover crops actively
take up nutrients, prevent nitrates
and other nutrients from leeching
into groundwater, and reduce the
runoff of excess nutrients.”
Duiker would like to see more
aerial seeding of cover crops in
Pennsylvania. “It’s not done on a
large scale here, and there are not
many service providers around because there’s not a great demand,”
he says. “Penn State is trying to set
an ecological example in this case.”
—Jeff Mulhollem
Penn State Agriculture
News & Views
To help ensure an abundant supply of safe water for people, crops,
and livestock, Penn State has
launched a water-testing program,
which will be administered by the
College of Agricultural Sciences’
Agricultural Analytical Services
Laboratory.
“About 3.5 million rural Pennsylvanians rely on more than one
million private wells for their
drinking water, and about 20,000
new wells are drilled each year,”
says Bryan Swistock, water resources senior extension associate.
“We hope by encouraging people
to get their water tested, we can
help them to improve their water quality and to safeguard their
health.”
Swistock points out that private water supplies in Pennsylvania are not regulated by the state
or federal government, and well
owners are responsible for maintaining the quality of their own
water. “However, about half of the
state’s wells that have been tested
fail to meet at least one drinkingwater standard,” he says.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has established primary and secondary drinking-water standards. Primary standards
apply to contaminants—such as
coliform bacteria, nitrate, and
lead—that cause health problems.
Secondary standards address iron,
manganese, chloride, and other pollutants that cause aesthetic problems, such as stains, odors,
or off-tastes. Penn State’s program
will provide well owners with reports detailing how their watertest results compare to these EPA
standards.
Similar testing will be done
for water used for livestock consumption. “When dairy and livestock producers are trying to diagWinter/Spring 2008
PHOTO: ISTOCK PHOTO
Penn State
Launches WaterTesting Program
for Pennsylvania
Residents
“About 3.5 million
rural Pennsylvanians
rely on more than one
million private wells
for their drinking
water, and about
20,000 new wells are
drilled each year.”
nose performance problems with
their animals, water is one nutrient that often is overlooked,” says
Virginia Ishler, nutrient-management specialist in dairy and animal science.
“It’s not uncommon for aesthetic problems, such as odors
and tastes, to cause water intake
in cattle to drop, which in turn
can reduce milk production,” Ishler says. “Less frequently, bacterial contamination can adversely affect animal health. Offering
this testing program will give us
a chance to help producers diag-
nose and correct problems that
might be limiting productivity
and profitability.”
Two testing programs for irrigation water—for greenhouses
and nurseries and for turf—will
be offered. The greenhouse and
nursery testing protocols will focus primarily on nutrient content,
according to Rob Berghage, associate professor of horticulture.
“Water quality and fertility are
critical for greenhouse and nursery operators,” he says. “Managing nutrient content is especially
important for growers using recirculating systems. Too much or
too little nutrients can harm plant
health.”
Berghage explains that contamination issues also can be a
concern, particularly in “beneficial reuse” systems where water
is being recycled from sewage or
industrial plants. In addition, he
says, knowing what’s in irrigation
water can help growers manage
nutrients and chemicals in runoff,
minimizing their environmental
impact and helping to enhance
water quality in streams, rivers,
and the Chesapeake Bay.
To submit a water sample for
testing, customers first must obtain a free water-test kit from Penn
State’s Ag Analytical Services Lab
or from a participating county office of Penn State Cooperative Extension. The kit includes shipping
materials, instructions on how to
take a sample, and a submission
form. Residents will choose from
a range of testing options available
for each water type (drinking, irrigation, or livestock) and will send
the kit, with the appropriate fee,
to the lab. Test results and relevant fact sheets or recommendations typically will be returned in
two to three weeks.
For more information, Pennsylvania residents can contact their
county Penn State Cooperative Extension office (find it on the Web
at http://www.extension.psu.edu/
extmap.html) or the Ag Analytical Services Lab (814-863-0841,
[email protected]), or visit the lab’s
Web site at www.aasl.psu.edu.
—Chuck Gill
9
S t o p p i n g
t h e
S p r e a d
by Krista Weidner
Superbugs. Bird flu. Whooping cough. West Nile virus. Every day,
it seems headlines and news broadcasts sound the alarm about the disease du jour.
New, antibiotic-resistant species of bacteria, weakening immunity from vaccines,
aggressive viruses, and even the ability of some pathogens to “jump” from animals
to humans make today’s world a frightening one. It’s enough to make you want to
put on a sterile suit and not set foot outside the house.
Biomedical researchers within the college and across the university, recognizing the critical need to address the problem of continually evolving infectious diseases, are studying the nature of disease from all perspectives—from the molecular
level all the way up to how pathogens transmit within populations and across the
globe. What they are learning will ultimately lead to advances in preventing the
spread of disease.
Microbiologist Eric Harvill is working with two closely related bacteria, Bordetella pertussis and Bordetella parapertussis, which cause whooping cough. Using
genetic-modification techniques, he is learning how these bacteria interact with
their host and how they spread from host to host. B. pertussis and B. parapertussis
are endemic in human populations—they are always around. And while the pertussis vaccine does a fairly good job of preventing the most severe form of whooping cough, it does not prevent transmission. “These bacteria circulate very effectively; they’re among the most infectious agents known,” says Harvill. “So what
happens is that people get infected frequently, but they don’t get the full-blown
disease. In fact, they may not have any symptoms at all. Virtually every person in
any large population will be infected with these bacteria multiple times throughout their lifetime—they just don’t get sick because they have immunity through
vaccination.”
Before vaccination programs, whooping cough was a childhood disease—not
because children were more susceptible, but because the spread of the pathogen
10
Penn State Agriculture
ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCK PHOTO
Winter/Spring 2008
11
was such that nobody made it through
childhood without being infected. Because
the full-blown disease was evident only the
first time a person was infected, whooping
cough was observed mainly in children.
Now that children are vaccinated at a very
young age, the disease is less of a problem
in children. Instead, whooping cough is
making a comeback in teens, whose vaccine immunity has waned. Because of this
trend, a new whooping cough vaccine for
adolescents was introduced last summer.
One of Harvill’s colleagues, post-doctoral scholar Dan Wolfe, focuses on the
lesser known of the two Bordetella species:
parapertussis. Like pertussis, this strain is
present in humans and can cause whooping cough, but its extent isn’t known.
“While parapertussis isn’t thought to be
much of a problem in the United States,”
Microbiologist Eric Harvill uses
genetic-modification techniques to
study how the bacteria Bordetella
pertussis and Bordetella parapertussis interact with their hosts to cause
whooping cough.
12
he says, “that’s probably because of poor
surveillance—it’s not monitored nearly as
closely as pertussis.”
A few years ago, biomedical scientists began to suggest that, because today’s DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and
pertussis) vaccine doesn’t protect against
parapertussis, this pathogen might be becoming more prevalent. Wolfe’s research
has also shown that, while a host’s immune response to pertussis protects the
host only from pertussis, the immune response to parapertussis protects against
both. Wolfe’s current research focuses on
what is required for a host to have immunity to parapertussis, as well as why host
immune systems react differently to these
two pathogens. “We know these two species are co-existing. What effect could that
have on the future of both species, as far
as their relative prevalence?”
Harvill notes that there are a lot of
questions about the behavior of Bordetella.
“To look for answers, we’re dissecting the
tools, the genes, that these bacteria use to
interact with their host—in this case, in
experimental mice,” he says. “Bordetellae
have a large set of genes that interact with
host immunity in different ways, and so
essentially we knock out certain genes one
at a time to figure out their function and
then to compare them with other genes.”
Harvill’s lab is able to use all the tools of
mouse molecular immunology, together
with genetic manipulation of Bordetella,
to examine the interactions between host
and pathogen.
Harvill is a faculty affiliate of Penn
State’s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics (CIDD), and much of his research
is in collaboration with other CIDD scientists. The approach of these researchers,
he says, is to focus on transmission of bacteria between hosts, rather than growth
of bacteria within an individual host. “It
doesn’t matter if there are 10 or 10 billion bacteria in an individual host,” he
explains. “More important for that pathogen’s success is whether it gets from one
host to 10 other hosts, one other host, or
no other host. Simply interpreting rapid
growth in an individual host as more successful is counter to the fact that unconstrained growth of any pathogen leads to
Penn State Agriculture
Virologist Biao He hopes to develop a
vaccine for avian influenza by utilizing
a harmless, “decoy” virus to impart
host immunity.
rapid death of the host: When the host
dies the pathogen dies with it and loses its
opportunity to spread. We focus on the
success of the pathogen as measured not
simply by how rapidly it can grow in an
individual host but how and why it moves
from one host to another and therefore its
success within a host population.”
While Harvill and Wolfe’s research
focuses on bacteria, a few doors down
another researcher, Biao He, is studying viruses, with the goal of developing
new and better vaccines. “Vaccines are
the most effective way to date of preventing and combating infectious disease,”
he says. “Smallpox and polio are two examples of diseases that have been literally
eliminated in this country because of vaccination. It’s really the key to preventing
all potentially devastating infectious diseases, especially viruses.”
The traditional way to make a vaccine
is to start with a live virus, kill it, and then
inject it. The body’s immune system recognizes the virus and responds to it, but
because the virus is dead it doesn’t cause
any harm. The next time a live version of
the virus enters the body, the immune system is ready. While this traditional vaccination method has been successful for disease prevention, new fears about pandemic flu viruses—avian flu, for example—
have spawned a need for new approaches.
“You need to have the virus to make
the vaccine,” He explains. “But there are
some problems with that in the case of
pandemic flu. First, you might not have
the time nor means to make the vaccine.
Second, without testing, you don’t even
know whether the vaccine will be effective. And third, remember that we’re talking about a widespread epidemic—a pandemic—of a very deadly virus. This vaccine is not for just 100 people, it’s for 100
million or 200 million people. You’d need
a large quantity of the virus to make the
vaccine, so you’d have many people in
contact with that virus. That could be a
manufacturing nightmare. It wouldn’t be
safe or practical.”
He’s research is aimed at making an
avian flu vaccine safely and cost-effectively.
Winter/Spring 2008
To that end, he works with a “decoy”
virus: parainfluenza virus type 5 (PIV5),
a nonpathogenic respiratory infectious
agent. “The key word here is nonpatho-
genic,” he explains. “This virus is not
harmful to people or animals—it doesn’t
cause disease. Because it’s safe, we can use
it in its live form and replicate it easily.”
Center Provides Interdisciplinary Focus
“In the study of infectious-disease dynamics, it is very important to have strong dialogue between people
who work at the molecular level all the way through to people who study populations, outbreaks, transportation statistics, commuter dynamics, and social dynamics,” says Ottar Bjornstad, professor of entomology and biology and adjunct professor in statistics. “The Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics gives us
an ideal framework within which to have that dialogue.”
About four years ago, Bjornstad and fellow biologist Peter Hudson recognized a need for collaboration
among the more than 100 Penn State faculty members studying infectious diseases. These researchers,
working in areas such as agriculture, life sciences, human health, material sciences, sociology, and architecture, each approach infectious-disease studies from their own unique perspectives.
To bring these researchers together, Bjornstad and Hudson wrote a proposal for a seed grant to start
a center for the study of infectious-disease dynamics. With funding from the colleges of Science and Agricultural Sciences, the Penn State Institutes of the Environment, and the Penn State Huck Institutes of the
Life Sciences, the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics (CIDD) is up and running with about a dozen core faculty. The center is founded on the principle of using an interdisciplinary approach to study the
spread of infectious diseases.
Today, CIDD is a virtual center, with faculty meeting in various labs and offices across campus. Plans
are in the design phase for a new building, part of which will house CIDD, to be completed in the summer
of 2011. The goal is for the new CIDD space to serve as a flagship example of an interdisciplinary facility.
“In designing the center—lab spaces, office spaces, computer facilities, animal facilities—we’re always
thinking about how to optimize interdisciplinary interactions,” says Bjornstad.
“It’s very exciting,” adds Bruce McPheron, associate dean for research in the College of Agricultural
Sciences. “Penn State has recognized its opportunities to build a research presence in understanding the
biology of infectious diseases in animals and humans. And the college has been right at the table, hiring
world-class researchers to make sure the agricultural interests are represented but also to contribute to
the very basic biological knowledge and information management that are needed to understand infectious
disease processes. We are taking full advantage of the interdisciplinary expertise in this university-wide
entity. We don’t stop at the borders of our college.”
More information on the CIDD is available online at http://www.cidd.psu.edu/.
—Krista Weidner
13
Penn State’s Lure
Proves Infectious
for Top Disease
Researchers
Penn Stat e’s re putation as a center
for innovative and interdisciplinary infectious-disease
research seems to be spreading faster than a flu
epidemic. In the last year, internationally renowned
scientists have signed on to continue their careers
at, or become associated with, Penn State and the
sh al l
B ar ry M ar
College of Agricultural Sciences.
The most prestigious of these affiliations came to
V iv e k
Kapu
r
light last September, when it was announced that Barry Marshall,
co-recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine,
the college’s existing strengths in veterinary diagnostics,
had accepted an appointment at Penn State as the Francis R. and
environmental toxicology, and immunology and infectious disease.
Helen M. Pentz Professor of Science to further his groundbreaking
Kapur is internationally recognized for his pioneering work
research in bacterial infections. This part-time position is
in completely sequencing the genomes of several of the world’s
associated with the multidisciplinary Huck Institutes of the Life
major human and animal pathogens, including Pasteurella,
Sciences, as well as academic units in three colleges, including
Mycobacterium, Staphylococcus, Brucella, Lawsonia, and
the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences in the
Cryptosporidium. The results of these studies have provided key
College of Agricultural Sciences.
insights into how microbes cause disease and have led to the
A senior research fellow at the University of Western
development of powerful new diagnostic tests and novel vaccines
Australia’s School of Biomedical, Biomolecular and Chemical
with major global implications in disease control.
Sciences, Marshall will typically spend part of the spring semester
A holder of six U.S. patents, Kapur also leads an international
each year at Penn State giving lectures and overseeing his Penn
consortium of scientists studying Johne’s disease, a chronic
State–based research.
inflammatory intestinal disease of ruminants such as cattle, goats,
Marshall’s Nobel Prize–winning work led to the discovery of
deer, and antelope. Johne’s disease affects about 22 percent of
a previously undescribed bacterium, Helicobacter Pylori, in the
dairy herds in the United States and causes substantial economic
human stomach, which ultimately led to proof of his theory that
losses to farmers worldwide. The bacteria that causes Johne’s
peptic ulcers were caused by this bacterium, and that patients
disease also has been associated with Crohn’s disease in
with this bacterium also were at significant risk for developing
humans and may represent a potential food-safety concern.
stomach cancer. These findings revolutionized treatment for ulcer
“Our collaborative work on Johne’s disease has led to
patients worldwide.
improvements in diagnostic tests, a better understanding of
His current research is aimed at developing vaccines related
mechanisms of disease transmission and pathogenesis, and the
to Helicobacter, perhaps using some of the components of the
identification of new vaccine candidates,” Kapur explains. “Our
bacterium itself as a vaccine.
consortium also has enabled the development of online training
“What I see at Penn State that’s quite exciting is that in
programs on Johne’s disease for veterinarians and producers.”
microbiology, they have cultivated a very diverse type of faculty—
What drew Kapur to Penn State? “The greatest strengths of
lateral thinkers, creative people not just focused on book learning,”
the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences are the
says Marshall. “So whenever I come here and talk to the faculty,
extraordinarily high caliber and productivity of the faculty, the
I learn a lot. There are people doing epidemiological studies on
incredible diversity of programmatic interests, and the direct
measles and epidemics, and studying tropical-disease
linkage to the real world through Penn State’s Animal Diagnostic
genomics.”
Laboratory and the cooperative-extension program,” says Kapur,
Faculty in Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences are looking
who earned his doctorate in veterinary science from Penn State in
forward to interacting and collaborating with Marshall, according
1991—in the same department that he now has returned to lead.
to department head Vivek Kapur. “His interest and track record
As the university continues to invest in new infectiousin translating the results of basic biomedical research to useful
disease laboratory facilities and faculty, Kapur believes the future
products and procedures is an inspiration to all,” Kapur says,
is bright—for teaching as well as research. “This is an extremely
“and I believe will be of particular benefit to our graduate and
important area that impacts human, animal, and plant health,”
undergraduate students as they make career decisions.”
Kapur points out. “Our new and successful undergraduate major
Kapur’s appointment as department head in July 2007
in Immunology and Infectious Disease is a testament to our strong
also was something of a coup for the College of Agricultural
commitment not only to infectious-disease research, but also
Sciences. Previously a professor of microbiology and director of
to our desire to leverage our excellence in this area to enhance
the Biomedical Genomics Center at the University of Minnesota,
undergraduate training opportunities at Penn State.”
he has a distinguished scholarly record that complements
—Chuck Gill
14
Penn State Agriculture
Studying the population dynamics of
pathogens and hosts helps biologist
Ottar Bjornstad understand how diseases emerge and spread, with an
eye toward developing effective control strategies.
From others’ research, He and his colleagues know which protein in a virus—
say the avian influenza virus—is required
to generate immunity in humans. By taking the associated genes from a diseasecausing virus and inserting them into
the decoy PIV5 virus, the researchers are
transforming the decoy virus into a vector—a transport mechanism—for the
immunity-inducing proteins. “Essentially
we’re using genetic modification to create
a new hybrid virus,” he says. “It’s a way to
deliver proteins from avian flu virus into
the human using a different vehicle that’s
safe for the host. When this hybrid virus
is injected into the body as a vaccine, the
immune system will say, ‘Oh, this viral
protein looks like the flu! Let’s get ready.’
So by the time the real virus would come
along, the body is ready to fight it.” He
has had success testing this method with
various viruses in mice and plans to conWinter/Spring 2008
tinue testing with the avian flu virus.
In an exciting new direction, He and
his colleagues are doing basic research on
killing cancer cells using an oncolytic virus: a virus that can kill tumors. Their focus is on breast cancer cells that have metastasized, or spread throughout the body,
and cannot be removed through surgery.
“Once the tumor has spread, how can
you find the metastasized tumor cells?”
he says. “We’re testing this in mice, and
it turns out that our virus replicates really well in tumor cells. It not only has
the ability to infect tumor cells, it actually prefers tumor cells to normal cells—
it’s drawn to them.” He hopes this basic
research will lead to clinical trials in the
near future.
While immunization is one strategy to
fend off infectious disease, organisms have
inherent tactics of their own. Evolutionary biologist Andrew Read has studied
how animals use resistance and tolerance
in the battle against infection and has
found that animals, like plants, can build
tolerance to infections at a genetic level.
These findings could provide a better understanding of the epidemiology and evo-
lution of infectious disease.
“Think of an aircraft carrier under enemy fire,” says Read. “Resistance is trying to repel the incoming shells before
they hit.” Tolerance, he adds, is the number of shells the carrier can withstand before keeling over. Read and his colleagues,
Lars Raberg at the University of Lund and
Derek Sim in Penn State’s Eberly College
of Science, used the same approach to
study tolerance in animals.
The researchers exposed five different
strains of mice to malaria and monitored
the rate at which the mice lost weight and
red blood cells, a common feature of malarial infections. The team found that the
number of days it took for the parasites to
reach peak density—when parasite numbers are at a maximum—differed in the
five mouse strains, indicating varying levels of resistance.
When the scientists analyzed density
of red blood cells and minimum weight
against the peak density of parasites, they
found that as the parasites increased, some
mice got sicker more slowly than the others. “This was the one big ‘a-ha’ moment,
suggesting to us that disease tolerance was
15
16
way it can persist is to move somewhere
else and initiate a new outbreak.
“Our challenge is to understand the
general patterns and laws that govern the
dynamics of these infectious diseases,”
says Bjornstad. “Measles is an interesting
case study for two reasons: We have very
good data on it historically because of this
country’s mass vaccination program, and
it is still an immediate threat to public
health in many developing countries.”
Currently, in the United States and
most of northern Europe, measles is a
fully contained infection. Most cases of
do have herd immunity for measles in this
country because of a successful control
campaign.”
In spite of its eradication in some
parts of the globe, measles is still one of
the biggest killers of children in the developing world—in Africa, for example.
Until about 10 years ago, more than a
million children died of measles every
year. Today, thanks to immunization programs sponsored by the World Health
Organization (WHO) and various other
international and local public health
organizations, that number is down to
Researchers at Penn State’s Center
for Infectious Disease Dynamics work
with the World Health Organization,
the Centers for Disease Control, and
others to control outbreaks of measles, a viral disease that is still one of
the biggest killers of children in the
developing world.
less than half a million. “That’s still a lot
of children,” Bjornstad says. “So efforts
are continuing to get herd immunity
and successful control of measles around
the world.”
Bjornstad’s research on measles, in
collaboration with biologist Bryan Grenfell, takes place through the Center for
Infectious Disease Dynamics. Their team
works with WHO, CDC, and Doctors
Without Borders, advising them on how
to control outbreaks of measles, particularly in the poorest regions of sub-Saharan Africa. “A lot of the research has to do
with helping medical organizations decide
when it’s important to try to intervene,”
Bjornstad explains. “For instance, Doctors
Without Borders gets reports from around
the world about ongoing health problems
and outbreaks. They can on very short notice go to the edge of the world, get vac-
PHOTO: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
at work,” says Read, whose findings appeared in the journal Science.
Researchers were also surprised to find
that tolerance and resistance are negatively related. The mice can either kill parasites or tolerate them, but they cannot do
both. Resistance and tolerance are both
part of an evolutionary game plan that
plants and animals adopt in response to
infections, says Read. And in both cases,
there is a trade-off.
Resistant hosts are successful in preventing disease, but over time the pathogens learn to beat them, forcing the hosts
to build a stronger resistance. It is a
never-ending arms race, notes Read. “But
in the case of tolerance, the host is no
longer trying to harm the pathogen, and
the arms race stops,” he explains. Plants
and animals simply learn to live with the
pathogens.
Read cautions against generalizing the
findings but points out that results from
the study will provide a better picture
of the progression of disease in animals.
While it is not yet clear whether one strategy is better than the other, researchers say
that an understanding of disease tolerance
and disease resistance could help in determining optimal selection protocols in the
breeding of agricultural animals.
At the other end of the research spectrum, biologist Ottar Bjornstad is interested in infectious diseases and outbreaks
as they relate to population dynamics—
the study of fluctuations in the abundance
of organisms in space and time. In striving to understand the spatial distribution
of both human and animal infectious diseases, Bjornstad and his team look at how
pathogens spread in communities and
help determine the best methods of intervention and disease control.
Much of Bjornstad’s work focuses
on acute, highly transmissible infectious
pathogens, such as influenza, measles, and
whooping cough. He is interested in these
pathogens from an ecological perspective because they tend to cause large, violent outbreaks that result in a “boom-andbust” dynamic: Susceptible individuals get
infected quickly, but because of the acuteness and the rapid transmission of the
disease, the infective agents usually run
out of local susceptible hosts quickly. The
pathogen dies out locally, and the only
measles that are reported to the Centers
for Disease Control (CDC) in this country are imported cases—children of immigrants or of tourists that come into
the country with measles. “We have very
strong vaccine cover, about 95 percent,”
Bjornstad says. “That’s enough to cause
what we call herd immunity. Fortunately, to eradicate an infectious disease you
don’t need to vaccinate everybody. You
just need to vaccinate enough people so
that the few you don’t vaccinate are surrounded by vaccinated people. And we
Penn State Agriculture
cines, fly doctors in, and start vaccinating.
But in the case of an acute infection like
measles, you have that boom-and-bust
dynamic that goes with an outbreak. The
disease is raging through the local susceptibles and maybe killing a lot of children.
But during the course of the epidemic,
the infectious agent is also depleting its
susceptible resource and will naturally collapse.” The challenge for Doctors Without Borders, then, is to decide when it’s
important to intervene and vaccinate, and
when the outbreak has progressed so far
that it’s too late for vaccination. Through
host. They explore variables that might
increase the likelihood of a pathogen successfully spilling over into a new host and
persisting there. Using an interdisciplinary approach spanning molecular biology
to population dynamics, they are seeking
new insights into what makes a pathogen
able to infect certain species and not others and what facilitates the contact between one host and another. The ultimate
goal is always to find new ways to prevent
and eliminate disease.
“That’s what I like about science,”
says virologist Biao He. “It takes you to
keys, and take it to very primitive butcheries, so lots of animal blood gets on human hands in really unsanitary conditions. At some point conditions allowed
HIV to break through that species barrier
and become a strictly human disease—
it’s what we call a species jump. And of
course now HIV is one of the biggest
threats to both economic development
and public health.”
Lyme disease, another zoonosis, is
caused by bacteria that are vectored, or
carried, by the deer tick and infect various
forest animals, including deer, mice, and
“Measles is an
interesting case study
for two reasons:
We have very good
data on it historically
because of this country’s
mass vaccination
program, and it is still
PHOTO: ISTOCK PHOTO
an immediate threat to
population dynamics studies, Bjornstad
and his team can give Doctors Without
Borders information on which to base
those decisions.
Another research interest of Bjornstad’s is zoonotic diseases, or diseases that
begin in animals but eventually “jump”
to humans. Some of the more commonly
known zoonoses include rabies, West Nile
virus, Ebola virus, avian influenza, and
HIV. Avian influenza and HIV are two
examples of zoonoses that have become
strictly human diseases: The two currently circulating strains of flu began in birds,
and HIV began as a virus circulating in
monkeys in western Africa. “It looks like
HIV was a zoonosis for a long time in the
interior of Africa, where it was affecting
humans just a little,” Bjornstad explains.
“There’s a big bush meat trade there. They
shoot all kinds of game, including monWinter/Spring 2008
skunks. The bacteria move from mammal
to mammal by first infecting ticks, which
then move from one host to the next. Research has shown that the deer tick prefers
some animals over others; it will thrive
on deer, for example. But there are other
host species that the bacteria themselves
prefer. “It’s an interesting ecological balance,” Bjornstad says. “In this ecological
community, you can have just enough of
the hosts that are really good for the ticks
and just enough of the hosts that are really good for the bacteria. Then you have
a lot of ticks that are all infected with the
bacteria, and that’s when you get a lot of
spillover into humans.”
Bjornstad and collaborating CIDD researchers investigate what makes a pathogen able to break the species barrier, jump
from an animal host to a human host,
and successfully establish itself in that
public health in many
developing countries.”
places where no one has been. I don’t
know if there’s any place on the earth
where no one has been, but in science
there’s always new knowledge. As researchers, we continually ask ourselves
how our discoveries can lead to practical
applications. When basic research leads to
real solutions, we have success. Over time,
good things do happen.”
Faculty referenced in this article include
Ottar Bjornstad, professor of entomology and
biology and adjunct professor in statistics;
Eric Harvill, associate professor of microbiology and infectious diseases; Biao He, associate professor of virology; and Andrew Read,
professor of biology and entomology. Dan
Wolfe is a postdoctoral scholar in microbiology and infectious diseases.
17
The Case of the
Missing Bees
How scientific sleuths at Penn State
are helping to solve the mystery
18
Penn State Agriculture
PHOTO: ISTOCK PHOTO
Story and Photos by Steve Williams
Dennis vanEngelsdorp
“The bees are a little defensive today. I think you might need some protective gear,”
Dennis vanEngelsdorp tells an apprehensive writer making his first visit to a honey bee apiary. VanEngelsdorp, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture’s acting state apiarist, was inspecting commercial hives along the Susquehanna River as part of an effort to assess the spread of a new, potentially
disastrous ailment, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This was the latest stop in what promises to be
a long journey—with Penn State researchers in the lead—through a complicated scientific puzzle.
VanEngelsdorp and his team were counting bees and developing brood (larvae) and looking for signs of brood disease. Samples were taken
to be examined for mite infestations and nosema,
a known disease of bees. Frozen samples would
be analyzed for viruses and other organisms, and
comb and pollen checked for nutritional quality
and pesticide levels.
“USDA will do the varroa mite analysis, and
David Tarpy at North Carolina State is getting
bees for genetic and protein analysis,” vanEngelsdorp says. “Diana Cox-Foster at Penn State will
get frozen bees to check for pathogens, and Penn
State’s Maryann Frazier will analyze wax and pollen for pesticides. It’s a collaboration of experts.”
Winter/Spring 2008
This apiary belongs to beekeeper David Hackenberg, who runs a large, migratory operation. In late
fall 2006, Hackenberg transported a tractor-trailer load of 400 hives to a pepper grower in Florida.
Just another pollination job—or so he thought—for
some of his nearly 3,000 hives. Hackenberg’s honey bees travel year-round, producing honey in New
York and pollinating apples and pumpkins in Pennsylvania, blueberries in Maine, and vegetables and
fruit in Florida.
He returned a few weeks later to check on the
hives. As he pumped smoke into the hives to calm
the bees—a common practice among beekeepers—
Hackenberg became aware of a strange, dead silence. Anyone who’s ever been around hundreds
19
Researchers in the
college and across
the country would
begin focusing on
three potential
culprits: pathogens,
environmental
chemicals, and
nutritional stressors.
of beehives knows how loud the buzzing can be. He opened the first hive,
then the others. In every one, the adult
bees were gone. Vanished. Their newly
hatched brood abandoned.
Hackenberg’s first thought was that
he’d done something wrong. The same
line of thinking initially kept other beekeepers from coming forward with similar experiences. But something felt different. Not only were the bees gone, no
dead bees could be found anywhere. In
40 years of beekeeping, he’d never seen
anything like it.
“I got on the phone and started asking questions,” he says. “I called beekeepers, inspectors, and scientists all over the
country. I made so many calls that our
cell service provider called to apologize for
a billing error. They told my wife it had to
be an error; I’d surpassed the 5,000-minute monthly limit—that’s 83 hours in one
month, talking on the phone.”
But many credit Hackenberg’s persistence, as well as his stature in the beekeeping industry, for getting things moving. His calls eventually brought him to
20
the College of Agricultural Science’s Diana Cox-Foster in November 2006.
“It would have been easy to assume
the situation was a result of a pesticideapplication error, a heavy infestation of
mites, or some other stressor common
to bees,” entomologist Cox-Foster says.
“But it was hard to dismiss Dave’s insistence that something different was happening. He’s a respected and responsible
beekeeper.”
Fingers were being pointed at everything from cell-phone radiation to pesticides to divine rapture. Within several
months, researchers in the college and
across the country would begin focusing
on three potential culprits: pathogens,
environmental chemicals, and nutritional stressors.
Identifying Pathogens
Cox-Foster began discussing possible
scenarios with vanEngelsdorp, who is
also a Penn State extension entomologist. “We received samples from failing
colonies all over the country and tested
them for all known viruses and bee diseases,” she says. “This little handful of
bees had almost every bee virus, oftentimes bacteria, and fungi living in them.
But we couldn’t say that any in particular was the culprit, because we could find
Penn State Agriculture
Facing page (top left): Beekeeper
David Hackenberg dons a bee veil.
Above: At Hackenburg’s apiary along
the Susquehanna River, a survey team
led by Dennis vanEngelsdorp inspects
colonies awaiting transport to their
next pollination job. Right: Due to the
lack of flowering plants nearby, Hackenburg’s nearly 14 million bees must
be fed a dietary supplement of sugary
liquid, placed in 55-gallon drums.
the same organisms in seemingly healthy
bees. So we wondered if there was something new, something unknown to us,
that was affecting them.”
Around that time, Cox-Foster heard
Winter/Spring 2008
21
Why It Matters
Beekeepers and crop growers have been stung by the loss of honey bees to
Colony Collapse Disorder and other ailments. But why should the rest of us
care? Consider these facts:
• Honey bee pollination is credited with helping to produce a third of the
nation’s diet.
• More than 3.5 million acres of crops in the United States depend on honey
bees for pollination.
• Crops that require or benefit from honey bee pollination include apples,
peaches, pears, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, cherries, blueberries,
raspberries, strawberries, peppers, squash, soybeans, almonds, cashews,
and sunflowers.
• Nationwide, honey bee pollination is worth about $15 billion to the food
supply.
• Honey bee pollination contributes about $65 million to the value of crops in
Pennsylvania.
• Pennsylvania’s $51 million apple crop—the fourth largest in the country—
is completely dependent on insects for pollination, and 90 percent of that
pollination comes from honey bees. The value of honey bee pollination to
the state’s apple crop is nearly $46 million.
• Honey bees also pollinate many native plants in the ecosystem.
• More than 700 tons of honey is produced in Pennsylvania annually.
PHOTO: ISTOCK PHOTO
Source: Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium
about a National Academy of Medicine meeting in Washington, D.C., on
emerging infectious diseases. She and
vanEngelsdorp attended a presentation
on new methods used to detect disease.
The talk, “Emerging Tools for Pathogen
Surveillance and Discovery,” given by Ian
Lipkin, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of
Public Health, was geared toward public
22
health professionals and the Department
of Defense.
“He introduced a new method his
lab developed for detecting unknown
pathogens,” Cox-Foster says. “The technique allowed for fast sequencing of entire organisms. We thought maybe we
could figure out if there was indeed an
unknown pathogen, using his methods.
Then he mentioned the cost for using
the technology….” She trails off with a
laugh, no doubt recalling that—at that
time—no funds had been allocated for
working on CCD.
Time passed. The problem worsened.
In January 2007, during the national meeting of the American Beekeeping
Federation in Austin, Texas, a group of
researchers discussed the collapse of colonies happening nationwide. To systematically gather samples and bring the right
expertise together, they formed a working group, eventually co-chaired by CoxFoster and USDA’s Jeff Pettis. “The National Honey Board agreed to pay for 10
of the analyses using Lipkin’s methods,”
she recalls. “I e-mailed him, explaining
that it was a potentially important economic problem, and asked if he’d consider doing it.”
Lipkin agreed.
Fate seemed to have intervened as
well. The Honey Bee Genome Project had just finished sequencing the genome—the complete genetic composition—of the honey bee and published
the data in October 2006. Using bioinformatics on powerful computers, Lipkin compared raw data from the samples
to the honey bee genome data. RNA
strands that were classified as part of a
bee could be eliminated, and what was
left were things that should not be present. A bioinformatics tool known as
BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search
Tool) made it possible to rapidly search
and compare nucleotide and protein databases and eventually identify the foreign organisms present in the affected colonies. By the time this work was
finished, researchers had identified 18
pathogens in bees from CCD colonies.
As Cox-Foster and her collaborators
reported in the October 12, 2007, issue of
Science, one pathogen in particular, Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV), appeared
in almost every case, making it a prime
suspect as the cause of the collapse, as a
marker for some other cause, or perhaps
as the last straw that broke the back of already highly stressed colonies.
And bees are carrying a lot on their
backs. “This is a complicated problem
with so many variables,” says Cox-Foster,
“and we need to quantify what is happening. IAPV may be a factor because
Penn State Agriculture
Entomologist Diana Cox-Foster (right)
and doctoral student Rob Anderson
inspect newly placed colonies in a
greenhouse at University Park. Researchers are hoping to induce a colony collapse in a controlled environment to help unravel how it happens.
mites suppress the bees’ immune system
and make them more susceptible to disease. Worldwide, 19 bee diseases have
been described, and we don’t know how
many others might be out there.”
To determine if IAPV is the cause or
one of many stressors working together,
researchers will try to re-create a collapse
in a controlled environment. “We’re using healthy bees from Hawaii produced
especially for this research,” says CoxFoster. “We have to be certain they are
‘clean’ bees, don’t have varroa mites, and
have not been treated with miticides.”
Scientists are exposing these test colonies
to IAPV in controlled greenhouse environments to study the virus’ effect.
Fungi are being looked at as well.
Since early samples showed high levels
of fungi in CCD colonies, the research
team asked Penn State mycologist David Geiser to join the investigation. “You
could see that there were a lot of fungi
on the bees,” says Geiser. “The big question was whether fungi are the ultimate
cause or playing a significant role in
CCD.” Right now, researchers don’t
believe fungi are the cause of CCD but
instead are opportunistic threats that
appear in already weak colonies.
for young, developing bees—and found a
pretty broad range of substances, including
insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides,”
says Maryann Frazier.
One class of pesticides under close
scrutiny by beekeepers and the press are
neonicotinoids, which are known to be
quite toxic to honey bees. Mullin believes a broader look is needed. “We’re
seeing a large sweep of active pesticides
in pollen,” he says. “Some are ingredients
still in commercial use, others are resi-
dues from products that have been canceled. We’re screening for at least 175
active ingredients.”
Analyzing samples for such a broad
range of chemicals posed technical and
logistical challenges. The sophisticated
analytical equipment that could handle
the large number of samples did not exist at Penn State or even in Pennsylvania.
After unsuccessful inquiries to commercial testing labs, an agreement to examine
samples eventually was reached with the
Environmental chemicals
and pesticides
On pollination jobs, bees come into contact with a variety of insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides used on crops. While
scientists don’t think pesticides are the sole
cause of CCD, they believe chemicals contribute to the problem. Extension bee specialist Maryann Frazier is collaborating
with pesticide toxicologist Chris Mullin
and insect physiologist Jim Frazier to investigate the link between pesticides and the
general decline in honey bees. “We tested
samples of honey bee pollen—the food
Toxicologist Christopher Mullin is
looking at potential links between
CCD and the presence of pesticides
in bee pollen.
Winter/Spring 2008
23
USDA National Science Laboratory in
Gastonia, North Carolina, under the direction of chemist Roger Simonds.
“The lab normally tests food products,
such as cream, pork, and oranges, which
are fairly easy to squash up and analyze,”
Mullin says. “Pollen is more of a challenge. Bee pollen is a mix of all kinds of
hard, colored particles containing pigments and other ingredients—including
bee saliva. Just figuring out how to prepare the samples was a challenge. It was a
blessing to be associated with that lab.”
A technician from Mullin’s lab monitors small cages, each containing 10 bees,
and records observations every 24 hours.
Each group has been exposed to a different chemical. Mullin is looking at main
pesticide ingredients found in hive samples to quantify the effect they have on
bees, especially when the substances interact with each other.
Nutritional Stressors
Contaminated or not, pollen is the nutritional lifeblood of bees, but thanks to
habitat changes, they aren’t eating as well
as they once did. An agricultural and
suburban landscape ethos focusing on
the removal of weeds as well as fencerows
and other areas that once offered diverse
and continual pollen sources has almost
eliminated natural food for bees. As a
result, beekeepers must artificially feed
their bees between pollination jobs.
“A beautiful green lawn is a desert to
a bee,” Frazier points out. “So are farmlands without weeded hedgerows and fallow fields. This affects wild pollinators as
The rapid response and
quality of research is a
testament to the built-in
capacity of our research
institutions.
well; butterflies, moths, bumblebees, and
other insects that pollinate also are in
decline.”
To keep their colonies strong and
well-nourished, beekeepers are experimenting with changes in the artificial diets they feed their bees. “Bees are generalist pollinators and benefit from a varied
diet of pollen and nectar to provide diverse amino acids, which are the building
blocks needed for colony growth and reproduction,” explains Frazier. “Research
enables us to look at new diets that can
improve bee nutrition.”
Managing hives for disease
Frazier also has begun to integrate emerging knowledge about CCD into her extension programs and classroom teaching
to make sure the industry and the public
have as much current and usable information as possible. One new recommendation is changing how beekeepers use and
reuse combs in their hives.
Early surveys of collapsed colonies
revealed that hives were heavily laden
with pathogens, which could potentially re-infect new replacement colonies.
Extension bee specialist Maryann Frazier talks to students in an apiculture
class about colony management. Students have access to the latest emerging information about CCD.
24
Penn State Agriculture
“Beekeepers used to take pride in saying
they’d had a comb for 25 years,” says Frazier. “But we have found those combs to
be a reservoir of disease and possibly pesticides. We’re encouraging people to not
reuse comb materials over long periods.”
On a related front, college researchers
are collaborating with Penn State’s Radiation Science and Engineering Center
to determine if and how radiation works
to sanitize a hive and disrupt the collapse
cycle. Preliminary results are promising.
economic viability, we don’t see a crowd
of people lining up to replace them.”
A bright side to this story is how rapidly beekeepers and researchers have responded. A little more than a year has
elapsed since beekeeper David Hackenberg started making phone calls, and
much has been accomplished. As the crisis unfolded, scientists across the country
in government, industry, and land-grant
universities mobilized. Interdisciplinary
teams collaborated. The system worked.
“This was an unusual case,” mycolo-
What the future holds
With the onset of colder weather, reports
of collapses are on the rise. Until more
is known about the CCD phenomenon,
researchers can’t predict what will happen in the coming months. With the
potential for a continuing and exponential decline in bees, beekeepers are
struggling and growers are worried.
VanEngelsdorp suggests caution in
affixing blame to any one cause. “One operation we are monitoring has already lost
30 percent of its bees, which mirrors what
happened last year,” he says. “Whether it’s
CCD or other known problems is still a
question. People are quick to jump on the
CCD bandwagon. We are working with
USDA to develop a systematic protocol
for sample collection so we know exactly
what we are looking at and can rule out
collapses from known causes.”
Frazier already has heard from several
large beekeepers who had significant collapses in the fall. “We expect things to
worsen over the winter,” she says. “Large
beekeepers are going out of business over
this. And since this is a small industry to
start with, the impact of even a few closures would be heavy. My sense is that
this is going to be a very, very big problem this winter, and we are going to lose
beekeepers. They just can’t sustain these
kinds of dramatic losses.”
Adds Cox-Foster: “We think IAPV
is here to stay. If it’s extremely virulent it
could burn itself out, but that could be
bad news for the beekeeping industry if
colony losses cause bee populations to
drop below a level of economic viability.
Pollination services for crops such as almonds, blueberries, and apples are coming from a very small number of operations. If those outfits can’t maintain their
Winter/Spring 2008
Research technician Sara Ashcraft
works in Chris Mullin’s lab inoculating
bees with a wide range of pesticide
ingredients to help determine whether they play a role in CCD. Bees are
kept in groups of ten in small cages
and are monitored daily.
gist Geiser says. “Priorities were shifted
and work undertaken long before any
formal structure or system of grant-funded research could be put in place. The
collapse of bee colonies across the country was a big, potential crisis and needed
immediate attention. The scope of the
collaboration and speed in which a scientific paper was published outlining the
metagenomic survey was impressive.”
Bruce McPheron, director of Penn
State’s Agricultural Experiment Station,
also was encouraged. “The rapid response
and quality of research is a testament to
the built-in capacity of our research institutions,” he says. “We hire creative
people who are prepared to tackle unexpected problems. We began here with
just one person focused on bees, but that
did not hinder our ability to respond.”
At Penn State, scientists are still looking, still responding, still working to unravel the mystery of the missing bees.
Faculty and staff referenced in this article
are Diana Cox-Foster, professor of entomology; Maryann Frazier, senior extension
associate in entomology; David Geiser,
associate professor of plant pathology and
director of the Fusarium Research Center;
Christopher Mullin, professor of entomology; Bruce McPheron, associate dean
for research and graduate education and
director of the Pennsylvania Agricultural
Experiment Station; and Dennis vanEngelsdorp, senior extension associate in
entomology and acting state apiarist for the
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
Other Penn State researchers actively
studying CCD and/or bee health include
Liwang Cui, associate professor of entomology; James Frazier, professor of entomology;
Edward Holmes, professor of biology and
Eberly College of Science Distinguished Senior Scholar; and Nancy Ostiguy, associate
professor of entomology.
This research is being supported by
Hatch Act research funds from the federal
government, in addition to funds from the
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture,
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the
National Honey Board, and a gift from
Häagen-Dazs in support of pollinator
health and research.
Other institutions and agencies addressing or collaborating on various aspects of
Colony Collapse Disorder include Columbia University, the University of Arizona,
the University of Illinois, the University of
Delaware, North Carolina State University, the University of Montana, and the
United States, Pennsylvania, and Florida
departments of agriculture.
25
Plant pathologist Jim Travis examines
leaves on an apple tree in the section of
Penn State’s Biglerville fruit orchard that
is transitioning to organic production.
26
Penn State Agriculture
Organic
Agriculture:
Ideal for
Pennsylvania?
By Jeff Mulhollem
Organic agriculture is burgeoning in the United States,
as consumer interest continues to gather momentum and new organic production and marketing systems evolve. Perhaps nowhere
does that trend portend good fortune so much as in Pennsylvania,
with its diversified agricultural production, many small farms, and
proximity to the huge population centers of the Northeast.
As both consumer and producer interest in organic production picks up in the Keystone State, scientists and educators in
Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences are scrambling to
provide the needed knowledge and expertise: Penn State Cooperative Extension specialists are broadening their educational offerings for farmers and agricultural newcomers interested in organic
production; an Organic option is being proposed for the Horticulture major, and two new organic classes are being offered to
undergraduate students—Organic Principles and Practices, and
Organic Vegetable and Berry Production; and research into improved organic-production methods is being ramped up.
At the university’s Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research
Center at Rock Springs, organic research has taken on prominence. Ten acres of land used for research on horticultural and
field crops, such as tomatoes, corn, and soybeans, and four hightunnel vegetable greenhouses were certified as organic last fall,
and researchers hope a nearby one-acre plot used for growing
vegetables also will transition to organic in the near future.
Winter/Spring 2008
27
At Penn State’s Fruit Research and
Extension Center at Biglerville in Adams
County, two acres of apple trees have received organic certification, and three
more acres soon will follow. The college
plans to use all of these organic-certified
tracts for teaching and research, and then
disseminate what is learned through its
extension system to producers who are
craving more information—a perfect example of the land-grant university system
in action.
“Supporting organic production is a
growth area for extension,” says entomologist Mary Barbercheck, the lead investigator on the organic-field-crop research
project at Rock Springs. Specializing in
biological controls to manage pests, she
is collaborating with an interdisciplinary team of entomologists, soil scientists,
agronomists, economists, weed scientists,
and extension educators.
“The organic-certification agencies
are not allowed to act as consultants—
28
Above: Researcher Jim Travis (left)
discusses the value of organic apples
with Mary Ann and Bill Oyler at Oyler’s
Eden Valley Farm near Gettysburg
in Adams County. The family’s orchard
will be certified organic in 2008.
Left: The tubular device that looks like
a twig in front of the apple releases
pheromones that confuse insects,
preventing them from finding mates.
Distributed throughout the orchard, the
devices greatly reduce pest damage.
that’s the role that cooperative extension
can play,” she says. “Penn State Cooperative Extension works hard to gain and
keep its credibility among stakeholders,
and extension is earning the trust of organic clients. I see some extension educators already doing a fantastic job of
working to meet the needs of the organic
clientele, and I see organic producers as a
growing stakeholder group. They are still
a small percentage of growers, but the
rate of growth is impressive.”
Organic production can be a viable
Penn State Agriculture
So, You Want to Go Organic …
About a third of the people Penn State agricultural economist
Jeff Hyde meets with to discuss farming options want to explore
organic production—either just starting out or transitioning their
existing conventional operations.
For some, the urge to go organic comes from a deeply held
belief that it is the right thing to do for the environment. For
others, it is merely a marketing strategy to survive economically.
Either way, that’s fine with Hyde—just realize, he says, it may be
complicated and risky.
“The folks who typically come to my programs are those who
are looking to add value to their products, are looking
for new agricultural opportunities, or are looking to get
started in agriculture,” Hyde explains. “I don’t steer
people in any particular direction. If they value organic
or sustainable, then we advise them to go that way. I
view it as a business decision. I don’t try to impose my
values on clients.
“There is a lot of controversy about this, which
in my view is ridiculous,” he adds. “There are a lot of
consumers out there who want many different kinds
of products, and there is room for different kinds of
agricultural producers to meet all those demands.
Not meeting consumers’ needs is not sustainable.”
Most people who approach Hyde about organic
have a belief system that says organic is the kind of
production that is “right.” He warns them that they are
not selling their beliefs—they are selling agricultural
products, and they have to be sure there is a demand
for the products they want to produce. “The first thing I
talk to people about is marketing,” he says. “The second thing is
the production method.”
For farmers thinking of transitioning from conventional to
organic, he has this advice:
Before you change the way you farm, think about what the
change will mean for you and your family. Visit with successful
organic farmers. Contact organic certifying organizations to
understand the requirements for certification. Talk it over with the
people who have a financial stake in the farm. More time spent
researching the subject and preparing for the change will result in
less anxiety when you begin the transition.
way for small- to medium-sized farms to
thrive in Pennsylvania because it allows
farmers to focus more on profit margins
than on yields, believes agricultural economist Jeff Hyde. Many organic foods are
marketed directly to the consumer, cutting out the middleman, and many carry
a premium price.
“Organic is a niche, but a potentialWinter/Spring 2008
“Most must wait three years to get certified, and that is a
long time without seeing any financial gain from your agricultural
products,” Hyde says. “So you must manage cash flows and have
a plan to market what you produce—which will not be certified
organic and won’t bring premium prices—in the meantime.”
While many of the organic farmers with whom Ron Hoover
works now have all their acres or animals certified organic,
few made the jump to transition all enterprises or acres at the
same time. Although some animal enterprises—especially small
or mid-sized operations—do transition all at once, most of the
Jeff Hyde
larger-acreage farms growing agronomic crops make the shift
in phases. “This helps minimize a potential negative financial
impact that might result as transitioning farmers adopt unfamiliar
production practices,” says Hoover, Penn State’s on-farm research
coordinator. “This aids farmers in minimizing the risk of reduced
income while they learn how to use practices they may not have
used before.”
Going organic can be rewarding—both financially and
emotionally—Hyde believes. “Just don’t think it will be easy,” he
says. “Like other value-added efforts, organic production often
adds layers of complexity to farm management.”
—Jeff Mulhollem
ly very profitable niche,” he says. “Give
consumers what they really want or
need, and they are willing to pay more
for it. It is well documented that the retail market for organic food products
is rising at an increasing rate, and that
bodes well for organic producers. According to the Organic Trade Association
and Organic Farming Research Founda-
tion, the organic supply is not meeting
consumer demand. It seems that an increasing number of consumers believe the
message they’ve been hearing about the
benefits of organic food.”
What’s not clear to many organicmarket watchers, according to Hyde, is
whether more people are buying organics, or whether the same group is mere29
What’s in a name?
When discussing agricultural production systems, some people use the
or the environment,” he says. “There is a lot of emotion invested in
words “organic” and “sustainable” interchangeably. Although related, the
these terms. It is not hard to understand why conventional producers
two concepts are not synonymous.
are offended when organic producers say their products are free of
contaminants and are healthier—that implies that conventionally
The organic movement began around the 1930s, but USDA criteria
for organic certification were only adopted in 2002. Today, organic refers
produced products are unhealthy.
to a production system in which a series of practices are certified by an
independent third party. These methods are typically intended to be as
environmentally responsible and don’t pollute, that implies that
“sustainable” as possible.
conventional farmers are destroying the environment and polluting,”
“And when sustainable farmers say that their methods are
or•gan•ic
The term “sustainable agriculture” was never really defined until
Hoover continues. “Conventional growers are
saying, ‘We didn’t just start doing this in the last
few years—some of this we have been doing
for 40 or 50 years and the methods work pretty
darned well, and we are fine-tuning them to be
more environmentally friendly all the time.’”
The acrimony between organic and
conventional dairy producers—and the groups
that represent them—can be particularly
sharp. “Organic dairy producers say, ‘You are using hormones to
the 1990 Farm Bill. In that document, Congress described it as an
enhance milk production, and putting antibiotics and supplements
“integrated system of plant and animal production practices having
in feed—we think that makes your milk unhealthy,” Hoover explains.
a site-specific application that will, over the long term: satisfy human
“The conventional producers say, ‘We don’t appreciate you saying
food and fiber needs; enhance environmental quality and the natural
that we are introducing bad things into our milk because the agencies
resource base upon which the agricultural economy depends; make
that oversee food safety in the United States have declared our
the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm
milk to be healthy. We don’t like the implication that our product is
resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles
somehow inferior to yours and our products are not safe.’
and controls; sustain the economic viability of farm operations; and
enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.”
proponents and conventional proponents, agrees horticulturist
When Ron Hoover heard all that, he laughed. “It seems to mean
Elsa Sanchez, who specializes in organic production management.
something different to everyone in the agriculture community,” says
She sees her clientele as the sustainable and organic growers who
the research associate in crop and soil sciences. “Whatever folks
are focused on social, environmental, and economic sustainability.
think it means, it sure is controversial.”
“Every now and then at one of the many conferences or meetings I
attend, a pro-organic or anti-organic person shows up and makes
As coordinator of the college’s on-farm research program, Hoover
Sometimes there is a very big chasm between organic
works with all types of farmers around Pennsylvania to test possible
strong statements, but I go into it thinking that I am just presenting
solutions to their agricultural problems. He occasionally gets an earful
information and communicating concepts,” she says.
from farmers who challenge production practices different from those
used in their operations. “But I don’t think sustainable agriculture
Sanchez adds. “If what you are doing is sustainable, by inference,
and organic farming are nearly as controversial as they used to be,”
what they are doing is unsustainable.”
he says. “Five years ago it was an overt controversy—it has become
less noticeable in recent years. I get a chance to see all of it because I
to manage pests in organic agriculture, doesn’t see tension between
work with organic or sustainable producers one day and conventional
producers so much as tension between the political, industry, and
producers the next. I see organic as just a subset of sustainable.”
product groups that represent their interests. “I don’t think it is a
farmer-to-farmer thing anymore,” she says. “They are just business
Producers embrace organic and sustainable practices for a variety
“I am wondering if some of it is just inflammatory terminology,”
Entomologist Mary Barbercheck, who specializes in biocontrols
of reasons, Hoover notes. The more traditional are those who want
people trying to make a living, and there is room for all of them in the
to leave as small an environmental footprint as possible. “They don’t
marketplace. The challenge for us as educators and researchers is to
want to see nutrients running off their land and getting into the river,
try to meet all their needs.”
and they don’t want to introduce pesticides into their crops, products,
30
—Jeff Mulhollem
Penn State Agriculture
Entomologist Mary Barbercheck
stands in one of the plots recently certified organic at the college’s Russell
E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs. Four of the hightunnel greenhouses behind her also received organic certification.
ly buying more organic products. “Nobody is sure what the future holds for
the organic market,” he says. “What will
happen if the organic supply continues
to fall short of demand? Right now in
Pennsylvania and across the country, organic-product sales continue to grow at a
pace of about 20 percent annually. That’s
phenomenal. Organic-food sales account
for approximately 2 percent of total food
sales in the United States. It is a real opportunity for entrepreneurial producers.
There is a lot of potential, especially near
urban areas.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture implemented strict national organWinter/Spring 2008
“In Pennsylvania, most of
the knowledge on organic
production resides with
the growers, and we
benefit greatly from
working collaboratively
with them to identify the
scientific questions, so
we can address them
through research.”
ic standards in October 2002, specifying practices that are required, allowed,
and prohibited, and materials that are
allowed and forbidden. For instance,
the land on which crops are grown must
have been free of pesticides and other
disallowed substances for at least three
years. The organic requirements apply to
production and handling of fruits, vegetables, feed crops, wild crops, livestock,
dairy, and processed foods.
Organic certification is evidence that
an operation adheres to a prescribed system of agriculture and food production,
a system that involves building and enhancing the soil naturally, protecting the
environment, treating the animals humanely, and generally not using synthetic substances. To become certified, each
producer must write a plan for organic
production and update it each year. Organic certification requires careful recordkeeping and an annual inspection by
an independent inspector.
Penn State agricultural scientists are
working closely with organic producers
around the state. “In Pennsylvania, most
of the knowledge on organic production
resides with the growers, and we benefit
greatly from working collaboratively with
31
Locally Produced—It’s Magic in the Marketplace
32
than economics. As educators, we have to
get involved in our communities and point
out to people that the future of Pennsylvania
agriculture is hanging in the balance and is an
absolutely critical issue.”
In the global and national agriculturalcommodity marketplace, many of
“The mission of our Value-Added Initiative
is to enhance community and economic
development in the commonwealth and
beyond by supporting entrepreneurs seeking
to add value to their agricultural businesses,”
Hyde explains. “We develop and provide
educational resources and activities related
to business management, marketing, and
technical assistance.”
Pennsylvania’s agricultural
strength lies in the incredible
diversity of products produced
here, Hyde believes. By most
measures, the state ranks in the
top five in dairy production and
is among the leaders in hog and
poultry production. It is number one
nationally in mushroom production
and ranks respectably high in the
growing of many fruits, vegetables,
and forages. By concentrating on
producing high-quality products—
perhaps specializing in just a
few and undertaking production
methods such as organic and
sustainable farming—and then
selling products locally, Hyde is
convinced Pennsylvania farmers can
compete with producers anywhere.
“With the broad diversity
of products we can produce in
Pennsylvania, whether it is crops
or livestock, we have a lot to
offer,” says Hyde. “And we are
near population centers filled with
consumers who have lots of money
to spend and who value locally
grown foods.”
In recent surveys, points
out Mortensen, Pennsylvania
consumers have said that their number-one
concern in buying food is that it is grown
locally. “There is a huge opportunity for
producers in this state to give them what they
want,” he says. “But it may be a question
of education to get consumers to make the
connection between locally grown foods and
health and quality.”
More Pennsylvania producers should
focus on marketing their agricultural
products as locally produced to compete
with big-industry agriculture, contends
Mary Barbercheck, an entomologist who
studies natural pest controls to enhance
organic production. “Growers can emphasize
PHOTO: ISTOCK PHOTO
After returning from a recent tour of local
farms, sponsored by the Pennsylvania
Association of Sustainable Agriculture, David
Mortensen almost ran into the problem last
fall—literally.
After the whirlwind visit to seven farms
within 18 miles of his home in State College,
the Penn State weed ecologist and his wife
made a quick stop at a grocery
store.
“At the farms, we bought
vegetables, we bought fruit, we
bought meat, and we bought
cheese—all beautiful products
and all produced locally,” he
recalls. “But we needed to pick
up one more thing for dinner.”
Walking briskly, Mortensen
rounded the end of an aisle
and was stopped by a colorful
display of peaches packed in
attractive, unusual-looking
jars. Given what he had seen
that day at the local farms—
coincidentally one was growing
and selling peaches—he just
had to look closer. What he saw
floored him.
These peaches came
from (are you ready for this?)
China. And they were priced
competitively with domestic
peaches in cans on shelves
nearby. “Imagine that—these
peaches were transported 6,000
miles,” he says. “And there were
fruit cups next to them that came
from Taiwan. Can you imagine
the petroleum that was used to
get those products here? And
there were peaches of likely superior quality
grown right up the road.”
Mortensen doesn’t pretend to understand
the economics that allow peaches from
China to compete with those grown in Centre
County, other parts of Pennsylvania, and
the rest of the United States, but he is pretty
sure they are not sustainable in the long run.
“We have to get to a place where we see a
connection between the food system, respect
for the farmer, the future of agriculture in
Pennsylvania, the loss of farmland and farm
infrastructure, and the quality of locally
produced products,” he says.
“It’s more than marketing, and it is more
Pennsylvania’s relatively small operations
struggle to compete. But when they
concentrate on producing high-quality
products and selling them locally, their
prospects are much brighter, according to
agricultural economist Jeff Hyde, who works
with farmers who want to develop specialty
products to enhance their operations’
profitability. Collaborating with other extension
faculty and county-based educators, Hyde
has developed the Penn State Value-Added
Initiative in an effort to teach Pennsylvania
agricultural producers how to distinguish
their products from the mass-produced food
products that are shipped long distances.
Penn State Agriculture
local production and creating economic
opportunities for our neighbors,” she says.
“For those who are interested in
doing it, organic production offers great
economic opportunities. We have a broad
diversity of people and production practices
in Pennsylvania agriculture. I think it is
possible for conventional, sustainable, and
organic farming to coexist here. Organic
provides an opportunity for farmers to stay
in business and preserve our rural landscape
and farming infrastructure, so the diversity
should be welcomed by the larger agricultural
community.
“Although there has been some friction—
to say the least—between practitioners of
different farming practices, I think they are
learning to respect each other,” she adds. “If
only because the realization has dawned that
organic growers buy tractors and all the same
tools as conventional growers. Companies
have begun catering to organic and sustainable
producers. They may play a significant role in
the state’s agricultural future.”
Barbercheck points out that a word—
“locavore”—has been coined to reflect this
new agricultural phenomenon. It means a
person who tries to eat only locally produced
food. An increasingly common acronym is
used by groups promoting local foods—
FLOS—fresh, local, organic, sustainable (or
seasonal).
It wasn’t long ago that all organic food
products were considered to be locally
produced, but that has changed dramatically
in recent years as companies such as WalMart and Whole Foods have gotten involved
in organics sales. “That muddied the waters
considerably,” Hyde says. “Previously, organic
products were generally produced near
where they were consumed. Since grocery
chains have gotten into organics, much of the
organic produce comes from California and,
increasingly, from foreign countries.”
That has created a new extra-special
category of value-added product for
Pennsylvania farmers: locally produced
organic. “In terms of what is most desired by
consumers, eventually I expect to see locally
produced goods overtake organically produced
goods,” Hyde says. “But locally produced,
organic goods are doubly good—I think that
will be magic in the marketplace—whether it is
dairy, cheese, meat, fruit, or vegetables.”
—Jeff Mulhollem
Winter/Spring 2008
them to identify the scientific questions, so we can address them through research,” Barbercheck notes. “It has been an educational experience for the faculty to work so closely with organic producers.”
Weeds are organic producers’ biggest problem, because they don’t have the
arsenal of herbicides that conventional growers do. Weed management is addressed by organic growers mainly through tillage, but that process can reduce
soil quality. “Trying to maintain soil quality while controlling weeds is the
main challenge,” Barbercheck says. “It all starts with the soil. Having healthy
soil is the grounding of certified organic. Healthy plants that can withstand
pest pressures can only be grown in healthy soil.
Christina Mullen, a research
“In our research, we are concerned with
the balance between maintaining or improving soil quality and having low weed
and insect pressure,” she says. “Pest insects are not a huge problem in organic
field crops. We have a lot of beneficial
organisms out there to keep them in check. It is the weed problems that dwarf
all others. In organic fruit and vegetable production, however, there are some
key insect pests that are an issue.”
Barbercheck points out that most organic-farming methods are just bestmanagement practices, such as crop-appropriate cultural practices, sanitation,
using appropriate plant varieties, and not doing things to disturb beneficial soil
processes to maximize biological controls of weeds and insects. “Organisms
that cause disease in insects, predatory insects that eat other insects, and insects
that eat weed seeds are all desired,” she adds.
In the Rock Springs high tunnels transitioning to organic production, horticulturist Elsa Sanchez is investigating how best to control weeds, experimenting with mulches made from compost, straw, newspaper, and plastic. She plans
to concentrate on organic production of small fruits, vegetables, and cover
crops, both in the high tunnels and in the adjacent one-acre plot headed for organic certification.
Sanchez often consults with Pennsylvania organic growers, and she’s a board
technologist in entomology,
lugs around just a portion of the
paperwork and documentation
required for organic certification
of the Rock Springs tracts.
33
member of the only organic-certification
organization in the state, Pennsylvania
Certified Organic, based in Centre Hall.
“Organics is a quickly expanding market,” she says. “The value of organic production is growing quickly, and it is ideal
for Pennsylvania because it stresses quality and thrives on direct marketing in
outlets such as roadside stands and farmers markets.”
There are currently close to 320 certified organic growers (plants and animals)
in the state, and Sanchez expects that
number to grow rapidly in the next few
years. “Health and environmental concerns are at the forefront of a lot of peoples’ minds,” she says.
When Sanchez arrived at Penn State
in 2002, she saw that some organic
growers were frustrated because the university was not offering them much information. But the college since has
forged ties with groups such as the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture and Pennsylvania Certified Organic. “I think we are heading in the
right direction now,” she says.
But much of the college’s research in
recent decades benefits organic production, even though it may not be labeled
as “organic research,” contends soil scientist Sjoerd Duiker, who specializes in
sustainable no-till farming methods. He
lists some current projects that should
be of interest to organic growers: evaluations of different species of cover crops;
evaluation of the nitrogen value of leguminous cover crops; evaluations of small
grain, soybean, and corn varieties; evaluation of forage crops and grazing rotations; weed-dynamics and weed-control studies; and nutrient-management
studies that address how much manure
should be applied to crops under certain
conditions and circumstances.
“This research is useful for all crop
producers—organic or not,” Duiker says.
“All this information is relevant for organic farmers. There is so much going on
Cultures of fungi that are found naturally in soil grow in entomologist Mary
Barbercheck’s laboratory in the
Agricultural Sciences and Industries
Building—part of research to determine the best soil composition for
organic crop production.
34
Penn State Agriculture
Elsa S
anch
ez
that is important for organic growers in
the College of Agricultural Sciences.”
That’s true not only in relation to
small, specialty-crop operations, but
also for crops for which the state is
an important player nationally. Apple
growers in Pennsylvania—which ranks
fourth among states in apple production—asked Penn State to join a task
force to investigate growing organic apples, according to Jim Travis, a plant
pathologist who oversees the organicapple project at the Fruit Research and
Extension Center at Biglerville. “It had
always been said you can’t grow apples
organically on a large scale in Pennsylvania, so in 2003 we decided to just
give it a try,” he says. “This project,
when it started, was the only organictree-fruit research program on the East
Coast. A lot of organic apples are grown
in the Northwest, but there isn’t much
organic-apple production in the East—
we have very little experience to draw
on, so we are seeing what works and
what doesn’t.”
On the five acres designated for organic production at the college’s apple
orchard in Biglerville, there are 250 to
300 trees per acre. Two disease-resistant
varieties of apples are being grown—Enterprise and Goldrush—along with Gala,
a cultivar that is very susceptible to apple
scab, a disease that plagues Pennsylvania
growers (both conventional and organic).
The research is focusing on producWinter/Spring 2008
“Much of the college’s
research in recent
decades benefits organic
production, even though
it may not be labeled as
organic research.”
tion issues but transcends horticulture.
Questions about profitability, pricing,
and marketing also are being addressed.
“One thing you don’t want to do is grow
a crop you can’t sell,” Travis says. “In
the beginning, we were asking not only
whether we could grow organic apples,
but can we sell them? The answers are
‘yes’ and ‘yes.’ But we still aren’t sure how
many organic apples we can sell in the
Northeast.”
Clearly, disease-resistant varieties are
best for organic orchards, Travis notes,
with those that resist apple scab being
favored. Conventional apple growers
spray fungicides several times a year to
thwart that disease. In organic orchards,
trees are planted in rows a little farther
apart to promote more air circulation
and reduce disease-enhancing moisture.
In high-density organic orchards, taller
trees are planted closer together, but narrower canopies allow sunlight to suppress
diseases.
“In organic apple orchards such as
our demonstration project, we must control weeds so mice can’t live in weeds and
thatch below trees,” Travis says. “To accomplish that, we must cultivate under trees
because there are no good herbicides that
are allowed for use in organic orchards.
That kind of cultivation, done on a regular
basis, is labor intensive and expensive.”
Growing organic apples in the
Northeast is demanding, Travis explains.
It requires close attention to integrated-pest-management strategies to compensate for not using most of the insecticides, fungicides, and other chemicals
that are so useful in conventional apple
production. “We are trying to encourage
the growth of beneficial fungi, bacteria,
and insects—organic is a balanced ecological system,” he says. “For example,
we don’t control aphids and mites because ladybugs and lacewings take care
of them. We also have been relying on
pheromone mating interruption, which
results in male insects not being able to
find females, thus preventing the reproduction of pests.”
Whether it’s growing apples, vegetables, field crops, dairy, or livestock,
Penn State researchers acknowledge that
organic methods such as these are not
for everyone in the agricultural industry. Relying on natural biological cycles
and products and abandoning proven
conventional tools and practices is, for
many, a leap of faith. But if organic production and marketing is to be a salvation for producers who have, by choice
or necessity, remained small in the face
of economies of scale that decidedly favor large farms, research and extension
programs will play a critical role.
Faculty and staff referenced in this article
are Mary Barbercheck, professor of entomology; Sjoerd Duiker, associate professor of soil management and applied soil
physics; Ron Hoover, senior project associate
in crop and soil sciences and coordinator
of on-farm research; Jeff Hyde, associate
professor of agricultural economics; Dave
Mortensen, professor of weed ecology; Elsa
Sanchez, assistant professor of horticultural
systems management; and Jim Travis,
professor of plant pathology.
35
Alumni Profile
Family’s Penn
State Ties Are No
Small Potatoes
Back in 1969, when high school
senior Keith Masser began to look
at colleges, he faced an uphill
climb to get into his first choice—
or any choice. As part of the eighth
generation of the Masser farming family coming of age in rural Schuylkill County, Keith had
to overcome lots of family qualms
just to get out of the county.
“I was the first in our family line to attend college—no parent, uncles, or aunts,” he remembers. “There was pressure to stay
on the farm and not go to college.
I went to Penn State in fall 1969,
and that spring the campus was
shut down by riots, and students
were killed at Kent State. My family wanted me to quit and work
on the farm.”
By resisting the pressure and
earning an agricultural engineering degree from Penn State in
1973, Masser started a new family
tradition—one that continues to
pay dividends for his family, their
community, and the university.
Today, Keith is president of Sterman Masser Inc., a family-owned
operation that grows, packs, and
ships more than 5,000 truckloads
of potatoes annually. Customers
include supermarkets, restaurants,
and other outlets throughout the
Northeast.
“We offer everything from
one-pound packs to trailer loads
of processing potatoes for freshcut, value-added products,” he
says. “If it’s a potato, we offer it:
white, yellow, red, russet, Idaho
russet, and Burbanks in all sizes,
quantities, and colors. If there’s a
demand for it, we grow it or procure it.”
The Masser vision also reaches
to innovation—everything from
just-in-time logistical supply for
local and regional supermarkets
to state-of-the-art plastic shrinkwrapped individual microwave
potatoes. The Massers are nation36
wide leaders in developing dehydrated potatoes with a one- to
two-year shelf life and are also researching the use of potato waste
in ethanol development. Working
with Penn State’s Plant Pathology
Department, they’re funding research on storage and processing
methods, on high-yield, high-sol-
of five generations of Massers together in one picture.”
He originally wanted a Penn
State engineering degree so that he
could break away from the family’s farming tradition. But when
he married his hometown sweetheart, Helen, and started to raise
a family, the lure of the farm grew
it was easy to go there,” she says.
“Plus, I was dating Keith, and that
made it easier, too.”
Helen came to Penn State
planning to become a home economics teacher, but she switched
to earn a degree in nutrition and
became a practicing dietitian before joining the family business.
stronger than ever.
“We wanted to raise our children in a rural environment where
they could get to know their extended family and develop a
strong work ethic,” he says. “So
Helen and I decided to join the
family business.”
Helen knew the advantages of
rural life, having grown up on a
potato farm. She was also familiar
with the advantages of Penn State:
As one of eight children, she admits to being influenced by her
five Penn State–graduate siblings.
“I applied to other state schools,
but my brothers and sisters had
already made the transition, so
“I tried to influence my children
to consider Penn State, because I
learned from my experiences that
you may not know at 18 what
you’ll want to do for the rest of
your life,” she says.
Her efforts paid off readily, she
says, for her son, David, a 1998
graduate in Agricultural and Biological Engineering. He’d decided early that he wanted to pursue
agriculture, so Penn State was a
“no-brainer” choice. He says even
though he’d visited other college
campuses, a steady diet of football weekends helped him to feel
at home at Penn State.
“There’s a lot of heritage there,”
Keith and David Masser
id varieties for potato dehydration
facilities, and on varieties that resist late blight and powdery scab
diseases.
When he came to Penn State,
Masser brought a family legacy
that even predates the university’s
1855 founding.
“My family has farmed in this
area since 1800,” he says. “In 1959
my father, Sterman Masser, and
his brothers rented 100 acres from
an uncle. In 1967, he bought the
land from my uncle, and they incorporated the business in 1970.
I joined the operation in 1976,
and my son, David, joined the
business in 2000. I have a photo
Penn State Agriculture
Alumni Profile
he says. “Both of my parents had
success stories that we heard while
growing up, and I visited campus a lot for football games and
Ag Progress Days. I knew that was
the right place to go.”
David Masser credits Agricultural Sciences faculty with preparing him to start his career in the
“The Agricultural and
Biological Engineering
Department, in
particular, has been
good to our family.
It’s only reasonable
that we personalize
our enthusiasm by
contributing money
there.”
corporate world. He cites an internship that he completed with
Deere and Company (for which
he received an Outstanding Intern Award from the college) as
a source of practical training and
fond memories.
“Without question, coming
from a small farming community,
without a lot of knowledge of corporate environments, I benefited
from a culture that prepared me
to be successful,” he says. “That’s
directly related to the quality of
the faculty and staff associated
with the College of Ag Sciences.”
David’s younger sister, Julie,
was exposed to the same family
indoctrination that attracted him,
but she hungered for a more urban setting. “When I first started
looking at colleges, I almost decided against going to Penn State
because I wanted a different experience from the rest,” Julie says.
“But after looking at a number of
private schools—mostly in New
England—and comparing the
type of education and the city
lifestyle they offered, Penn State
seemed to be more of the experience I wanted to have at college.”
Winter/Spring 2008
As a structural frame engineer
for Weyerhauser Company, Julie
helps design residential construction plans that use structural composite lumber, engineered timber,
and other engineered wood products. She credits the college for
having one of the most advanced
wood technology programs in the
nation. “Pretty much no other
institution in the country could
have prepared me for what I do
now,” she says.
Keith is quick to appreciate
the education and supportive faculty the college provides. “The
Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department, in particular, has been good to our family,”
he says. “It’s only reasonable that
we personalize our enthusiasm by
contributing money there.”
In 2002, the Massers created the Kim L. Masser Memorial Scholarship to memorialize
Keith’s younger brother, who died
heroically in 1980 trying to save
a friend in a farm swimming accident. The scholarship benefits
Penn State undergraduates majoring in Ag and Biological Engineering or Agricultural Systems
Management. In 2007, the Massers endowed a second scholarship
in Kim’s memory, this one part
of Penn State’s Trustee Matching
Scholarship program, in which
the university matches 5 percent of each gift annually to increase the financial impact of the
scholarship.
Masser says he appreciates
the college’s help in establishing
a scholarship that is administered
locally and sees it as a way to benefit his business and family.
“It felt good for us and the
university,” he says. “The matching component was a way to memorialize Kim with additional
scholarships and to keep his name
alive in perpetuity. We hope our
company can continue to grow
and we can provide additional incentives for students to be able to
share in the success story we’re living right now.”
—Gary Abdullah
Engineering an Energy Solution
As befits a family of Penn State agricultural engineers, the Massers are
always looking for ways to bring advanced technologies to the age-old
practice of growing potatoes. One innovation takes literally the adage that
one man’s trash can be another man’s treasure.
In 2004, the Massers’ Keystone Potato Products opened an energyefficient processing plant to make instant mashed potatoes in Hegins, Pa.
To fuel an 800-horsepower boiler, the plant uses methane gas emitted as
a natural by-product of solid waste decomposition from a 100-acre landfill nearby. There are only a few boilers like it on the continent, and Keith
Masser explains that the processing plant was designed to take advantage
of what would otherwise be a pollutant seeping from the landfill owned by
Commonwealth Environmental Systems, a private company.
Masser conceived and designed the facility with Cory Schlegel, gen-
eral manager of Keystone, who was hired in the development phase of the
project and was instrumental in identifying the site. “As we looked at energy options, we started by looking at cogeneration plants burning waste
coal, but we couldn’t find a suitable location because plants built in proximity to waste coal fields are not easy to access. Then we looked at other
low-cost fuel sources for high-energy processing, and Cory found a parcel of land near the landfill. Construction wasn’t prohibitive—the landfill
already had a waste-gas collection system. We can purchase methane at
one-sixth the price of coal, oil, or natural gas.”
The plant’s development had a definite blue-and-white theme
throughout. “Both Cory and I have degrees from Penn State, and those
degrees gave us the foundation of technical and problem-solving skills,”
Masser says. “[Penn State Agricultural Engineering Professor] Paul Walker had been working on a blanching process to partially cook potatoes, so
we looked at putting in a blanching process from the beginning.”
The impact of Masser’s innovation reaches beyond potato processing:
In January 2007, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection approved an expansion of the landfill, almost doubling its disposal area and
average daily volume. In approving the expansion, DEP cited the landfill
gas-collection project with Keystone. And Masser says more innovations
are coming.
“We’re looking at increasing our processing, using steam to keep
growing the plant,” he says. “Currently, we’re using only a fraction of the
methane being generated, so we’re in the process of expanding to install a
peel-waste drier so that we can utilize potato peels.” He explains that the
potato-peel waste generated when they produce dehydrated potato flakes
and potato flour is already being used as cattle feed at nearby feed lots.
Drying the waste will allow them to sell it on the open market, creating another revenue stream. The Massers also have long-range aspirations to
use landfill gas to generate electricity.
—Gary Abdullah
37
Curricular
Students Learn
“Think Globally,
Act Locally” Is
More Than a
Slogan
As an ever-shrinking planet and
growing environmental challenges force changes in global priorities, more students are coming
to college desiring to make the
world a better place. Penn State’s
College of Agricultural Sciences
has responded by offering a new
major that prepares students to
“A lot of changes have occurred as academic institutions
opt for a more community-based
approach to solving global concerns,” she says. “This major is
about working with people in
their own neighborhoods to create
positive change, whether it’s in a
Costa Rican jungle or rural Pennsylvania. Our students may be
preparing for a job with the Peace
Corps, with a local not-for-profit,
as an international environmental
advocate with a nongovernmental
organization, or in local government for a borough or township.”
Sinasky explains that the CED
ternational or local setting. There
are not a lot of programs like it in
the country. There are community development programs and environmental programs, but not
many that combine international
studies, community development,
and environmental economics.”
The major is customized into
three options. The International
Development option teaches students to work within an underdeveloped country, helping its citizens
to improve their subsistence-level
food systems through a sustainable
economic model while preserving
that nation’s natural resources.
“My dream job is
to consult with
a community
that is struggling
economically or
environmentally,
help it to take
stock of available
natural and human
resources . . . . ”
Sarah Erdlen
have a hand in the process—in
other countries or in their own
neighborhood.
The Community, Environment and Development (CED)
major in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural
Sociology is designed to meet the
needs of students who are interested in environmental studies, personal activism, and community
development. Students in the curriculum learn to design and implement programs that actively
build and strengthen communities, according to Megan Sinasky,
undergraduate coordinator for the
department.
38
major is a permutation of the college’s Environmental and Renewable Resource Economics (ERRE)
major, which stresses analyzing
environmental and resource problems and evaluating solutions using the methods, concepts, and
techniques of environmental and
natural resource economics.
“In the last few years, along
with an increased interest in environmental studies, students also
are looking for ways to make a difference,” she says. “They want their
activism to be effective, so we rewired ERRE into CED. Students
still study economics and the environment, but it’s seen in an in-
The Environmental Economics and Policy option highlights
the ways in which communities
and the natural world interact and
helps students develop the skills to
reduce the negative effects of community decision making on the
environment. “This option prepares you for positions where you
can influence people to make better decisions,” Sinasky explains.
“You can go into cooperative extension, nonprofit or government
service, the Peace Corps, or lobbyist work on Capitol Hill.”
Students in the Community
and Economic Development option can learn to assist people and
communities in improving the
quality of life for their residents.
“If you want to build sustainable
communities—whether in countries that are not quite underdeveloped or in neighborhoods in
rural America—you’ll learn to survey the region, build a framework,
and present plans to the community,” she says. “This option prepares students to figure out how
to use a community’s available resources to its best advantage.”
Sarah Erdlen, a sophomore
from York, Pa., was drawn to the
CED major after taking a biodiversity study tour to Costa Rica.
She says she saw how the curriculum could prepare her to pursue
her passion: building environmentally and economically sustainable
communities.
“My dream job is to consult
with a community that is struggling economically or environmentally, help it to take stock of
available natural and human resources, and advise on how to use
these resources most effectively,”
she says. “I feel the broad background in economics, environmental science, political science,
and leadership development that
the CED major provides will best
help me accomplish my goals. It
was hard for me to choose between the three options because
all are related and all have bearing
on my own career goals. I picked
Environmental Economics because I would like to be involved
in environmental and community
policy making.”
The CED major is well suited
to students, like Erdlen, who are interested in the social-science aspects
of the environment, Sinasky notes.
“If you want to get your hands in
the dirt, then Environmental Soil
Science or Environmental Resource
Management might be better, but
CED is the people side. This major is about working with people in
their own neighborhoods, creating
positive and sustainable change—
for the people, the community, and
the world.”
—Gary Abdullah
Penn State Agriculture
College Giving
Former Extension
Educator
Makes Prudent
Investments
turn to farming and teaching in his
home town.
“I taught for a year, and then
Penn State Extension offered me a
job working with youth and agriculture—my two favorite things,”
he says. “It’s something that I’ve always loved. I’m happiest when I’m
digging in the dirt or looking at animals. I think it was a love of working with people who have the same
goals that you have and who are interested in the same areas of agriculture. It’s been my life, and it’s been
enjoyable.”
Smith met his wife through
extension. Born on a farm near
amazed at my net worth and how
I did it,” Smith says. “When I took
my job with extension, I started to
make a few more dollars. I wasn’t
married so I started to put every
nickel I earned into buying stocks
and CDs. I was fortunate because
dollars multiplied much faster than
I thought. Not sure I can explain
it except to say that my wife and
I made good investments, we both
were thrifty, and it just kind of materialized. Now I have money to
give, and Penn State always was my
first choice.”
Smith Professor Gary Perdew
is a respected scholar conducting
If you ask John Smith, he’ll tell you
that Penn State and Cooperative
Extension have allowed him to pursue his personal passions while giving him many good things in life:
good memories from his earliest
days as a young 4-H’er, a wonderful marriage, and a 31-year career as
a county extension educator and director. So, when it comes to choosing institutions to support, it’s no
surprise that he puts the university
and extension at the head of his list. “I think it was a
Last year, Smith created the love of working
John T. and Paige S. Smith Professorship in Agricultural Sciences with people who
to supplement departmental support for outstanding faculty in have the same
their teaching, research, and pub- goals that you
lic service. The professorship, currently held by Gary Perdew, Dis- have and who are
tinguished Professor of Veterinary interested in the
and Biomedical Sciences, is the latest among several philanthropic ac- same areas of
tivities initiated by Smith, including a scholarship in Agricultural agriculture.”
and Extension Education, a similar professorship in science at Penn
State York, a mentoring fund in the
College of Health and Human Development, an endowed athletic
John Smith
scholarship, and a $50,000 pledge
to The Arboretum at Penn State in
research into how chemicals in
Bloomsburg, Pa., Paige was a 1948
memory of his late wife, Paige.
the environment can affect huPenn State alumna in home eco“I give Penn State all the credit
man health. He is recognized innomics who worked for extension
for how I got where I did,” he says
ternationally for his studies on the
in Lebanon County before they
of his graduation in 1942. “I got
function and molecular dynamics
married, and taught in York Subura good education and was treatof the cellular receptor for aromatban High School for many years afed like a gentleman—I have no
ic hydrocarbons (Ah). His research
ter. “She had such tremendous abilcomplaints.”
is aimed at determining how enviity; I’ve never seen a woman with
Growing up on a farm along
ronmental pollutants, especially dimore,” he says. “She could take
the Juniata River outside of Mexoxins, react with the Ah receptor to
a bunch of old weeds and make a
ico, Pa., Smith didn’t think he was
cause alterations in gene expression
beautiful arrangement out of it.”
college material but decided to try
and lead to diseases such as cancer.
Smith calls his 31 years in exa two-year course that would help
Perdew says Smith’s generostension the best years of his life. His
his farming. Success with that proity has provided vital support for
career, combined with judicious ingram convinced him to continue
his work. “The Smith Professorship
vestments, also provided him with
and complete a four-year degree.
has allowed me to start a high-imenough savings that he can make
After graduation, he taught school
pact, long-term project that would
charitable donations—a developin western Pennsylvania and did a
be otherwise difficult to get funding
ment that caught him by surprise.
two-year stint as a U.S. Navy gunfor without having first developed a
“When I look back, I really am
nery instructor, then decided to reWinter/Spring 2008
transgenic mouse that expresses the
human Ah receptor,” he says. The
funds enabled him to hire Jennifer Schroeder, a postdoctoral fellow
who helped to develop a mouse line
that expresses the human form of
the Ah receptor, which responds to
much of the environmental exposure to dioxin or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (e.g., from smoking
or burning of fossil fuels).
“She is an excellent scientist,” he says. “Now that a transgenic mouse has been developed,
we can seek outside funding for
an expanded project using it. The
human form of this receptor ap-
pears to be quite different from
the mouse form, so this modified
mouse will be important for understanding the risks of dioxin exposure in humans. This project
would not be possible without support from this professorship.”
For his part, Smith is just glad
that he’s in a position to give back
in a way that’s making a real difference. “It’s been a pleasure to be
able to give money to some charitable things that are important,” he
says. “We have no children, and life
has been very generous to me. So,
showing my appreciation through
education at Penn State is the best
thing I can do to help.”
—Gary Abdullah
39
Colleagues
Penn State
Cooperative
Extension Names
Leader for Energy
Programs
Gregory Roth, professor of crop
and soil sciences in Penn State’s
College of Agricultural Sciences, has been named state program
leader for renewable and alternative energy for Penn State Cooperative Extension, on a half-time
basis.
As state program leader, Roth
will provide leadership for renewable and alternative energy extension programming in Pennsylvania, working to unify existing
renewable energy extension efforts
into a focused state program. He
will collaborate with faculty researchers in Penn State’s Biomass
Energy Center to facilitate the
translation of new knowledge into
extension educational programming and to develop networks
with other organizations and institutions interested in renewable
and alternative energy.
Roth also will help identify
funding and other resources for
renewable and alternative energy programs and maintain training for cooperative extension and
other outreach initiatives. He will
work closely with College of Agricultural Sciences administrators,
academic department heads, faculty, regional extension directors,
and county extension educators,
as well as with academic and outreach programs in other colleges
within the university.
“We felt this was a priority
for the organization and chose to
make changes in funding priorities to support the emerging area
of renewable and alternative energy,” says Daney Jackson, associate
vice-president for outreach and
director of Penn State Cooperative Extension.
Roth plans to consolidate inservice training on various renewable and alternative energy
40
activities in the college and university. Longer-term plans include developing Web-based
resources and newsletters in collaboration with the Biomass Energy Center and building partnerships with state organizations
with similar interests in renewable and alternative energy, including the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, the Pennsylvania
Department of Agriculture, and
local communities make informed
decisions about use and development of alternative energy resources,” he says. “There’s a lot of
potential for rural Pennsylvania to
be a player in the alternative-energy sector, and Penn State has a lot
of expertise to contribute to development of resources.”
As the governor and General Assembly develop a vision for
a renewable-energy future, Roth
having a lot to offer in engineering solutions that are compatible
with animal-based agriculture in
the state.”
Roth earned a bachelor’s degree in agronomy (with distinction) from Penn State in 1979,
a master’s degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University in 1981, and
a doctorate in agronomy from
Penn State in 1987. He is a recipient of multiple Certificates
of Excellence for Educational Materials from the American Society of Agronomy and
an Extension Award from the
“There’s a lot of
potential for rural
Pennsylvania to
be a player in the
alternative-energy
sector, and Penn State
has a lot of expertise
to contribute to
development of
resources.”
Gregory Roth
the state Department of Environmental Protection.
“I see Cooperative Extension
serving as a conduit for helping
says Penn State’s agricultural sciences faculty can provide resources to help frame the issues. “We
want to help,” he says. “I see us as
Northeast Branch of the same
organization.
As an extension grain crops
specialist, Roth has conducted
research on the suitability of various crops for use in the production of biofuels, such as ethanol
and biodiesel. He also has developed educational programs for
extension educators, agribusiness groups, and producers on
managing drought stress, GMO
issues, specialty corn hybrids,
grain quality, organic grain production, and producing corn silage using different hybrids and
management strategies. Because
the program leadership position
is a half-time appointment, he
will continue many of his activities in grain crop management
and production.
—Gary Abdullah
Penn State Agriculture
Colleagues
A researcher in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences is the
recipient of the prestigious 2008
Wolf Prize in Agriculture for his
scientific contributions in the field
of chemical ecology.
James Tumlinson, the Ralph
O. Mumma Endowed Professor
of Entomology and director of the
university’s Center for Chemical
Ecology, was honored for his work
1978 to outstanding scientists and
artists “for achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among peoples, irrespective of
nationality, race, color, religion, sex,
or political view.”
Tumlinson shares the 2008
Wolf Prize in Agriculture with two
other scientists, W. Joe Lewis of
USDA-ARS in Tifton, Georgia,
and John A. Pickett of Rothamsted Research in the United Kingdom. Israel’s education minister,
Yuli Tamir, who chairs the foundation’s council, announced the winners of the prizes, which will be
presented by Israeli President Shi-
mon Peres at a special ceremony at
the Knesset on May 25.
As a chemist interested in biological and agricultural systems,
Tumlinson has studied chemicals
that affect insect behavior. His laboratory has identified insect pheromones and other “semiochemicals,” investigated the biochemical
mechanisms by which chemical
signals are produced and released
by insects, and studied the behavioral responses, including learned
responses, of insects to chemical cues. Recently, Tumlinson has
been investigating the interactions
among herbivorous insects, their
of a great team of people,” he adds.
“It is gratifying to receive this award
recognizing the contributions of
our team toward the development
of environmentally sound, sustainable pest-management systems.”
Robert Steele, dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences, credits Tumlinson with helping to “put
Penn State on the map” in chemical
ecology. “We absolutely are thrilled
to see him get this very prestigious
and highly deserved worldwide
recognition for his groundbreaking
work in this important and exciting area of science,” he says. “Jim
Tumlinson is the linchpin in our
host plants, and their natural enemies. His work has emphasized
the development of fundamental
knowledge and principles that can
be applied in environmentally safe
pest-management programs.
“The research recognized by
this award was conducted over at
least three decades by numerous
really excellent students and research associates, and in collaboration with Joe Lewis, a co-recipient
of this prize, and other colleagues,”
says Tumlinson. “It has been an interdisciplinary team effort. No one
person or laboratory alone could
have accomplished this.
“I have been lucky to have enjoyed the support and cooperation
expanding program in chemical
ecology here at Penn State.”
Tumlinson, who joined Penn
State in 2003, earned both his master’s and doctoral degrees in organic chemistry from Mississippi State
University.
—Jeff Mulhollem
PHOTO: LANCE MURPHY, MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL
Entomologist
Wins Prestigious
Wolf Prize in
Agriculture
Wolf Foundation
that, according to the Wolf Foundation, has “fostered the development
of integrated pest management
and significantly advanced agricultural sustainability.” The Wolf
Prize in Agriculture is considered
the agricultural equivalent of the
Nobel Prize.
James Tumlinson
A former leader of the Insect
Chemistry Research Group at the
Center for Medical, Agricultural, and “It is gratifying to
Veterinary Entomology in the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s Agricul- receive this award
tural Research Service (USDA-ARS), recognizing the
Tumlinson is the second Penn Stater
to win a Wolf Prize. The other was contributions of
John Almquist, professor emeritus of
our team toward
dairy physiology, who was honored
nearly three decades ago for his con- the development
tributions to the study of reproducof environmentally
tive systems in cattle.
The Israel-based Wolf Founda- sound, sustainable
tion was established by the late German-born inventor, diplomat, and pest-management
philanthropist, Ricardo Wolf. Six
systems.”
annual Wolf Prizes of $100,000 in
the areas of medicine, agriculture,
physics, mathematics, chemistry,
and the arts have been awarded since
Winter/Spring 2008
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