Spring 2014 1

individually fl ash-frozen shrimp today is shipped to Greene Prairie’s two major clients: Albion Fish-eries Ltd. in Vancouver, Canada, a company that supplies sustainably produced seafood to high-end restaurants and retailers throughout Brit-ish Columbia, and Whole Foods Market Inc., a conglomerate that has made its fortune selling all-natural seafood and other products produced by trusted farmer partners who are committed to the healthiest, most environmentally friendly practices possible.

Go down the lists of strict quality standards both corporations maintain, and Greene Prairie shrimp meet or surpass all.

“Our shrimp are an all-natural, superior-quality, disease-free product grown without chemicals, antibiotics or hormones in ponds

fi lled with brackish water that’s pumped from a low-salinity underground aquifer,” says Schmittou, an Auburn resident and fi sheries professor emeri-tus internationally known for advancing aquaculture in Ala-

bama and overseas during his lengthy career. “We don’t add preservatives or water-enhancing salts during processing, either. We’re as close to organic as you can get.”

And that was their goal from the get-go, Tei-chert-Coddington says.

“Our promise was to raise and market shrimp that were chemical free from start to fi nish,” he says, “and that is fi nally paying off .”

Th e question of whether it would be possible to keep that promise, or to farm inland shrimp at all, was but one of many uncertainties the two men faced from the day in 1999 when Teichert-Coddington, then an assistant professor of fi sher-ies at Auburn and the state aquaculture specialist for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, spotted a For Sale sign posted on the property that’s now home to Greene Prairie Shrimp. We’re talking a high-risk venture.

But Teichert-Coddington is nothing if not ad-venturesome. Whether that’s genetic or a product of his childhood environment is a toss-up.

He was raised in a cement-block house that sat about the length of a football fi eld away from the Atlantic Ocean’s high-tide mark on the coast of West Africa, a dozen miles south of Monrovia. In the 13 years the Liberian-born son of Ameri-can missionaries called that part of the world, he developed a passion for the outdoors and water.

“I grew up with the constant sound of pounding ocean, onshore breezes, 95 percent hu-midity and sand everywhere, including my bed,” the Liberian-born son of American missionaries says. “When I wasn’t going to the mission school, I was on the beach, riding the waves, skin diving or climbing around the ancient basaltic rocks.”

Th e Coddington family returned to the States, where he fi nished high school and in 1976 earned a biology degree from a Wesleyan Method-ist–affi liated college in New York State. But jobs for biology majors were scarce, so, somehow, he wound up working construction in Kansas with an agency called the Mennonite Voluntary Ser-vice. Th at, incidentally, is where he met Nadine Teichert, a registered nurse out of Georgetown University, and, after a couple of years of fervent wooing on his part, the two were married and be-came the Teichert-Coddingtons.

As a married man, he decided it was time to get serious with his life.

“I knew I wanted to return overseas someday to do some form of nutritional enhancement for disadvantaged people,” he says. “I also wanted to return to my water roots and work with fi sh.”

(continued on page 2)

FAR FROM THE SEA Rudy Schmittou, above left, and David Teichert-Coddington, both alums of and former faculty in Auburn’s School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences, are co-owners of Greene Prairie Shrimp. The two established the west Alabama farm in 2001 and now market most of the 150 tons of all-natural shrimp they harvest annually to two major corporations that sell only natural and sustainably raised foods. At left, farm manager and major workhorse Teichert-Coddington, who lives with wife Nadine and youngest son Joel on a hill overlooking the operation, pulls a seine to harvest the last few shrimp from one of his 22 ponds. Harvest begins in September and wraps up in late October. (Photo by Tom Sizemore/John Deere)

BOUT THIS TIME EVERY

YEAR, David Teichert-Cod-dington packs his bag, loads his trailer and hits the road, bound for the Florida Keys.

If he were going for a few weeks of R & R, that would be one thing. But this is business, as will be evidenced four days and 1,850 miles later when a road-weary Teichert-Coddington returns to his west-central Alabama home, hauling a load of precious—and totally legal—cargo: 9 million pathogen-free, hatchery-grown baby shrimp. Shrimplets, if you will, each about the size of a gnat.

And thus begins another growing season at Greene Prairie Shrimp, a fi tting name for a farm-ing operation that’s in Greene County on 250 acres of prairie soil and for which the sole product is Pa-cifi c white shrimp.

In a county that’s a good 150 miles from the Gulf Coast, saltwater shrimp may seem an unlikely agricultural product. But after a couple of early years of costly produc-tion trials and errors and of marketing woes that were on par with the production troubles, Greene Prairie Shrimp manager/owner Teichert-Cod-dington and co-owner Rudy Schmittou—both alumni of and former faculty in Auburn Universi-ty’s School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Science—appear to have made it work.

“We currently have paid off most of our debts and are contributing quite heavily to Uncle Sam,” Teichert-Coddington says.

Since establishing the farm in 2001 on newly purchased land that historically had been pasture, the two have grown the operation in the tiny town of Boligee from its initial 10 ponds encompassing 30 acres and a mere 20 percent survival rate to its current 22 ponds totaling 72 acres of water and an annual fall harvest of 300,000 pounds of sweet, delicately fl avored shrimp.

And as opposed to that fi rst year, when Tei-chert-Coddington basically went door to door peddling the piddling crop, the bulk of the farm’s

Contents

View from Ag Hill ...................................... o2

Shell's Magnum Opus ............................... o3

Making Real Change ......................................o4

Taking on Tumors ...........................................o6

Recipe File ................................................. o8

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1

Farm FreshFormer Fisheries Faculty Practices

What He Preached Raising Inland Shrimpby JAMIE CREAMER

AGillustratedAUBURN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE

‘Our promise was to raise and market shrimp that were

chemical free, and that is fi nally paying off .’

A

2 AGillustrated

OpinionsandInsights

Earlier this year, five individuals who have made significant contri-butions to Alabama’s agricultural industry were recognized during the Auburn University Agricultural Alumni Association’s annual

Hall of Honor banquet. At the banquet, we celebrated the ways in which these men advanced and continue to advance agriculture statewide.

One of the two 2014 Pioneer Award honorees, for instance, was the late Dale King, a Department of Poultry Science professor and head whose work revolutionized the way we raise laying hens and broilers and elevated poultry production to a profitable pursuit that now is one of Alabama’s leading industries.

Just as we recognized Dr. King and others for their leadership, we applaud the visionaries on the College of Agriculture faculty today, several of whom you will read more about in the following pages.

Poultry scientist Wally Berry is among those. He is studying the reproductive system of laying hens to determine what causes painful uterine fibroid tumors in women. This work has the potential to improve the quality of life for an estimated 70 percent of the female population and to prevent some 200,000 hysterectomies a year in the United States. (See story, page 6.)

Jacek Wower, biochemistry professor in the Department of Animal Sciences, is another. A biosensing technology he is developing would detect harmful bacteria on food products in minutes instead of days, and that could help the world achieve a more secure food system by reducing the incidence and severity of foodborne illnesses. (See story, page 7.)

Biosystems engineering associate professor and Extension special-ist John Fulton, recently named to a new professorship in the College of Agriculture (see story, page 4), is helping Alabama farmers save time and money through his research and outreach programs in precision agricul-ture. The work he and his colleagues are conducting in the lab, in the field and in the classroom is helping transform production agriculture through the use of smarter machines and the application of a wealth of data.

The research objectives of the college and the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station are to promote scientific discoveries, innovations and technological developments that support sustainable, profitable agriculture in Alabama and beyond and to train the next generation of ag scientists and leaders to meet societal needs related to food, fiber, energy, the environment and human health and well-being. Forward-thinking scientists throughout the college are dedicated to achieving those goals every day.

Auburn University is an equal opportunity educational institution/employer.

www.auburn.edu

Ag Illustrated is a quarterly publication of the Auburn University College of Agriculture and the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station. It is compiled and published through Ag Communications and Marketing, the College and AAES infor-mation office. This publication is printed on Sappi® Opus Matte paper, which is 10 percent recycled and is Green Seal certified.

Subscriptions to Ag Illustrated are free and are sent au-tomatically to Ag Alumni Association members. To become a member, go to www.ag.auburn.edu/adm/alumni/. To subscribe, fill out the form below or visit our website at www.ag.auburn.edu/agillustrated. You may also contact us about subscriptions or other editorial issues at Room 3 Comer Hall, Auburn, AL 36849; 334-844-5887; or agcomm@auburn.edu.

EditorJamie Creamer

WritersJamie CreamerMary Catherine GastonNathan Kelly

DesignerNayeon Kim

PhotographersRachel CoxJamie CreamerMary Catherine GastonNayeon KimTom SizemoreJacek Wower

COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE:

Dean’s Office 334-844-2345 | www.ag.auburn.edu

ACADEMIC DEPARTMENTS:

Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology 334-844-4800 | www.ag.auburn.edu/agecCrop, Soil and Environmental Sciences 334-844-4100 | www.ag.auburn.edu/agrnAnimal Sciences 334-844-4160 | www.ag.auburn.edu/anscBiosystems Engineering 334-844-4180 | www.eng.auburn.edu/programs/bsenEntomology and Plant Pathology 334-844-5006 | www.ag.auburn.edu/enplFisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences 334-844-4786 | www.ag.auburn.edu/fishHorticulture 334-844-4862 | www.ag.auburn.edu/hortPoultry Science 334-844-4133 | www.ag.auburn.edu/poul

ALABAMA AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION:

Director 334-844-2345 | www.aaes.auburn.eduAssistant Director 334-844-8727Director of Outlying Units 334-844-5611

AAES-AFFILIATED SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES:

College of Human Sciences 334-844-3790 | www.humsci.auburn.eduCollege of Sciences and Mathematics 334-844-5737 | www.auburn.edu/cosamCollege of Veterinary Medicine 334-844-4546 | www.vetmed.auburn.eduSchool of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences 334-844-1007 | www.sfws.auburn.edu

ALABAMA COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SYSTEM:

Director’s Office 334-844-4444 | www.aces.edu

Making Contact Details

Name: ________________________________

Address: ______________________________

City/State/Zip: _________________________

Subscription Request:Ag Illustrated

3 Comer Hall

Auburn, AL 36849

Bill BatchelorDEAN, COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE

DIRECTOR, ALABAMA AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION

(continued from page 1)Marine biology seemed a logical choice, but in

his search for a solid graduate program in that field, he discovered a concept known as aquaculture and a Deep South school called Auburn University that not only had a graduate program in aquaculture and fisheries but also was home to an International Center for Aquaculture. Perfect. Auburn it was.

He completed his master’s in 1982 and was working on his Ph.D. with a focus on water qual-ity when an opportunity to go to Panama as part of an Auburn fisheries research and development project arose. So in 1985, he, his wife and toddlers Jonathan and Luke settled in Central America for what would be a decade, the first three years in Panama and the last seven in Honduras.

The family returned to Auburn in 1995 so that Jonathan and Luke, who by then were teens, could attend schools in their native country and become as fluent in English as they were in Span-ish, and so that Joel, a Honduran who had be-come part of the family at 2 months of age, could be immersed in his new world.

Through his years with Auburn fisheries, Teichert-Coddington had held various titles, but none that would allow him to advance within the university’s tenure-track system. That finally changed in ’98 when he was hired to his Exten-sion/assistant professor position.

The day he saw the land for sale, he was in west Alabama visiting area catfish farms, includ-ing those of Dickie Odom and Rafe Taylor, two growers he had helped establish experimental tri-als to study the feasibility of growing shrimp in ponds with a salinity level that’s a mere 10 per-cent that of seawater. That experience, and his increased interaction with farmers overall via his Extension role had been weighing on his mind.

“Every time I worked with farmers, I felt at a disadvantage because I had never actually had to make a living farming,” he says. “I had never been in their shoes.”

Since returning to Auburn in 1995, Teichert-Coddington had traveled to China several times with Schmittou to work on an American Soybean Association projects Schmittou had been hired as a consultant on, and they’d spent a lot of time dis-cussing their philosophies on aquaculture.

“We discovered we shared a common vision on how aquaculture should be done and also on the power of demonstrations for educating farm-ers,” Teichert-Coddington says. “Plus, I had often thought about farming, and Rud grew up on a farm and had a desire to do so again.”

Which is why Teichert-Coddington did what he did when he happened upon the land of-fering off U.S. Highway 43 between Eutaw and Demopolis.

“I called Rud and just flat out asked him if he was interested, and he was,” Teichert-Coddington says. “Very.”

And with that, the two entered the world of finance, business plans and everything else involved in buying property and establishing a business. In 2000, Teichert-Coddington gave up the security that his fisheries faculty position provided and, with Schmittou, took a major gamble, officially purchasing the Greene County acreage, without even knowing for absolute cer-tain that the salty aquifer did indeed run under-neath their land.

Both now admit those times put their nerves of steel to the test.

“All of this, every bit of it, was done with the absolute terror that we quickly could lose the property and a bunch of investment money neither one of us could really afford to lose if we didn’t make it produce profitably,” Teichert-Coddington says. “And I guess the biggest thing was, we knew, too, that we could lose prestige, in that we were university men, professors, trying to succeed in something we had lectured about for years.”

But, so far, anyway, the two have demonstrat-ed that they do practice what they preached.

For more about the farm, visit http://greene-prairiershrimp.com.

FeaturesandNews

Spring 2014 3

Sisyphus was a cruel, conniving mythological king of Corinth whose ultimate punishment was an eternity in Hades, pushing a large boulder up a hill, watching it roll back down as he neared the top and then starting over, and over, forever. The author of a new book on the history of U.S. and Alabama food and fiber production from prehistoric to modern times likens Alabama agriculture to Sisyphus’s struggle—endless, toilsome and futile.

Eddie Wayne Shell has a suggestion for folks who buy his new book.“It makes a mighty good doorstop,” he says. “You sure can’t do much

else with it.”At first glance, you might be tempted to agree. The 880-page volume is

just shy of 2 inches thick, weighs in at 5.2 pounds and, from cover to cover, is nothing but text. Not the first picture, table or illustration to be found, page after 8 ½- by-11-inch page.

The title—“Evolution of the Alabama Agroecosystem: Always Keeping Up but Never Catching Up”—might be off-putting, too.

But don’t let those details scare you away, because the exhaustive narrative that Shell, an Auburn University professor emeritus in fisheries, has produced is an absorbing, surprisingly readable account of how geological, biological, cultural, economic and political characteristics over the past 350 million years have shaped the state’s agricultural ecosystem. Most of the book’s focus, however, is on changes that have taken place in the past two centuries.

“Since the USDA started collecting data, corn and soybean yields, milk-per-cow and rental rates for cropland in Alabama and the South have been much lower than Midwestern states,” Shell says. “The book explores the role of ecosystem characteristics in the evolution of our generally poorly competitive agriculture, and, in turn, how uncompetitive agriculture has led to a poorly performing overall economy.”

Montgomery-based NewSouth Books released Shell’s magnum opus in January, but the hardback is only about half of the story. The rest— 1,500 figures and tables referenced in the text—are available online only.

“I wish they were in the book where I meant for them to be, but the thing would have to come with wheels attached so you could move it,” Shell says.

Born in 1930 in rural Butler County, Alabama, Shell grew up helping his father make a go of a chicken-and-egg operation and, later, helping his grandfather fight a ceaseless battle to keep the family’s subsistence-level row-crop operation afloat. Realizing the limited future farming held for him, Shell enrolled in Alabama Polytechnic Institute, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fisheries management.

He completed his Ph.D. at Cornell University and in 1959 returned to Auburn as a fisheries department faculty member. In his 35 years on the faculty—20 of those as head of what now is the School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences—Shell played a pivotal role in developing Alabama’s commercial catfish industry and in building Auburn fisheries into one of the top programs of its kind in the world. He is the namesake of the E.W. Shell Fisheries Center on Auburn’s North Auburn campus.

Though Shell has long had vivid memories of his family’s farming struggles, he says it wasn’t until the 1980s, when he started working in Extension programs statewide, that he realized the sad state of Alabama agriculture.

“I was shocked,” he says. “Nobody had ever told me how unbelievably uncompetitive Alabama agriculture is. I thought, ‘How can this be?’ I kept thinking about that, and finally I promised myself that, once I retired, I was going to find out if that was true and, if it was, what makes it so, and then write a book about it.”

He retired from Auburn in 1994 and, taking breaks now and then to RV with wife Jean, launched the mammoth project that would become “Evolution.”

“Evolution of the Alabama Agroecosystem” is, for Shell, a life goal achieved. But he isn’t shutting down his computer just yet; already, the 83-year-old is working on his next book, a complete history of the Auburn fisheries program. He has found that penning books has its rewards.

“Writing sure has got me out of a lot of yard work over the last 19 years,” Shell says. “Any time Jean tells me I need to go do such-and-such out in the yard, I just say, ‘I can’t right now; I’ve got to finish this book.’”

“Evolution of the Alabama Agroecosystem” is available from the AU Bookstore, Amazon.com and NewSouth Books.

Magnum OpusAuburn Fisheries Pioneer Explains Why

Alabama Agriculture Can’t Catch Upby JAMIE CREAMER

Faculty Focus

Nannan Liu, Auburn University professor of entomology and interna-tionally recognized insect molecular toxicologist, has been elected by her col-leagues to a three-year term as chair of the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology in the College of

Agriculture. Liu assumed the new position March 1, fill-

ing the position left vacant in December when

then-chair Art Appel, who had led the depart-ment for nine years, was named interim College of Ag associate dean for research and Alabama Ag Experiment Station assistant director.

Liu received her Ph.D. in insect toxicology from Cornell University in 1995. She came to Auburn as an assistant professor in 1997, was pro-moted to associate professor in 2003 and full pro-fessor in 2009 and has served as the Entomology and Plant Pathology Endowed Professor in the College of Agriculture since 2010. In fall 2013, she was named to a five-year Alumni Professor-ship by the Auburn Alumni Association.

With a long-term goal of reducing and pre-venting the spread of mosquito-borne sicknesses, Liu focuses her research program on the genetic mechanisms involved in the development of in-secticide resistance in disease-carrying mosqui-toes. In her 17 years at Auburn, she has secured more than $2.6 million in competitive grant dol-lars to fund her work.

Liu said that, as chair, she will support all faculty efforts to increase extramural funding and will promote faculty research collaborations with leading entomologists and plant pathologists worldwide.

TREASURED TOME Randall Goodman, left, holds a copy of “Evolution of the Alabama Agroecosystem” as he asks author Wayne Shell to sign it for him during a reception at Auburn’s Ralph Draughon Library. Shell, professor emeritus in the School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences, started working on the 880-page book after his retirement in 1994. Not included within those pages are 1,500 accompanying figures and tables that must be accessed online. Goodman is retired longtime director of the E.W. Shell Fisheries Center on the North Auburn campus, a facility named in Shell’s honor.

Nannan Liu

Liu Elected New ENT/PLP chair, Appel Named to Interim Admin Post

4 AGillustrated

InsidetheCollege

Lauren Terry was a toddler when she first rode a horse. She remembers falling off a pony when she was a little girl. Her dad told her to get back in the saddle and keep riding, helping her conquer any potential fear.

It worked, and the rest is history. The senior in Auburn University’s Department of Animal Sciences is now an accomplished barrel racer and western pleasure rider and is coming off a year-long reign as Miss Rodeo USA 2013.

“Rodeo has been part of my life as long as I can remember,” says Terry, whose family owns and operates the Iron Rail Arena in Moulton.

Her experience with horses and riding helped her claim the Miss Rodeo USA title during the International Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City in January 2013. After an intense week-long competition that included horsemanship, interviews and modeling, she was crowned and became the official spokesperson of the International Professional Rodeo Association.

Taking two semesters off from her studies at Auburn, Lauren spent the rest of 2013 traveling the United States, promoting and appearing at various IPRA events. In each location, she spoke to school children and civic groups about her platform, Roundup Respect.

“I chose that as my platform because I feel like, as a society, we lack respect for each other,” says Terry, who enjoyed seeing the fruit of her labors when she interacted with the children after speaking at their schools.

Though she spent her days teaching children, Terry learned quite a bit during her travels as well.

“I learned that people are people, no matter where you go,” she says. “Like the song says, it takes all kinds.”

She also learned about herself.“I was a planner before, and last year taught me a lot about flying by the

seat of my pants,” Terry says. “Sometimes it’s OK if you don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

After her year as Miss Rodeo USA, which included six weeks alone on the road without going home, Terry says she feels confident that she can do anything. She can see herself post-graduation as an Extension agent or perhaps in a sales position with an ag-related business. She is already making headway on the sales path as a Mary Kay consultant.

From falling off her first pony to becoming an Auburn student to traveling the country as Miss Rodeo USA, Terry has learned to work hard and to be dedicated to accomplishing her goals. Into each new venture, she carries a charge from Temple Grandin, world-renowned autistic animal scientist.

“She talks about making real change in the real world, and that is something I try to do every day,” Terry says.

BACK IN THE SADDLE Animal Sciences senior Lauren Terry is back on the Plains after taking a year off from classes to represent the International Professional Rodeo Association as Miss Rodeo USA 2013.

Making Real ChangeAnimal Sciences Senior Promotes Platform

of Respect as Reigning Rodeo Queenby MARY CATHERINE GASTON

Student Spotlight

John Fulton, professor in Auburn University’s Department of Biosystems Engineering and precision agriculture specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, has been awarded the first-ever Alabama Farmers Federation Agriculture Professorship, one established to honor the Alabama Farmers Federation for its strong support for the College of Agriculture through the years.

“During his time at Auburn University, Dr. Fulton has embodied the university’s threefold mission of research, instruction and outreach,” said Batchelor. “It is fitting that someone whose work has done much to advance agriculture in this state would be the first to hold this professorship.”

A College of Agriculture faculty member and an Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station researcher since 2004, Fulton’s work has focused on machine systems, precision agriculture and agricultural and forestry cellulosic biomass. He leads the Alabama Precision Ag Program and has successfully transferred knowledge gained through on-farm research into outreach efforts throughout the Southeast.

Fulton earned his master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Kentucky. In addition to numerous recognitions from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers and the Alabama Association of Agricultural Agents and Specialists, he was named the 2013 Educator of the Year by PrecisionAg.com.

The Alabama Farmers Federation Agriculture Professorship is designed to recognize and support faculty who have demonstrated a commitment to serve Alabama farmers and agribusinesses through research and outreach efforts that provide information or technologies addressing current problems or concerns. The professorship is a three-year appointment.

Fulton Named to First AlfaAgriculture Professorship

AG WEEK HUMP DAY Sarah Stephenson, a poultry science junior and vice president of Ag Council, and Patrick Starr of Auburn strike a pose with Clyde the Comer Camel prior to the 2014 Ag Week Picnic held on the Comer Hall lawn the last Wednesday in March. Clyde was the main attraction at the picnic, and folks who came to Ag Hill to feast on fried catfish and fried chicken had the opportunity to celebrate hump day by having their pictures made with the furry beast. Clyde was provided courtesy of Farmer Brown’s Party Animals, a Lee County business Starr helps manage. Also at the picnic, Brady Peek, a junior in crop, soil and environmental sciences and 2013-14 Ag Council president, was presented the 2014 Joel Daniel Hardee Award, an honor the Hardee family bestows each year on the outgoing Ag Council president in memory of Hardee, who once served as a student officer in the College of Agriculture. Ag Council sponsored a number of high-visibility events on campus throughout Ag Week, March 24-29.

John Fulton

The Alabama Nursery and Landscape Association has presented its 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award to horticulture professor Charles Gilliam

in recognition of his major contribu-tions to the state's green industry with the extensive ornamental horticul-tural research he has conducted in his 34 years on the Auburn faculty. Gilliam's major research emphases are weed control, herbicide develop-ment and evaluation and alternative substrates for nursery crops.

Steve Taylor, biosystems engineering department head and professor, has completed the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities’ two-year Food Systems Leadership Institute, a program dedicated to developing individual and institutional leader-ship for a 21st-century food system.

Jay McCurdy, who received his Ph.D. in turfgrass management from Auburn University in December, has been awarded the Musser International Turfgrass Foundation’s 2014 Musser Award of Excellence in recognition of his outstanding doctoral program in turfgrass research, conducted under the direction of associate professor Scott McElroy in the Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sci-ences. McCurdy was selected for the honor based on his academic record, scholarly publications, leadership abili-ties and dissertation, which was titled “The Effects and Sustainability of Le-gume Inclusion within Warm-Season Turf Swards.” Now employed as an assistant professor and turfgrass Exten-sion specialist at Mississippi State Uni-versity, McCurdy is only the second Auburn turfgrass Ph.D. student to receive the award in its 25-year history.

Justin Moss, a Ph.D. student in crop, soil and environmental sci-

ences working under the direction of affiliate associate professor and USDA National Soil Dynamics Lab scientist Andrew Price, was one of 18 graduate students nationwide to receive a highly competitive 2014 Future Leaders in Science Award from the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America. All award winners received an expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., in March to attend policy and advocacy training sessions and meet with their states’ congressional delegations to encourage support for agricultural and environmental research funding.

Jenna Platt, a junior in the Depart-ment of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences, won first place in the plant research category of a poster presenta-tion competition that was part of the 2014 Emerging Researchers National Conference in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in Washington, D.C. Platt’s poster focused on her study of target leaf spot in Alabama cotton, a project directed by College of Agriculture faculty Dale

Monks, professor and Extension cot-ton specialist, and Austin Hagan, pro-fessor and Extension plant pathologist.

Horticulture senior Molly Hendry won first place in interior landscape design competition and fellow seniors Alan Ricks and Will Graf took top honors in truck and trailer operation competition during the Professional LandCare Network’s 2014 Student Career Days in Colorado. In addition, Auburn’s student chapter of PLANET earned the Walt Peeples Spirit Award, which Stihl Inc. gives each year to the one team from among the more than 60 participating teams that shows the most camaraderie, fair play and helpfulness and best represents the PLANET Student Career Days spirit.

Kim Mullenix, College of Agriculture animal sciences alumna who earned her bachelor’s degree in 2008 and her master’s in 2010, has returned to the

department at Auburn as assistant professor of beef production systems and Extension forage specialist. Mul-lenix received her Ph.D. in agronomy from the University of Florida in 2013. Jason P’Pool also has joined animal sciences, serving as Extension youth livestock specialist. P’Pool, who most recently held a similar position at the University of Kentucky, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Western Kentucky University.

Daniel E. Wells will join the Department of Horticulture faculty May 1 as an assistant professor of specialty crops and production systems. Wells, who received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in horticulture from Auburn in 2006 and 2008, respectively, earned his Ph.D. in plant, environmental and soil sciences at Louisiana State University in 2013

and since has been employed as a post-doctoral researcher at the LSU Ag Center’s Hammond Research Station. His appointment at Auburn will be 60 percent research,40 percent teaching.

Wes Wood, professor in the Depart-ment of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences, retired from the Auburn faculty Feb. 28. He joined the depart-ment in 1990 as an assistant professor.

Cindy McCall, equine science professor and Extension specialist in the Department of Animal Sciences, will retire effective May 31. McCall has been on the faculty since1989, when she came to Auburn as an assistant professor.

StudentAccomplishments

Retirements

Auburn Turfgrass Management Master’s Now Offered Online

Professionals in the turfgrass industry can earn a master’s degree in turfgrass management completely online in the newest distance education degree program available through the College of Agriculture’s Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences.

The non-thesis program, which includes a capstone experience, empha-sizes key areas of turf management, including installation methods, breed-ing and development, insect and disease control and construction of athletic fields, putting greens and other specialty areas.

Auburn is only the second of two universities in the nation to offer the advanced degree 100 percent online.

“Auburn is positioned to be a leader in this area,” says turfgrass profes-sor Beth Guertal, lead faculty member for the program. “It will be the only online program of its kind offered from an institution in this climatic zone. We feel it has great potential for attracting students in the U.S. and from around the world.”

The program requires 32 credit hours of study. Turfgrass faculty with expertise in weed control, turf pathology, turf entomology, turfgrass main-tenance and sports field maintenance will serve as student advisers.

Auburn’s Graduate School is accepting applications now for fall semes-ter 2014; applications are due at least 45 days before the first day of class, set for Aug. 18. Guertal says turfgrass management master’s program applicants with three or more years of professional experience will be given priority.

For details on the program, go to http://www.ag.auburn.edu/agrn and click on the Distance Education button or contact Guertal at 334-844-8718 or guertea@auburn.edu.

InsidetheCollege

FacultyAccomplishments

WINNING SHOT Entomology master’s student Scott Clem’s picture of an unknown species of cave crickets on the ceiling of a Paint Rock Preserve cavern in Jackson County won first place in the artistic category of insect photo competition at the Entomological Society of America Southeastern Branch’s 2014 annual meeting in Greenville, S.C. Also at the meeting, Tolulope Morawo, Ph.D. student in entomology professor Henry Fadamiro’s program, won the Robert T. Gast Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Oral Presentation in one category with his talk on parasitoid attraction to herbivore-damaged cotton versus undamaged cotton, and fellow Ph.D. student Feng Liu claimed second place in another category with his presentation on the mechanisms involved in the repellant effect of DEET in bedbugs. Liu’s major adviser is entomology professor Nannan Liu; Clem’s is associate professor David Held.

UNDER COVER Construction on a long-awaited and much-anticipated covered arena at the Auburn University Horse Center on Wire Road officially began when Auburn administrators officially broke ground at a ceremony in March. Once completed this summer, the close to $2 million arena will provide the reigning National Champion Auburn equestrian team a place to practice and compete and the College of Agriculture’s equine science program a teaching space in all weather conditions. The equestrian team is sponsored jointly by the College of Agriculture and Auburn Athletics. Participating in the ceremony were, from left, animal sciences department head Wayne Greene, Auburn Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Timothy Boosinger, Auburn Athletics Director Jay Jacobs, Auburn Trustee Bob Dumas, equestrian team member Jennifer Waxman, College of Agriculture Dean Bill Batchelor and Auburn equestrian head coach Greg Williams. Williams, in his 17th year as head coach, has led the team to three National Collegiate Equestrian Championship titles since successfully attaining varsity sport status for the team in 2002.

New Faculty

Spring 2014 5

An estimated 70 percent of women in the U.S. develop fibroid tumors in the uterus by age 50, and while the noncancerous tumors cause no symptoms for the majority of those women, they make life miserable for tens of thousands of others.

Within his own family, Wallace Berry has seen the pain and distress that uterine fibroids can inflict, and in his newest research undertaking, the Auburn University poultry scientist aims to use his findings to help reduce the incidence and severity of fibroid tumors.

Using the laying hen as an experimental model, he and Haruka Wada, an Auburn biological sciences assistant professor specializing in the short- and long-term effects of pre- and postnatal developmental stress in birds and other animals, are investigating their theory that overnutrition during infancy and childhood and early onset of puberty increase a woman’s chances of developing uterine fibroids.

Berry’s expertise is in the reproductive physiology of poultry, and in extensive research over the past decade, he has established the egg-type chicken—the hormonal cycle and ovarian surface cells of which are remarkably similar to humans’—as a scientifically valid animal model for studying human reproductive-tract disorders, including ovarian cancer and uterine fibroids. Through the years, he also observed that, among hens 2 years of age and older, the rate of oviductal fibroid tumors is extremely high. Most recently, work in his lab yielded evidence that molecular markers in hen oviduct fibroids are identical to those in human uterine fibroids.

“Uterine fibroids are a huge quality of life issue for a large segment of the population, but little progress has been made in determining what causes the disease or recommendations for prevention, in part due to a lack of experimental models for study of it,” Berry said. “Dr. Wada has formulated the hypothesis for our study, which is among the first to examine how the developmental environment, such as childhood diet, impacts a woman’s risk for the disease.”

Fibroids are most common in women in their 30s and 40s. Depending on a tumor’s size and location in the uterus, it can cause symptoms including abdominal pain and pressure, bloating, heavy or prolonged menstrual bleeding, backache and, in rare cases, infertility.

Although a few new experimental treatment procedures have become available in recent years, fibroids still are a major cause of hysterectomies in the U.S., accounting for a third of the 600,000 performed each year. The annual cost of hospitalizations, surgeries, lost work hours and pregnancy complications due to uterine fibroids is estimated at $34.4 billion.

Past research has shown that developmental nutrition affects both childhood body composition and age at puberty by altering the programing of the insulin-like growth factor system, which plays a significant role in tissue growth and development. Scientists have found, too, that the younger a female is when she reaches puberty, the greater her chances of developing uterine fibroids later in life.

“Our question is, what is the relationship among all those parameters,” Berry said. “Our theory is that a high or excessive level of postnatal nutrition contributing to early onset of sexual maturity increases the risks of uterine fibroids by altering IGF regulation and cell proliferation signals.”

To explore the causal relationship between developmental nutrition and fibroid tumors, the scientists have developed test diets they will feed to six groups of test hens from 1 day of age and regularly monitor serum IGF levels in the birds. They also will use the hens as models to explore fibroid development in relation to early or late sexual maturity.

“This is another reason why hens are an excellent model species: it’s easy to either speed up or delay the onset of sexual maturity by manipulating the diet and lighting conditions in their houses,” Berry said. “Hens kept on short days of eight hours of light a day lay their first egg 13 days later than those on long days of 14 hours of light a day.”

A $40,000 Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station grant is funding the fibroid study. Berry said he and Wada will use data they collect from the project to apply for a substantially larger grant from a National Institutes of Health/U.S. Department of Agriculture funding program specifically for projects that use agriculturally important domestic animal species to improve human health through the advancement of basic and translational research that is highly relevant to both agricultural and biomedical research.

“We also will use our data to help establish recommendations for nutrition during infancy and the prepubertal period that could help prevent and lessen the severity of uterine fibroid tumors,” Berry said.

6 AGillustrated

ResearchNews

AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION Uterine fibroid tumors cost the U.S. an estimated $5.9 billion to $34.4 billion a year in terms of medical and surgical treatment, lost work hours and obstetric complications. Building on his research findings in the mid-2000s that the laying hen is a viable animal model for studying human reproductive-tract diseases, Auburn poultry scientist Wallace Berry is investigating whether prepubertal nutrition and age at onset of puberty impact fibroid tumor development in adulthood.

The first time Alan Wilson looked through a microscope at a drop of pond water, he was fascinated by all the things moving around in it. Still, he never imagined that one day he would make a living researching those microscopic organisms as an associate professor in Auburn’s School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences.

By studying what is causing an increase in algal blooms in Southeastern water bodies, Wilson and his team could have a huge impact on a resource every living thing needs and many take for granted: drinking water.

Most people are familiar with the organisms Wilson and fellow fisheries associate professor Rusty Wright are investigating. They are blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, more commonly known as pond scum. During the warm summer months, algae “bloom,” or rapidly increase, and that is cause for concern, Wilson says, because they produce toxins that can be harmful to humans and animals if present in high levels and can cause foul taste and odor in drinking water even in low levels.

Funded by a grant from the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Institutes

for Water Resources, Wilson and Wright are in the final year of a project to build scientific models scientists, water quality managers and municipal water systems throughout the Southeast can use to forecast toxic algal blooms.

“We are now working to collect data on blooms throughout the southeast, from Texas to Puerto Rico, to determine the factors that cause toxic algal bloom events so we can predict when they will occur,” Wilson says.

This information will help water resource managers at state agencies and utilities adapt their management practices in order to recognize and prevent water quality and safety concerns before they reach consumers.

While data on harmful blooms has been collected for some time in other states, Wilson’s and Wright’s study is the first of its kind in Alabama, a place where climate and weather contribute to the frequency and severity of the growth.

Another contributing factor is one that Wilson says gardeners and farmers can help control. The algae thrive on the same nutrients that help homeowners grow prize-worthy gardens and lawns: phosphorus and nitrogen. The nutrients are reaching local water supplies, in part, through fertilizer runoff from residences and farms, Wilson says. He points out that while fertilizers are necessary to produce more food to feed a growing human population, research is needed to determine the best practices for using these products.

“We need to educate people to think about these things when they fertilize their yards and gardens,” Wilson says.

Taking on TumorsAuburn Scientists Use Laying Hens

To Study Uterine Fibroidsby JAMIE CREAMER

Relevant Research

Fisheries Research Team Leads RegionalProject on Potentially Toxic Algal Bloomsby MARY CATHERINE GASTON

A simple, economical tool that could be used to detect and identify harmful bacteria on food products in minutes instead of days and could significantly reduce the incidence of foodborne illnesses in the U.S. and beyond is in the works in biochemist Jacek Wower’s laboratory on Auburn University’s Ag Hill.

The technology that Wower, Department of Animal Sciences professor and Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station scientist, is developing is based on ribonucleic acids, more commonly known as RNAs, and RNA aptamers, which are molecules that can be engineered to recognize and bind to disease-causing bacteria and other targets, such as harmful chemicals.

“What we are doing is exploiting the biochemical and physical properties of RNAs to produce inexpensive, programmable biosensors for rapid and reliable detection and analysis of pathogens in foods as they are processed,” says Wower, who has four decades’ experience in RNA molecular research and nanotechnology.

RNAs are molecules that exist in all living cells and play several roles in processing proteins and in the transfer of some genetic information. What Wower has produced is a complex network of RNA aptamers that he has programmed to target as many as five different pathogens and that can be applied to food products as a spray. As developed by Wower, the RNAs will bind to any of the targeted pathogenic bacteria on the product and emit a fluorescence that can be seen when viewed with an affordable blue-light transilluminator, a device that costs a fraction of the equipment currently needed to detect pathogens.

“This technology would allow processors, farmers or anyone else who comes in contact with food before it reaches the consumer to know almost immediately that harmful bacteria are on the surface,” Wower says, noting that RNA poses no danger to humans.

Thus far, Wower has tested the system only on fruit, but he plans to expand the testing to animal carcasses during processing. In addition to reducing the number of foodborne illnesses each year, the technology also could avert many costly food recalls, he says.

Already, Auburn’s Office of Technology Transfer has made available for licensing a similar technology developed by Wower, and Jong Wook Hong in the Department of Materials Engineering that laboratory workers could use to detect three common RNA degrading agents on work surfaces in minutes.

Wower’s biosensor work is supported by a $380,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, with supplemental funding through the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station.

In a nondescript building on the Auburn University campus, an Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station researcher is transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary in a study that could have huge implications here at home and around the world.

Sushil Adhikari is the researcher, the Biological Engineering Research Lab is the building and the process he’s experimenting with is known as gasification. In simple terms, gasification is the process of converting a biomass—anything that was recently living—into a fuel. That’s the ordinary part of this story. It’s the input and output that could have extraordinary consequences both locally and globally: Adhikari, a biosystems engineering assistant professor in the College of Agriculture, is helping turn pine trees into gasoline.

As a child growing up in Nepal, Adhikari experienced times when the only fuel available to power everyday activities was wood. Lacking a domestic petroleum source, Nepal depended and still depends on its neighboring countries to supply 100 percent of its petroleum.

Though in recent years Nepal has begun to tap the hydroelectric potential of waters rushing down from its Himilayan peaks, Adhikari’s homeland still finds itself in a precarious position when it comes to energy dependence. A reliable alternative energy source could mean both political stability and economic freedom for Nepal.

Like Nepal, Alabama enjoys plentiful natural resources and a growing demand for alternative, renewable fuels. It is at this intersection of supply and demand that Adhikari finds inspiration for his gasification work.

While scientists in the college have been conducting biofuels research for years with valuable results, the difference is in Adhikari's biomass source. He is using one of the most plentiful resources south Alabama has to offer—pine trees—in his search for a renewable raw material he could transform into fuel.

“We’re using loblolly pines, which are ideal because the growth and survival rates are good and because they are one of the most widely grown species in this part of the country,” Adhikari says.

Just how does a tree get from the forest to your gas tank?“The process is only slightly different from what happens in your

fireplace, where oxygen and wood react to produce carbon dioxide and heat,” Adhikari says. During the gasification process, researchers increase the temperature and limit the oxygen supply, yielding a substance known as synthesis gas, or syngas, which is made of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane.

The syngas produced in the Adhikari’s lab is shared with Chris Roberts, dean of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering and a professor in chemical engineering, who subjects it to a series of chemical reactions that ultimately transform it into a liquid fuel that can be used to power vehicles, farming equipment, even jet engines.

While using pine trees to power your truck or tractor is an exciting prospect for a number of reasons, there is one major obstacle to this tree-in-every-tank scenario: cost. The resulting fuels will be expensive, at least until the technology is perfected.

“Americans don’t seem to care where their fuel comes from as long as it’s $3 or less at the pump,” Adhikari says.

Adhikari, who was named the nation’s top young researcher by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers in 2013, challenges Alabamians to imagine the economic impact that home-grown gasoline could have on their families, friends and communities.

“What if someone in your neighborhood got a good job because of the development of this technology, this biofuel?” he says. “It is difficult to factor the real costs of these alternative fuels—and the real benefits. We should let emerging technologies like this mature so that they can become cost competitive.”

While the obstacles to widespread use of pine tree–derived fuels loom large, Adhikari paints a promising picture of how this technology could transform life in some of the most economically depressed areas of the U.S., many of which lie within Alabama’s borders. Expanding the applications of pine from pulp and paper to fuel production could dramatically alter the state’s political and economic landscape and have tangible effects on the day-to-day lives of many Alabamians.

ResearchNews

AAES Scientist Looks to Loblolly Pines as Future Renewable Fuel Sourceby MARY CATHERINE GASTON

Auburn Scientist Developing Food Pathogen Detection Systemby NATHAN KELLY AND JAMIE CREAMER

PINE POWER Biosystems engineering researcher Sushil Adhikari is using pine trees to create a gas that can then be used to make a variety of liquid fuels, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. Adhikari’s research will help scientists understand how different biomass materials, such as pine trees, affect the composition of syngas.

Spring 2014 7

STANDING OUT Auburn animal sciences professor and biochemist Jacek Wower sprayed these two raspberries with RNA aptamers designed to detect pathogens on foods by binding to harmful bacteria and causing them to fluoresce when viewed with an inexpensive blue-light transilluminator. Before spraying the berries, however, Wower intentionally infected the one on the right with Salmonella bacteria, which, as this photo he took shows, appear as green fluorescent dots on the infected fruit.

EndNotes

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Cajun Barbecued Shrimp2 tablespoons olive oil1 stick butter2 tablespoons Dijon mustard1 ½ teaspoons chili powder¼ teaspoon basil½ teaspoon oregano1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper2 tablespoons shrimp and crab boil seasoning¼ teaspoon thyme½ teaspoon hot sauce2 cloves garlic, crushed1 ½ pounds large fresh shrimp, shells on

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a small skillet, heat oil over medium heat; add butter and all remaining ingre-dients except shrimp. Simmer 5 minutes, stirring occa-sionally. Place the shrimp in a lightly greased 9- by-13-inch baking dish. Pour sauce over shrimp and stir once to coat shrimp. Bake, uncovered, for 20 minutes, stir-ring twice. Remove from oven and serve immediately. Makes 4-6 servings.

Recipe File

Alabama Inland Shrimp Farm Owner/Manager Offers Scrumptious Recipe, Cooking Tips

Shrimp is frequently what’s for dinner in David and Nadine Teichert-Coddington’s Greene County home, and that isn’t surprising, considering they have 20 ponds filled with thousands of Pacific whites right in their front yard.

Nationally, though, the vast majority of shrimp consumption occurs in restaurants, Coddington says, and he thinks he knows why.

“Many persons are timid about cooking shrimp at home,” he says. “But they shouldn’t be, because, in fact, shrimp are so simple to cook.”

The biggest mistake people make with shrimp, of course, is cooking them too long.

“Don’t be tempted to do that, because overcooked shrimp get tough and lose their

flavor,” Coddington says. “My advice is to sample the shrimp as you cook them and take them off the heat while they’re still tender, because they continue to cook after they’re removed from the heat.”

If that’s his No. 1 shrimp-cooking tip, here’s No. 2: For maximum flavor, always use sea salt instead of table salt.

The beauty of shrimp, Coddington says, is that you can cook it dozens of ways, and all of them taste good. This recipe that was passed along to the Teichert-Coddingtons by a friend is just one for-instance. Serve this delicious but messy dish with French bread for dipping and a full roll of paper towel close at hand.

A College of Agriculture agronomist who established a research plot on the Auburn University campus eight years ago to evaluate medicinal plants as high-value alternative crops for Alabama growers has converted the verdant patch into a teaching and demonstration garden that’s open to the public.

Nestled between two stands of sugar cane on the agronomy farm off Woodfield Drive, the 75- by 40-foot Medicinal Plant Collection boasts more than three dozen different species and varieties of plants that have healing properties, from coneflowers and chamomile to licorice and lemongrass. From late spring through summer, the garden that crop, soil and environmental sciences department professor Dennis Shannon began in 2006 with just a handful of plant species is a kaleidoscope of colors and textures.

Shannon credits the plant collection’s hearty appearance to Tia Gonzalez, a local herbal guru who manages the garden, more as a labor of love than anything else. Working limited hours through the university’s temporary employment services, Gonzalez makes the most of every second she’s on the clock, planting, weeding, watering, pruning, nurturing and harvesting.

“While it is not a formal herb garden, our collection is the only representation of medicinal or otherwise useful herbs on campus,” Gonzalez says. “And here we are, a land-grant college. My hat’s off to Dr. Shannon for finding means to keep the garden going.”

Gonzalez is a walking encyclopedia on the healing properties of plants, and from May 15 until fall, she will be sharing herb trivia the third Thursday of every month, from 2 to 3 p.m., as she leads guided tours of the garden. For those who visit the site on their own, Shannon and Gonzalez have installed a document box at the garden that contains copies of a list of every plant in the collection and its medicinal uses.

Curcuma longa, commonly known as turmeric, is the hottest medicinal plant of late because of the anti-infection, anti-inflammatory, antacid and anti-cancer properties attributed to it. And, in fact, Shannon and Gonzalez will be expanding the original collection this spring to include a nonadjacent 1,200-square-foot plot devoted solely to turmeric. Shannon says a dietary supplements manufacturer has been analyzing the curcumin

content in turmeric plants from the Auburn collection in recent months and has shown interest in buying organically grown turmeric from Alabama growers if the curcumin level is high enough.

In the past couple of years, faculty from across campus as well as from Tuskegee and Jacksonville State universities have brought their classes to tour the garden. This fall, Barbara Kemppainen, professor of pharmacology in College of Veterinary Medicine, will be among those faculty.

“I team-teach an elective course for veterinary students on complementary and alternative veterinary medicine, and about a third of the course is focused on the use of medicinal plants to treat animal diseases,” Kemppainen says. “In the future, the course will include an herb walk in Dr. Shannon's medicinal plant garden.”

For detailed directions to or more information about Auburn’s Medicinal Plant Collection, contact Gonzalez at greentia@live.com or Shannon at shannda@auburn.edu.

On-Campus Plant CollectionHome to Healing Herbsby JAMIE CREAMER

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE With waist-high turmeric as a backdrop, Tia Gonzalez and Dennis Shannon discuss the various species growing in the Auburn University Medicinal Plant Collection.