150 Years of Making History Don Comis ARS, [email protected]
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln U.S. Department of Agriculture: Agricultural Agricultural Research Magazine Research Service, Lincoln, Nebraska 5-2012 150 Years of Making History Don Comis ARS, [email protected] Tara Weaver-Missick ARS, [email protected] Robert Sowers USDA-ARS, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usdaagresmag Part of the Agriculture Commons, Animal Sciences Commons, Food Science Commons, and the Plant Sciences Commons Comis, Don; Weaver-Missick, Tara; and Sowers, Robert, "150 Years of Making History" (2012). Agricultural Research Magazine. 158. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usdaagresmag/158 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the U.S. Department of Agriculture: Agricultural Research Service, Lincoln, Nebraska at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Agricultural Research Magazine by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. decrease the population over time, driving the flies to extinction. When Knipling came up with the idea, there was no known way of sterilizing the male flies. Then one day he read an article by the Nobel Prize-winning geneti- cist Hermann Joseph Muller in Scientific American showing that x-rays sterilized male fruit flies without interfering with their normal functions. Knipling wrote to Muller to see whether x-rays could be used to sterilize screwworm WK flies. Muller wrote back immediately, 86'$·V indicating his interest in the idea. That exchange—and subsequent experi- ments demonstrating that the idea worked, $QQLYHUVDU\ including research by colleague Raymond Bushland showing that sterile male screw- worms could be raised in a laboratory and function normally after release, including mating with nonsterile females—led to the historic screwworm eradication program. The sterile insect technique has been used to eradicate screwworms elsewhere, including north Africa—where they were he only thing that stands between Before USDA eradicated the species accidentally introduced—in the 1990s and the United States and an invasion from the United States, the screwworm— most recently from Aruba. The technique of cattle-killing screwworms is a larvae of which eat living tissue of people has proved useful in controlling other pests daily flight of airplanes flooding and other animals—had plagued the South- as well, such as the Mediterranean fruit fly Ta 100-mile-wide section of the Isthmus of west, all of Florida, and parts of Georgia. and the tsetse fly. Panama with male screwworm flies raised In 1937, the late Edward F. Knipling, USDA screwworm research began under in a laboratory and sterilized with radiation then at a USDA laboratory in Menard, the auspices of the department’s Bureau in Panama. The screwworm infestations of Texas, got the idea of flooding areas with of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, the past would probably come back if the sexually sterilized male screwworm flies. which was transferred to the Agricultural releases stopped for a couple of months He believed that by releasing large numbers Research Administration (which became or so, says Dan Strickman, Agricultural of sterile male flies, they would mate with the Agricultural Research Service by the Research Service national program leader nonsterile female screwworm flies and that end of 1953). The laboratory at Menard for veterinary and medical entomology. the resulting “unsuccessful” mating would “This is a great example of agricul- Flesh-eating screwworms once plagued some southern U.S. states but have been eliminated from tural research changing the history of this and kept out of the country because of continuing efforts of USDA scientists. country, and it’s a cutting-edge example of integrated pest management,” Strick- man adds. This year marks the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 150th anniversary, making it a particularly appropriate time to look at this and other examples of history in the making. The screwworm was wiped out of the United States by 1966 and Mexico by 1991. The purging continued south to include Central America until the “bar- rier” reached across the entire narrow 1) Isthmus of Panama, and the screwworm was declared eradicated from Central and North America. APHIS (D1742- 10 Agricultural Research O May/June 2012 B0D\-XQHBLQGG 30 SCOTT BAUER (K7023-6) GEORGE E. MARSH, NOAA, DEPT. OF COMMERCE (D2520-1) The Bushland lab’s charge was to pre- Mediterranean fruit fly, a worldwide agricultural pest, is controlled by the same vent the intolerable conditions of another techniques used to eliminate screwworms. potential Dust Bowl and to minimize wind erosion, working with other state experi- ment stations—such as those in Kansas and Ohio—and other USDA labs. They developed stubble mulch tillage, leaving the residue of harvested crops on the land over winter to keep soil from blowing away and to save precious soil moisture. This was the forerunner of the highly successful practice of no-till and other forms of conservation tillage that drastically reduced erosion, whether by wind, rain, or snowmelt. ARS research CE (D2519-1) was spurred further by the drought of the MER OM 1950s. At the time, there were limitations C to stubble mulch, mainly lower yields, so . OF ARS set out to overcome those limitations and, in time, succeeded in making con- NOAA, DEPT servation tillage an NRCS-recommended “best practice.” Top: A dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas, was incorporated into the U.S. Livestock in 1935. Above: Wind erosion in the Dust Bowl Insect Laboratory in 1946, which, in 1988, ARS Bushland scientists continue lasted for years in the 1930s, moving dramatic was renamed the Knipling-Bushland U.S. conservation tillage research to this day, amounts of valuable soil—enough to practically Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in improving techniques and adjusting to bury this farm machine. honor of the two pioneering scientists. The modern challenges. They have learned to It is unlikely that the Great Plains will facility, located in Kerrville, Texas, works harness wind energy to produce electric- suffer another Dust Bowl as severe as the on cattle fever ticks, horn flies, stable flies, ity for use in homes and on farms. They one in the 1930s. Isolated yet significant and other livestock pests. Live screwworms continue research on water conservation, storms are inevitable, but the conserva- are not allowed in the United States, how- taking advantage of the latest technology. tion tillage and crop residue management ever, so the lab can only work with DNA Today, that means getting information on techniques developed from ARS research from the screwworm. The live-screwworm soil moisture from satellites. will certainly reduce the severity of dust work is performed at the Screwworm Re- Conservation tillage practices were developed storms in agricultural regions. search Unit in Pacora, Panama, the site of by USDA scientists to keep soil in its place. The a huge factory that produces sterile males abundant residue on the soil of this no-till cotton Six Nutrition Research Centers and Four for release. The Kerrville lab continues to crop planted into an unplowed cornfield will help Regional Research Centers prevent erosion from wind and rain. research effective, less expensive methods USDA-ARS human nutrition research to control insect pests of livestock. also changed the history of the nation and continues to do so. This research has Keeping Soil Where It Belongs long affected the daily lives of Americans, Another example of USDA research although the average person may not changing history occurred in 1938, when realize it. Let’s start with breakfast: The the USDA Soil Conservation Service [now calorie content, fat percentage, and nutri- the Natural Resources Conservation Ser- ent content on the label of the cereal box vice (NRCS)] and the Texas Agricultural are required by the U.S. Food and Drug Experiment Station created a laboratory Administration (FDA), using ARS data in Bushland, Texas, in the wake of a dra- that traces back to the work of Wilbur Olin matic wind erosion event. Poor agricul- Atwater, the father of American nutrition, tural practices for years, coupled with in 1894. He began the food analysis that severe drought, left the soil of extensive today is listed on food containers. He also U.S. farmland exposed. The result was a pioneered the surveys of people’s eating multiyear period of severe dust storms in habits that continue to the present. Today, the 1930s. Known as the “Dust Bowl,” it nutrition research is carried out by six was characterized by thick, black clouds ARS human nutrition centers in Arkansas, CE (K7520-9) of dirt and dust stretching across several California, Maryland, Massachusetts, states and millions of acres. D NAN North Dakota, and Texas. For example, DAVI Agricultural Research O May/June 2012 11 established in 1938 to find new uses for products developed with ARS technology agricultural commodities. Today, all four in terms of dollar value in sales,” says of these centers are designated American David Klurfeld, ARS national program Chemical Society historical landmarks for leader for human nutrition. specific scientific achievements. Those USDA-ARS successes from research centers, strategically located across the conducted at the centers also include in- country—in California, Illinois, Louisiana, stant mashed potatoes, explosion-puffed and Pennsylvania—were created to help dehydration technology used to dry foods, end chronic farm depression by finding and the SuperSlurper starch-based product new, value-added uses for surplus crops. used in making super-absorbent diapers, By the end of 1940 and early 1941, research baby powder, wound dressings, automotive began at the centers, and many new value- products, and agricultural and horticultural added products—still in use today—were products, to name a few. The list goes on: OTT BAUER (K7242-20) created as a result.