The 2014 BIOAg symposium took place October 28, 2014 on the WSU campus in Pullman, WA. Posters on relevant topics were welcomed from students, faculty, and others. Poster topics related to the idea of biologically intensive agriculture (farming practices and systems that rely on biological processes which are renewable, non-polluting, and mutually beneficial to both farmers and society) and to organic farming.
Thank you so much to all who participated in the 2014 BIOAg Symposium Poster Session! More information on the Saving Nature and Improving Agriculture event is available HERE. Posters were presented by 33 teams on sustainable topics in horticulture, nutrients, water, agronomy, insects & diseases, food quality & nutrition, marketing & economics, environment, and livestock.
Student posters were judged and scholarship prizes will soon be awarded. Please check back here for additional information.
Presented posters are listed here and linked when available:
Horticulture
- Evaluating baby-leaf salad greens for spring and fall production in Northwest Washington. Grahn, Benedict, Thornton, & Miles.
- Selecting management practices and cover crops for reducing tillage, enhancing soil quality, and managing weeds in western WA organic vegetable farms. Collins.
- Cost estimation of establishing a cider apple orchard in Western Washington. Galinato, Gallardo, & Miles.
- Bio-intensive vegetable production and outreach in Afghanistan. Badini, Pannkuk & Castelin.
Nutrients, Water
- Decomposition of fresh dairy manure under organic dryland field conditions. Higgins.
- Transforming pollutants into products: economic feasibility of anaerobic digester systems on US dairies. Astill & Shumway.
- Low Energy Precision Application (LEPA) trials on center pivots in the Pacific Northwest. Peters, Neibling & Stroh.
- Simplified irrigation scheduling on your mobile phone or desktop computer. Peters, Hill & Hoogenboom.
Agronomy
- Sustainable intercropping of switchgrass and hybrid poplar for bioenergy production. Kimura, Fransen, Collins, Guy, & Johnston.
- Organic grain production in the Inland Pacific Northwest – a collection of farmer case studies. Roberts.
- Farmer to Farmer: multi-media case studies to build adaptive capacity among cereal-based farmers in the Pacific Northwest. Yorgey, Kantor, Painter, Bernacchi, Davis, Roe, Kruger, & Borrelli.
- 2014 Eggert Organic Family Farm buckwheat trial. Ludvigson & Murphy.
- Effect of irrigation on plant height, maturity and seed yield of 20 diverse millet varieties. Habiyaremye, Barth, Highet, & Murphy.
Insects & Diseases
- Controlling major soil-borne pathogens of strawberry in an environmentally sustainable manner. Hewavitharana, Muramoto & Mazzola.
- Evaluation of watermelon rootstocks for resistance to verticillium wilt in northwestern Washington. Wimer, Miles & Inglis.
- Strategies for increasing the immunity of potatoes against fungal pathogens. Tilton & Hadwiger.
- Evaluation of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in conventional and organic onion production in the Columbia Basin, and the potential use of AMF to reduce the impact of soilborne pathogens of onion. Knerr.
- The effect of Sinorhizobium meliloti inoculation on the resistance of the alfalfa to Aphanomyces root rot. Yurgel.
- Rooting out defense mechanisms in wheat against plant parasitic nematodes. Thompson.
- A genomics approach to understanding biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships. Fu.
- Biodiversity and the natural suppression of human pathogens. Jones.
- Diversity of native bees in urban and rural diversified farming systems. Bloom & Crowder.
Food Quality & Nutrition
- Understanding the molecular basis of phytonutrient composition differences in organic tomatoes via quantitative transcriptome analysis. Sharpe.
- Correlations of starch characteristics and texture of cooked quinoa. Wu, Morris, & Murphy.
- Analysis of antioxidants and antmicrobial activity in dandelion extract. Sheng.
Marketing & Economics
- Exploring the market potential of U.S.-grown organic quinoa: results from a nationwide survey of food co-operatives. Goldberger.
- Exploring the intersection of direct marketing and farm sustainability. Donovan, Goldberger, & Ostrom.
- Production and price trends in Washington’s organic farm sector in a period of rapid change. Brady, Granatstein, & Kirby.
Environment
- What is the carbon footprint of organic farming? Carpenter-Boggs.
- Natural resource decision-makers’ reflections on what constitutes “useful” regional climate information. Allen.
- Effectiveness of surface flow contracted wetlands receiving agricultural runoff in mitigating pathogens and turbidity, Lower Yakima Basin, WA. Whritenour.
Livestock
- Non-chemical control of internal parasites in goats. Kerr.