Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture
Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences
A newsletter for faculty, staff and students
January-February 2006 • Vol. 32, No. 1
Table of Contents
WHO, WHAT,
WHEN, WHERE
• Notables
• Grants
• Articles Published
• New Projects
• New Publications
• Coming Events
• Dean reviews 2005 accomplishments
• 700-plus attend ‘Party of the Century’
• Food Science Building expanded
• Robert Bacon is CSES interim head
• Robertson to coordinate Apparel Studies major
• Food packaging, processing expert joins UA faculty
• AGCS adds digital media specialist
• Donors provide new scholarships and building funds
• Legislature applauds UA fruit breeding program
• Crop Biotechnology minor proposed
• Bumpers welcomes transfer students
• Magazine features U of A spinach breeding program
• Congratulations to fall graduates
• Poultry science students win national awards for research
• CSES students win ASA poster contest
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Vision Archive Index
All About Advising
• Monthly newsletter index
UA Agri LInks
• Division of Agriculture
• University of Arkansas
• Dale Bumpers College of
xxxAgricultural, Food and
xxxLife Sciences
• Arkansas Agricultural
xxxExperiment Station
• Cooperative Extension
xxxService
• Alumni and Development
• Future Students
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Vision Credits
Vision is published six times a year by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station in the U of A System's Division of Agriculture and by the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. It is produced by the Communication Services unit of the Department of Agricultural and Extension Education, 110 Agriculture Building, U of A, Fayetteville, AR 72701. 479-575-5647.
• Editor: Howell Medders, (hmedders@uark.edu).
• Web manager: David Edmark (dedmark@uark.edu).
• Writers and photographers: Fred Miller and Karen Eskew
• Editorial Assistants: Cassandra Cox and Amalie Holland
• Broadcast e-mail support: Arkansas Alumni Association
E-mail items for publication in Vision to ahollan@uark.edu
Magazine features U of A spinach breeding program
By Fred Miller
Ann Kaiser, editor of Country Woman magazine likes digging her hands into other people’s dirt. So she fit in smoothly with the crew collecting spinach-breeding selections at the Division of Agriculture’s Vegetable Substation at Kibler, just south of Alma.
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| COUNTRY WOMAN -- Ann Kaiser, right, editor of Country Woman magazine, works with Paula Crabtree to collect spinach breeding selections from a nursery at the University of Arkanas Division of Agriculture’s Vegetable Substation at Kibler. Kaiser writes a regular feature for the magazine about working alongside woman in agriculture-related jobs. Kaiser said an article about her visit to the Kibler station will likely appear in an upcoming fall or spring issue of Country Woman. |
“I don’t mind getting my hands dirty,” Kaiser said during a visit to the Vegetable Substation Jan. 5. “I like hard work.”
Kaiser writes a regular feature for Country Woman that she calls a “diary report” about a day spent working alongside one of the magazine’s subscribers. She was invited to visit the Vegetable Substation by Paula Crabtree, administrative assistant.
“Paula wrote me a wonderful letter,” Kaiser said. “I was intrigued because she operates a farm with her family and also has this other job as an administrative assistant at an agriculture research station and also goes to the field to work alongside the rest of the crew.”
The day began in a greenhouse where Kaiser joined Crabtree and the rest of the station’s crew to pot collards selected from breeding lines by Dr. Teddy Morelock, UA vegetable breeder. Later, the work moved outside to spinach breeding plots.
“I was impressed by the teamwork here, the way everyone works together to get the job done.” Kaiser said.
Working alongside Crabtree and the other staff members, Kaiser trimmed off the leaves, dug up the plants and transferred them to pots. The potted spinach and collard selections will be grown for seed that will be planted in test plots for continued evaluation as possible new varieties.
Selected plants are evaluated for consistent yield, disease resistance, processing quality and other characteristics that may make them desirable for commercial production, Morelock said.
Morelock said he is growing about 400-500 different breeding lines of spinach in nurseries at the Vegetable Substation and the Arkansas Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Fayetteville. His program has released 9 varieties of spinach. The latest releases were two varieties last December named Evergreen and F415.
“Our spinach varieties are valued throughout the South for their resistance to white rust,” Morelock said. The fungal disease is common in southern states and can devastate a crop.
Kaiser had no experience in agriculture before going to work for the magazine 34 years ago, when it was known as Farm Wife. She said she has learned a great deal about the industry since then through her experiences working with women in agriculture.
“I didn’t know there were places like this, that do this kind of work,” Kaiser said. “You’re developing the foods that feed the world.”
Country Woman has a circulation of about 1.5 million and is published by Reiman Publications of Greendale, Wisc.