Table of Contents
WHO, WHAT,
WHEN,
WHERE
HEADLINES
Anheuser-Busch professorship for rice genetics
Jewel Minnis Trust provides endowment
Sealed Air donates equipment and scholarship money
Seed dealers and Talberts endow scholarship
Wilda McMurry endows fellowship fund
Student research grants awarded
Division hosts national spinach conference
Haggard named ARS Scientist of the Year
Grad students will study in Belgium
ASID students host national officer
Interior Design builds shelters
Horticulture honors alumni and friends
Discovery student journal published
David Pryor keynotes POSC program
Endowed chairs and professors honored
Alums help launch Pioneer Biofuels
Patent issued for herbicide-resistant rhizobia
Faculty and staff photo
to go in centennial time capsule
ALL ABOUT ADVISING
Monthly newsletter indexUA AGRI LINKS
Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences
Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station
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
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
November-December 2005 • Vol. 31, No. 6
Patent issued for method to enhance N2 fixation in soybeans
A United States patent has been issued to Drs. Charles A. (Andy) King and Larry Purcell as inventors and the University of Arkansas as assignee for a "Herbicide Resistant Denitrogen Fixing Bacteria and Method of Use."
Dr. King, project director for soybean physiology, said he and Dr. Purcell, CSES professor, developed a novel approach to increasing nitrogen fixation in glyphosate-resistant soybeans. Further testing of the hypothesis and development of new technology would require involvement of an industry partner, Dr. King said.
Soybeans and other legumes normally require little or no nitrogen fertilizer because of the plants’ symbiotic relationship with rhizobia (nitrogen fixing bacteria). The bacteria infect the root, forming a nodule where biological N2 fixation occurs that supplies 40 to 85 percent of the soybean’s nitrogen requirement.
It has been documented that the herbicide glyphosate reduces nitrogen fixation by nodulating rhizobia. The inventors presented a hypothesis that selected rhizobia could be made resistant to glyphosate by any of three methods: by selection pressure of variants from within existing N2 fixing species, by inducement of herbicide-resistant mutants of existing species, or by genetic engineering of an N2 fixing species for herbicide resistance.