Business

LAB-WIDE PARTNERS

 

NRCS: State Office and various field offices in Oklahoma.   Collaborations focus on a broad range of activities, including providing technologies to reduce the degradation of land resources used to support grazing livestock and participating in several annual NRCS new employee orientations and other training.  NRCS assists with technology transfer, provides technical assistance to scientific and Operations staff and designs erosion control structures, pond dams, and other structures on the lands of the Grazinglands Research Laboratory.

 

El Reno Federal Corrections Institution, Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Department of Justice.  Inter-agency cooperative agreements allow the Grazinglands Research Laboratory and the adjacent federal prison to cooperate in raising alfalfa and other hays to support the prison's dairy and the Laboratory's research herds.  The prison's Building and Construction Trades Vocational Training Program assists the Laboratory in economically maintaining and constructing new research facilities.     

 

F&LPRU PARTNERS

 

USDA, ARS, South Central Agricultural Research Station, Lane, OK.  Agronomic performance of early ryegrass varieties in summer crop rotations: determine the value of utilizing early ryegrass in rotation followed by summer crops.

 

USDA, ARS, Subtropical Research Station, Brooksville, FL.  Research on the impact of introducing new tropically adapted breeds of beef cattle on each component of the US beef production system (cow/calf producers, stocker calf producers, and feed lots).

 

USDA, ARS, Fort Keogh Livestock and Range Research Laboratory, MilesCity, MT.Joint research to determine the impact of age at weaning and pre-weaning management of the calf on lifetime productivity.

 

USDA, ARS, DaleBumpersSmallFarmsResearchCenter, Boonville, AR.  Objective of the partnership is to share resources and research expertise to address problems associated with cool-season perennial grass management in pasture and silvopasture systems, with emphasis on fertilizer and forage nitrogen use efficiency.

USDA, ARS, Nutrient Conservation and Metabolism Laboratory, Beltsville, MD.  The research focuses on the uptake of phosphorus from livestock manure and fertilizer by grain and forage legumes that may have potential for use in the southern Great Plains.    

 

USDA, ARS, NationalCenter for Animal Germplasm Preservation, Ft. Collins, CO.  Assist in development of strategies for preservation of small ruminant germplasm in rare or threatened breeds of sheep and goats.

 

USDA, ARS, Crop Germplasm Research Unit, College Station, TX.  Research is underway to complete the development and release of a new hexaploid dallisgrass cultivar.

 

USDA, ARS, Great Plains Systems Research Unit, Fort Collins, CO.  Cooperative research develops decision aids for forage management that are useful to resource-limited livestock producers.

 

USDA, ARS, Southern Weed Science Research Unit, Stoneville, MS.  The research defines the role of secondary plant compounds, especially in legume-grass competition and mixture longevity in pastures.

 

USDA, ARS Carbon Dioxide Flux Network of 10 locations in the central and western U.S. where C0₂ fluxes are continuously monitored over diverse grassland and shrubland ecosystems to determine whether rangelands are a source or sink for atmospheric carbon.

 

Department of Animal Science, OklahomaStateUniversity, Stillwater, OK. Collaborative research with faculty and graduate students on sheep breeding and management and new approaches to increasing stocker cattle production efficiency.

 

Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, OklahomaStateUniversity, Stillwater. OK.  Objective of the partnership is to resolve problems issues associated with use of wheat as a dual-purpose (grazing plus grain) crop.  Collaborative research is conducted on forage production and utilization by stocker cattle and the development of grazing systems that reduce the economic risks associated with stocker cattle production.

 

Food and Animals Products Center, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, and Katahdin sheep breeders in Oklahoma.  Conduct collaborative research on the evaluation of carcass and meat characteristics of Katahdin, Suffolk, and reciprocal-cross wether lambs.

 

LouisianaStateUniversity AgCenter, Baton Rouge, LA.  Cooperative research focuses on development of herbicide-tolerant white clover and stress-tolerant alfalfa germplasm and the multi-location evaluation of a cooperatively-developed drought-tolerant red clover.

 

Animal Science Department, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR.  Collaborative research with faculty and graduate students on the physiology of feed efficiency in cattle and sheep.

 

University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK.  Research to quantify the time interval needed for stocker calves to adapt to a new diet and the mechanisms which cause the "adaptation period" of weight loss after calves are first placed on wheat pasture. 

 

School of Agriculture and Applied Sciences, LangstonUniversity, Langston, OK.  The Forage & Livestock Production Research Unit maintains a scientific and support staff of five on the campus to develop low-input approaches to forage production on small farms.  Other Unit scientists conduct cooperative research on genetic improvement of cool-season forage grasses with LangstonUniversity faculty and support the university's Grassland Center of Excellence.   

 

Southwestern OklahomaStateUniversity, Weatherford, OK.  Determine animal and plant factors that regulate the amount of feed consumed by beef cattle.

  

Oklahoma City University, Oklahoma City, OK.  Generation of microsatellite SSR genetic markers to assist breeding of Poa arachnifera (Texas bluegrass). 

 

RedlandsCommunity College, El Reno, OK.   Forage & Livestock Production Research Unit scientists collaborate with agricultural faculty and assist with college's beef herd and equine program; most of the Unit's student aids are enrolled at this near-by institution, which facilitates the transfer of newly developed technologies to students earning degrees in life sciences.

 

EastCentralUniversity, Ada, OK.  Location scientists participate in the National Institutes of Health Bridges to the Baccalaureate Program by serving as mentors to minority undergraduate students participating in the program at the university.

 

Texas A&M Agricultural Research and ExtensionCenter, Uvalde, TX. Conduct collaborative research on the impact of introducing new tropically adapted breeds of beef cattle on each component of the US beef production system. 

 

Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, BlacklandResearchCenter, Temple, TX.  Compare fluxes of carbon dioxide and water vapor over grassland ecosystems of the western U.S. as measured by the eddy covariance and Bowen ratio/energy balance techniques.

 

TexasA&MUniversity, Dallas Agricultural Research and ExtensionCenter, Dallas, TX. 
Objective of the partnership is to address constraints and management issues with the use of soybean as a forage crop.

 

University of Georgia, Tifton, GA .  The collaborator assists in developing a line of pigeonpeas suitable for use in the southern Great Plains through the genetic improvement of pigeonpea germplasm collected by ICRISAT. 

 

 KansasStateUniversity, K-State Southwest Extension Office, Garden City, KS. 
Objective of the partnership is to develop approaches to management which help avoid problems with nitrate accumulation in wheat used as a dual-purpose (grazing plus grain) crop.

 

New South Wales Department of Agriculture, Orange, New South Wales, Australia.  Development of feed balance models for pastoral and confined sheep, confined beef cattle, and dairy cattle for herder households in Western China.

 

Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, Gansu, PRC.  Conduct collaborative research with faculty and graduate students on the identification of genetic markers for calpain and calpastatin in yak.

 

Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, St. Istvan University, Pater, Hungary.  Agronomic evaluation and performance of an interspecific perennial rye hybrid determines whether this germplasm is adapted to and can be utilized as a perennial cool-season forage for the southern Great Plains.

 

Japanese National Livestock and Grassland Research Laboratory, Tochigi, Japan.  Agronomic performance and production of cool-season perennial forage grasses, germplasm exchange and cooperative performance evaluations, and evaluation of male-sterile ryegrass in generating FestLolium hybrids for forage production in the southern Great Plains and Japan.

 

International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics, Patanchru, India.  Scientists at ICRISAT provide new lines of pigeonpea germplasm for evaluation as a forage for livestock producers in the southern Great Plains.

 

The World Bank, Washington, D.C. Conduct collaborative work in Gansu and Xinjiang, PRC, on the genetic improvement of fine-wool and meat breeds of sheep; improvement in animal management for beef, dairy, and sheep breeds, including matching animal genetic potential to production environment; and implementation of sustainable production systems for native grasslands.

 

Sino-U.S. Joint Centers for Sustainable Grassland Management, Lanzhou, Gansu, PRC and Ft. Collins, CO.  Development of sustainable grazing management systems for sheep and cattle; development and implementation of a protocol for scientific exchanges between the U.S. and China.

NRCS: State Office and various field offices in Oklahoma.   Collaborations focus on a broad range of activities, including providing technologies to reduce the degradation of land resources used to support grazing livestock and participating in several annual NRCS new employee orientations and other training.  NRCS assists with technology transfer, provides technical assistance to scientific and Operations staff and designs erosion control structures, pond dams, and other structures on the lands of the Grazinglands Research Laboratory.

 

Central North Canadian River Conservation District, Blaine and Canadian Counties, OK.  Collaborative activities include development of educational activities for school children in agricultural production and natural resources conservation and technology transfer.

 

High Plains Conservation District, Harper County, OK.  Research is being conducted in cooperation with the RC&D Coordinator and the NRCS Regional Conservationist to investigate the feasibility of harvesting CRP acreage for biomass/bioenergy.   The RC&D Coordinator serves as a liaison to the renewable energy industry and provides input and assistance to the Unit's biofuels/bio-energy research project.

 

El Reno Federal Corrections Institution, Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Department of Justice.  Inter-agency cooperative agreements allow the Grazinglands Research Laboratory and the adjacent federal prison to cooperate in raising alfalfa and other hays to support the prison's dairy and the Laboratory's research herds.  The prison's Building and Construction Trades Vocational Training Program assists the Laboratory in economically maintaining and constructing new research facilities.     

 

The Nitrate Elimination Co., Inc., Lake Linden, MI.  Objective of this partnership is to provide enzyme-linked assay protocols for avoiding high nitrate concentrations in forages.

Barenbrug Seeds, Inc., Albany, OR.  Agronomic evaluation and performance of interspecific hybrids of bluegrasses to if they can be utilized as turf or forage for the Southern Great Plains and western U.S.

 

Mr. Dan Glickman, Waukomis, OK.  The collaborator provides land on his farm for experimental evaluations of the agronomic performance and production of cool-season perennial grass forages. 

 

Mr. Charles Chason, Woodward, OK.   Access to land for preliminary agronomic evaluations of the usefulness of an interspecific perennial rye hybrid. 

 

Mr. George Chapman, Bonsmara breeder, Amarillo, TX.  Evaluation of Bonsmara cross-bred cattle.

 

GPANR PARTNERS

 

External:

 

Oklahoma Mesonet and Oklahoma Climatological Survey are partners in operation of a research network of weather stations, the ARS Micronet, in the Little Washita River Experimental Watershed.  We also collaborate on developing applications of climate information to agricultural management and in the establishment of a pilot groundwater monitoring network at Mesonet stations.

 

OklahomaStateUniversity.  We partner with the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department on the ARS Micronet operations and on compiling agronomic research data for crop model validation.  In addition, we cooperate with the Oklahoma Agricultural Extension Service on risk-based decision making for wheat-stocker systems.  We maintain a facility at the South Central Research Station in Chickasha to support watershed and remote sensing research. 

 

LangstonUniversity, EnvironmentalResourcesCenter (please add ERC to the end of your LU section?) 

 

University of CentralOklahoma.  We collaborate on a study of the impact of impoundments on downstream water quality.  Our laboratory collects the samples and quantifies nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in agricultural watersheds and faculty and students at the university quantify the biological indicators.   

 

Oklahoma Water Resources Board. We maintain an agreement with OWRB to support stream gauging in the Little Washita River Experimental Watershed.  They are also coordinating a pilot groundwater monitoring project with our laboratory, the Oklahoma Mesonet, the USGS, and the US Bureau of Reclamation, with the initial wells installed by our laboratory in sites relevant to our research. 

 

Oklahoma Conservation Commission.  We are establishing new watershed research in conjunction with the OCC Fort Cobb Water Quality Project.  Our research will focus on quantifying the environmental effects of conservation practices on agricultural lands. 

 

Natural Resources Conservation Service.  We work with NRCS at many levels from the national technical and program level, to the State Conservation Office, to local conservationists in our watersheds.  The purpose is to exchange information about the criteria for implementing conservation programs and research to assess the impacts of conservation practices. 

 

The US Geological Service operate a network of stream gauges in the Little Washita River Experimental Watershed and are partners in a OWRB pilot groundwater monitoring project at Oklahoma Mesonet sites. 

 

Oklahoma Wheat Commission.  We are collaborating with Mark Hodges on applications of climate information to risk-based decision making for wheat producers in Oklahoma and the Southern Great Plains. 

 

Great Plains RC&D.  We have an agreement with Larry Wright and the RC&D Council for them to support outreach and communication activities related to the FortCobb and WashitaRiver watersheds.  In addition, they support us in developing new applications of applying climate information to natural resource decision-making.  We also collaborate with Larry Wright who is leading in development of a new grassroots organization, Southern Plains Agricultural Resources Coalition, to enhance environmental and economic sustainability of farming systems and rural communities. 

 

High Plains RC&D. We collaborate with Tom Lucas and the RC&D Council in research to develop bioenergy cropping systems for the Great Plains. 

 

KansasStateUniversity is a partner through the KansasCenter for Agricultural Resources and the Environment.  We coordinated research in the Conservation Effects Assessment Project at the Special Emphasis Watershed, Cheney Lake, Kansas, and the ARS Benchmark watersheds in the Upper Washita River Hydrologic Unit, Oklahoma. 

 

University of Georgia, Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (SANREM) - Cooperative Research Support Project (CRSP).  The unit collaborates on a NASA-funded project to develop carbon accounting systems applicable for small land holders in West Africa.  

 

University of Arizona, UdallCenter.  We are collaborators on a project funded by NOAA, Human Dimensions of Climate Change Research Program, "Use of climate-information products by water managers and other stakeholders in two GCIP/GAPP Watersheds in Arizona/Sonora and Oklahoma". 

 

Hydrology for the Environment, Life, and Policy (HELP) is a joint program of the United Nations Educational Scientific Organization (UNESCO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).  The laboratory provides the contact point for the Red-ArkansasBasin, focusing in particular on the WashitaRiver basin in this international network established to support creation of a framework for water law and policy experts, water resource managers and water scientists to work together on water-related problems.    

National Weather Service, ClimatePredictionCenter.  We utilize seasonal climate forecasts produced by the CPC in our research and development of risk-based decision support tools for agricultural and natural resource management.  We also provide feedback to CPC from the user perspective on ways to improve their forecast products. 

 

Durant Digital Devices and Terra Verde, Inc. are CRADA partners for development of an inexpensive, hand-held devise for determining forage quality using remote sensing approaches. 

 

Individual farmers and landowners.  We have agreements with 45 individual landowners in the Little Washita River Experimental Watershed where instrumentation is located for climate and stream flow monitoring.  In addition, agreements are made with farmers and landowners for on-farm data collection for remote sensing, water quality, and decision-making research. 

 

Within ARS:

 

USDA-ARS Conservation Effects Assessment Project.  The location conducts research in an ARS Benchmark Watershed, leads the data management team, participates in multisite model validation and simulation research, and participates on the project Coordinating Committee.  

 

USDA-ARS Watershed Research Network. The Little Washita River Experimental Watershed supported by this laboratory is one of fourteen long-term watersheds (https://www.ars.usda.gov/pacific-west-area/boise-id/watershed-management-research/) that exchange information about methodologies and collaborate in model validation and simulation studies.

USDA-ARS Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory, Beltsville, MD.  Long-standing collaboration has existed with scientists at this laboratory, particularly in the area of large-scale, remote sensing campaign conducted in the Little Washita River Experimental Watershed. 

 

USDA-ARS Southwest Watershed Research Laboratory, Tucson, AZ.  Long-standing collaboration has existed with scientists at this laboratory, particularly in the area of large-scale, remote sensing campaigns, the HELP network, and most recently joint resear4ch to validate a new soil moisture modeling system under development of the U.S. Corps of Engineers. 

 

USDA-ARS Grasslands Soil and Water Research Laboratory, Temple, TX, Collaboration focus on validation and application of the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) for water quality assessments and improvements of the CERES-Wheat model to better simulate impacts of fall grazing by stocker beef cattle on wheat growth. 

 

USDA-ARS, Great Plains Systems Research Unit, Fort Collins, CO.  Our laboratory will serve as one of four locations for initial testing of the spatial version of the Root Zone Water Quality Model.  Our application will focus on data assimilation of remotely-sensed surface soil water content to improve simulation of root zone processes.  Additional collaboration focuses on coordinating between the Object Modeling System development and the ARS Watershed Data System development to ensure future compatibility. 

 

USDA-ARS, J. Phil Campbell, Sr., NaturalResourcesResearchCenter, Watkinsville, GA.  Collaboration focuses on simulation of tillage and nutrient management effects on hydrologic processes and water quality. 

 

USDA-ARS, Cropping Systems Research Laboratory, Lubbock, TX.  Collaboration focuses on long-term climate variability and climate forecasting research for the Southern Great Plains.