Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center, College Station, Texas

• Scope of work under Recovery Act

Amount: $1.3 million

Repairing critical deferred maintenance including repairs to building foundations in a number of buildings. Replacing roofing systems in various buildings and repairs to critical mechanical and plumbing systems and repairs to back-up power supply systems.

Milestones - To be updated as milestones are completed.

Construction Photos

Research at the Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center

Scientists at the Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center invent new uses for by-products from agricultural production. Making high-value use of such by-products makes agriculture more economically viable and helps keep prices low for consumers.

For example, scientists from the Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center established that orange peel and pulp, which are by-products of the juice-making process, can be fed to cattle to improve nutrition and reduce salmonella contamination, thus providing safer and more wholesome meat products, at less cost, for the American consumer.

Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center researchers also develop cost-effective means to prevent Salmonella and other pathogens that cause foodborne illnesses from infecting poultry, swine, cattle, and other livestock. One approach that is already paying off in safer meat for people to eat is reducing two key on-farm pathogens in pigs and cows by feeding low doses of sodium chlorate before slaughter, which selectively kills Salmonella typhimurium and E. coli 0157:H7.

Areawide Pest Management Research Unit

Develop, integrate, and evaluate multiple strategies and technologies into system approaches for management of field and food crop insect pests.

Cotton Pathology Research Unit

Manage the most important, and emerging cotton diseases occurring throughout the U.S. cotton belt. The unit focuses on mechanisms of cotton resistance to diseases, on pathogen genetics and metabolites, and on control/management of destructive nematodes.

The unit expands and implements acquired knowledge by using it to:

• Determine the cause of South Carolina boll rot and develop methods to control it
• Identify and develop cotton cultivars that exhibit nematode resistance
• Determine genetic variability in soilborne fungal wilt pathogens to facilitate development of effective control methods
• Genetically manipulate biosynthetic pathways in cotton to increase resistance to pathogens and to manipulate terpenoid levels so as to enhance the agricultural utilization of cotton seed.

Crop Germplasm Research Unit

This unit conducts integrated studies of areas not addressed by the private sector:

• Introduction, classification, and maintenance of germplasm,
• Elucidation of cellular and molecular DNA characteristics,
• Identification of germplasm with useful characteristics such as pest resistance and quality factors,
• Determine of genetic control of these characteristics,
• Develop genome mapping and evaluation systems to more efficiently detect and utilize diverse germplasm.

Food and Feed Safety Research Unit

The mission of the Food and Feed Safety Research Unit is to:

• Develop cost-effective means to prevent Salmonella and other enteric pathogens in poultry, swine, cattle, and other livestock through use of competitive exclusion and management strategies, and develop an increased understanding of competitive exclusion through microbial ecology
• Identify and isolate immune cytokines from poultry and other livestock to control Salmonella and other enteric pathogens and develop cytokine gene transfer technology for use in ovo in poultry to improve the immune responsiveness at the time of hatch
• Identify occurrence of microbial resistance to enteric non-pathogens and pathogens transmitted via food animals under various antimicrobial regimens and develop practical recommendations to prevent the development of drug resistant pathogens.

Project Photographs Before Construction