Agricultural research is a topic that most people know little about except for terms like the Green Revolution and Miracle grain. They have been praised as breakthroughs and they've been criticized as detrimental to the culture of the people. They were intended to help is Norman Borlaug the Nobel prize-winning plant geneticist has said scientist can sell them afford the luxury of wondering what the social impact of their research will be the work done by Borlaug to produce new varieties of so-called Miracle. We had his Mexico facility is well-known less well-known is agricultural research being done at other locations by thousands of other scientists. Minnesota is an example researchers at the University of Minnesota agricultural experiment station spend more than 18 million dollars a year in a variety of research areas ranging from energy conservation to improving fruit trees. Most of the research money about 60% comes from state tax dollars another 12% or so comes from federal funds about 12% from gifts and grants from private inAnd the rest another 12% from miscellaneous sources experiment station headquarters around the Saint Paul campus of the University of Minnesota with the largest research facility located at Rosemont University scientist. Also work at Watseka Grand Rapids Crookston and Morris some say that the research benefits big business at the smaller producer or family farmer does not benefit University officials argue that private businesses prefer to do their own research on important matters. The debate is persistent. But many people tuned it out because they know little about what agricultural research is for a few days ago officials of the University's agricultural experiment station invited the number of reporters from around the state fruit or a few of the research facilities on the Saint Paul campus scientists were tour guides food science plant genetics and animal science were the three major areas covered will hear highlights of that tour today. We start our tour with bacteria the things that give many of our Foods their distinctive flavors and properties universe.Minnesota scientist such as Larry McKay spend a lot of time on bacteria that act on dairy products such as cheese. That's because Minnesota is one of the nation's leaders in milk production We join Professor McKay in a laboratory on the second floor of the food science building on the Saint Paul campus. I don't have a recent figure but a 1965 there's about a hundred seventy four million pounds of these organisms use to make fermented dairy products and Minnesota is one of the leading states in the manufacturer fermented cheese.We don't have that much time. I just maybe point out one of their but I consider when the more exciting areas of research in Dairy starter cost at the present time. my safest work probably is initiated back in the 1930s. when workers realize that certainly starter cultures are very unstable are these bacteria or unstable in their ability to function and milk? When you consider that the primary function of bacteria in fermented dairy products is rapid acid production. We need that acid production to inhibit the growth of spoilage organisms and to inhibit the growth of foodborne pathogens where if we don't get to ask for Dakshin, we could possibly end up with a n product which has Public Health significant. So we're dependent upon these good bacteria to produce acid. How many organisms grow in milk? They're depended upon their ability to degrade. Milk protein in order to get the necessary nitrogen in order for these organisms to grow and when they're grown and mouth are also depending upon their ability to ferment milk sugar or lactose. In the 1930s, they realize that these strains Ridley gave rise to mutants or variance, which I've lost the ability to produce this enzyme system to degrade milk protein or too hard to ferment lactose. And there's been much work devoted to studying this instability in our work within the last three or four years. We think we've come up with the reasons why these trains are unstable food scientist, Larry McKay and his colleagues discovered. The instability was due to parts of the bacteria's DNA or genetic material getting lost a different kinds of bacteria serve different purposes one kind causes blue mold in blue cheese. Some people don't like the sight of blue mold in their cheese. So researchers at the University developed a cheese where the mold was still present but has no color so you don't know it's there the reporters left the laboratory and moved to the office of Professor Eugene Center who teaches food process engineering and food packaging areas that I've been rather interested in after some years and Industry is fabrication of foods and a general sort of way. Perhaps you can identify with if you go to a McDonald's or Burger. King in order some onion rings, they are actually fabricated from scraps of onions, preferably dehydrated onions with your rehydrated and then extruded into a form battered and breaded Deep Fat fried frozen. So it's been a big plus for McDonald's in terms of a new saleable item and it also has helped out those people at process dehydrated onions in California. So I'll pass these around these are freeze-dried so that day I can keep them and show them at the Gathering such as this the top ones are just extruded ring then come The Battered and breaded rings in the Deep Fat fried rings. I'm sorry. Not really hotter than they contain onions. Let's say the question is is there benefit to the people that eat them and I would say if you like onion rings and you like a lot of batter and breading on your fish are your onion rings and you should eat onion rings if you like onions and you should peel and eat the onion Raw. Okay, another area that I'm extremely interested in is how we more efficiently utilize our protein resources one that may be somewhat unorthodox for Minnesota is utilization of protein from the sea. So perhaps if you get some time, I can't go through my complete display, but we are interested for example in fabricating products such as shrimp shapes fish sticks from protein from parts of fish that normally are not consumed if you go out and catch a Northern or walleye and you fillet a mouth. Did you ever stop and think how much flesh is still left in that frame that you throw in the bushes or let the Gauls eat? So the right techniques that have come from the poultry industry to recover this flash by mechanical means the problem is it's much like bologna or sausage is very finely ground. Therefore. It doesn't have any texture. So some of the research we've been doing is trying to utilize a source of protein and fabricated into more edible with four arms with better texture. Now again, we're also interested in utilizing rough fish those fish that you don't want such as carp and soccer in the same fashion. So it brings it back to the state of Minnesota and utilizing the potential of 17 million pounds of rough fish available annually from our Lakes. All right, very quickly in terms of the packaging area. We've been doing some work with controlled environment storage of fresh produce. It started with finding a way of preserving and extending the shelf life of chickens without freezing it. So we're able to extend the shelf-life of chickens up to 30 days at 34 degrees by putting it into a barrier bag backflushing the poultry with carbon dioxide and other words replacing the air with carbon dioxide. What happens is a carbon dioxide is absorbed by the motion of chicken the bag collapses on the chicken and we have a rather skin-tight package much like you see the crab act film in the stores today might see why you're not holding up a chicken here. You're exactly right just happens to be a piece of cheese. And for a contrast that's not Limburger, but it's just moldy gouda cheese. This is a piece of cheese that's been coated are treated with a carbon dioxide environment. So it's almost a year old and it seems to have potential and other food products. Hopefully we like to help the Youth Fishing industry in the state of Minnesota and someday. I'd like to see maybe not smelled but perhaps late crowd or Harry fresh Herring packed in the same type of environment on a tray these happen to be freeze-dried smell. So we're hoping to extend its packaging technology also to the fresh fish industry in the state of Minnesota. I'm sure I've got over five minutes and I'm sorry. I had to rush any quick questions. I could possibly answer. I'm sure you get applied there too, but it did really doesn't make any difference. We need to learn more about the bacteria and the spoilage problems that occur in fish, which we really don't know much about at this point human consumption. They can be there's a project on their way now to put together products for institutional you use in nursing homes in this type of area. So there's a potential error. But again, if you go to the store and you buy a package of fish that says carp and sucker on it, I'm sure you wouldn't buy it. Okay. Said about 5 minutes worth of I am also yes, normally it that the the it's not identified. That's the way they that's the way they sold textured vegetable protein in the school lunch program. Once they got approved for school lunch meeting. They never told the kids. I read a mixture of ground beef. And so I proceeded And so that's a nice way of dispensing edible food, like nothing wrong with it, except. Aesthetically. It has no appeal. If you're in prison. Regular folks. I think you have a right to know if you want to know what a restaurant is serving you your right to ask him. I would say definitely you don't go into a restaurant or Charlie's and say identify for me what this is usually on the menu. It has to be identified, right? as a fish stick, I mean you never question if it's a cod fish stick or a halibut or a sucker or a walleye or he just says a fish stick McDonald's doesn't tell you what kind of fish they used it. They have Muse card so you can feel safe eating a fish sandwich. Absolutely. I can give you some some mints carp fish sticks that are absolutely tremendous. But if I had to tell you that they were this is a a carp stick and this is a walleye stick. And I say they're just both is great ones as good as the other which would you eat if we moved from Professor Sanders office to a catwalk above the University's food processing pilot play that's about the size of a basketball court. When is filled with stainless steel food processing equipment. It is here that University students perform the food processing steps I hear about in the classroom is review the activity a reporter asked Professor sander how the research into fabricated Foods benefits. Minnesota Farmers soybeans are a big cash crop in this state as is soybean processing. So you may think that working with fishes a bit unorthodox, but I'm also thinking of Minnesota is our state saying that if we can include textured vegetable protein into these products, we can also benefit our own Farm situation. Well, hopefully one of the one of the major problems with soybeans and in working with with fabricated or any kind of food words included as an extender is there's a threshold limit where to buy it's not very palatable. So there's a bitter flavor in a soy bean flavor this associated with it. So one of the major problems the biggest success story has been including a textured vegetable protein in the school lunch program. That's what got General Mills and ADM and Central soy in all these people off the ground ready with a textured vegetable protein product, but that market is saturated. So now they're looking for other outlets. So really I would think of it is not necessary diluting soy protein with fish protein, but vice versa finding a new outlet for soybeans and textured soy protein question was how do we translate our engineering research in new finished products that are saleable by industry again? Engineering is a bit more difficult to say we're going to engineer product. For example, a lot of the products have an Essence been engineered fabricated shrimp onion rings and fish sticks are being sold today made from from flesh separated from fish frames in the light. The major problem is to understand what goes on in these processes and what contributes to good texture so that when we start talking about looking at engineering and Engineering research, we're really trying to improve and upgrade the product that is there. Now, that's one aspect. I think the packaging is a little bit more direct and other words, you can see that if we can develop a packaging Concepts such as a controlled environment storage using carbon dioxide in place of air inside of a barrier bag that does not let the carbon dioxide out now, we've got a controllable environment and we can learn to apply to different foods. Hopefully, we don't change the flavors in the colors and appearances. For example So at once we've optimized that now we've got something to say to the industry in the food processing people here is a concept for the chicken people what it means to them. They can get rid of ice pack. They can put more chickens in a truck. They can range to Seattle from Arkansas. They can range from Minnesota to Florida to the east coast. It opens a lot of opportunities for him and it's a very natural in the happy some projects are sponsored by industry others. We have to rely on Publications or short courses or through the media like yourself and there's a question on there's so many other hand. What do you think benefits most from these projects the larger commercial producers or the smaller producers? I would say at this point if you learn The Farmstead cheese store, you'll find that the that I think is a tremendous exact example of a pipeline research and product development and trying to translate it back to the farm. That's one unusual case. I would say it but I think it speaks well for the department and the people involved again, it's it's up for grabs. I work with small processors and I work with big processors and generally the big processors if they're interested will do it themselves to pillsbury's in the General Mills so that I think the thrusters to directed towards a smaller processor and make him aware that this kind of capability is here and since he's paying the taxes, he should benefit. All you have to do is pick up the phone. Depends on what degree want if he wants information. It's here just like through the extension service if he wants a project done then again, we have to pay for labor and we have to pay for overhead and so many times projects will emanate from industry and they will sponsor it. It also helps educate a student at a master's or Ph.D level which again is good for us Professor Eugene Center University of Minnesota food scientist. He was speaking to reporters on a catwalk above the universe, please food processing pilot plant. One of the pieces of equipment in the plant is a spray dryer used to prepare dry low fat milk from liquid milk that machine was developed by the university and is widely used throughout the world scientists know that dried milk, maybe a convenience in our culture. What is important in other cultures where refrigerant refrigerators are unavoidable and that concluded our brief tour of the University's food science research area our next stop on the tour of the University's agricultural research areas was animal science are we learned something about the care and feeding of beef and dairy cattle Dairy Farmers & ranchers try to keep Feet cast Law and to do this scientists are experimenting with a variety of substances that will make it cheaper to feed cattle Richard Goodrich is Professor of animal science at the University and Introduces us to The Peculiar digestive tract of cattle and other ruminants cattle and seafood are very different in their digestive digestive system than than us humans are are pigs and I'll put rats in that same category two, but the these ruminants have a very large compartment called the rumen where the digestion takes place because of bacteria and protozoa that are found in here. Two other compartments that are different than ours the reticulum and O Mason and then the abomasum which is the same as as our stomach in our stomach would look much like this couple of things that are unique about this animal then one because of this the Roman and the bacteria and protozoa they have an ability to utilize non-protein nitrogen. So we feed urea to a ruminant animal we do not feed it to to humans or are pigs doing that is to utilize high-fiber fades. See we cannot to live right while I'm corn stalks and neither could a pig but the beef cow can do a pretty good job on that if we supplement at the way, we we think we know how our our that we will find out that we should do it. The reason that those animals can utilize corn stalks is because the bacteria in the protozoa found in this room and are able to digest those Fiber speeds. So we're working with us a rather unique animal and a long with the corn stalks would come the utilisation of those other by-products. Then I'll just mention the five of those that we've looked at and we have Publications here that you you might want to pick one up dried room and contents of a subject that we looked at back in 1969. We we we recovered from feedlot cattle cattle them in the den and hydration. We recovered the feed that was found in the rumen. This is out of a a goat. in feedlot cattle there, maybe 20 gallons of Feed in that room and and a big dairy cow it maybe 25 or 30, but it's Slaughter time. Then we recovered the feed dried it and reset it to cattle. And examined it is a feedstuff. There are feedlots. Now that I'm using it and using other combinations of those room and contents with with other byproducts of the slaughter industrious as a feedstock. And this last year has received more attention and that is a use of Aspen or Poplar bark as an alternative feed for beef cows. Last year because of the drought and because of a shortage of normal for ages we put together the knowledge that we had gained since about 1967. When we started looking at Aspen bark as a feedstuff our knowledge that game that University Wisconsin and and at South Dakota State University. Put that together in a series of recommendations to our producers on how they might use Aspen bark as an emergency feed. We have some samples of Aspen back over here and I but I stepped out I went up to my office to get a sample of ground and pelleted whole Aspen trees. And if you look at it, it's a very palatable looking feed stuffing and those the smell and taste might well. Couple of others that we've looked at to this one on dried poultry manure. Pokemon are in a dry basis will contain 25 to 30% to protein equivalent not as protein most of it in other forms of nitrogen form. Is it only the remnant can utilize wow and so info Treman are we have a an excellent source of nitrogen to replace higher-cost protein sources, and we also have a physical Supply about as much energy as our typical pay of in the 50 to 55% TV on but I recent efforts have been on in seiling of poultry manure because we feel that will be the more energetic efficient way of of using it. The last one that I might mention is an evaluation that we made of a a byproduct of the purified soybean protein in the Stray. We did this. largely again to show the the uniqueness of the ruminant and the ability of the remnant to utilize by-product feeds that in some cases are being wasted and this product I forget the figures but many many thousands of dollars were being Used to pay the sewage bill as these were being dumped into a municipal sewage. When actually it is an extremely valuable feedstuff for ruminant animals Aspen bark poultry manure and corn stalks are not widely used as animal feed the professor Goodridge notes that a number of other by-products are more common feeds by product feeds like the byproduct of the potato industry that called potatoes Citrus pulp almond hulls a beet pulp of those feeds on a and the feeds from the byproduct of the Milling industry corn and wheat widely widely used to completely wasted and do these products in any way change the character of red meat does we might know it when we buy it as consumers in the supermarkets in other words, it's still pretty much taste and look the same as me to become familiar with no one would the would detect the difference in in the big thing here again, is that ruminant animal? Because these the digestive system in this room and I know such that those feeds are changed so completely by those bacteria and protozoa and let the products that are absorbed into the animal's body are pretty much the same regardless of the diet that we feed. So but the the feeds at that were talking about really do undergo very complete testing. And before we we would even think of making recommendations on on how they were to be used. So we're talking about testing for heavy metals metals that the might be harmful if they would get into the meat. No way would we want to be doing anything that would would cause the the Beast would be produced during the milk that might be produced to be a less than a very wholesome feed for for humans. Who do you think is benefiting most directly from the I'm sorry, the larger producers making use of this or is it something that can apply to a producer of any scale producer of any scale factor of these kinds of? Unusual feed is probably the consumer because the consumer will benefit because of a maintenance of low cost of the foods that are being provided for them. How you mentioned size? I'm not sure that that is going to dictate a lot of it but location to a Supply Princeton. So we aren't going to feed the Citrus pulp in Minnesota producers in California. Well regardless of size, I believe people in Red River Valley will use the report or Potato by products. We won't use too much in southern Minnesota with where we would have to haul ass. A byproduct feed a long-distance. So, I don't know if it's the size of size of producer as much as it is location Professor Richard Goodrich from the animal science department at the University of Minnesota. One of the newest areas of agricultural research is low temperature biology, which means freezing of eggs from the female and sperm from the male. This makes artificial insemination possible. Also ovary transplant, send multiple births techniques that may save some endangered Animals in the world. There are for example. Only 8 Red Wolves left in the world six of them are in California and they are all females scientist can take the reproductive material from the male and female Red Bull freeze it and preserve it then combined it and implant the fertilized Red Wolf egg in a suitable host a dog lets a scientist believe that the rate at which animal species are Vanishing can be reduced significantly by this technique Beau crabill, the animal science tap introduced the reporters to other aspects of low temperature biology with a have owned it today about a half as many cows as we had 15 years ago in Minnesota or any other part of the Civilized world. This is due to genetic Improvement through my other tool of artificial insemination. This isn't available list of needs for Century. The first ones to be frozen where bulls and humans and then went to we have down here in the in the time has been to freeze boar semen. Waiting on the number of species like most bourse Rams turkeys fish fur bearing animals, like in Sheila's another's and also low temperature research inquilab in collaboration with the medical school in the preservation of organs in particular the kidneys. I would be a certain Advantage for them to have an organ in the tank and take out from the need it. to do that we have been successful who said in most humans and lately more RAM. It's been some problems. We have to go back to mechanisms that we don't understand to improve the reliability essays of the number of cells because we destroy mechanisms, which we didn't know existed and we have solid and started the maturation of sperm cells after it leaves. The testicle comes into a very very long. If you take more about hundred fifty feet long, And this takes Thirteen Days for the spell chance to go out during this certain other. My ability essays has been developed. We are doing some kind of swelling of sperm cells can be removed from the chocolate. We look into some of the things that this epididymis is putting you on to the sperm cells, then there are glycoproteins and we can with Lady labeling of these follow them and Trace them and get an idea what's going on. The sperm storage in the Australian detectives of the female turkeys olds interesting sperm cell to come in there can remain a federal up to 40 days and you know yet in the test tube when we've collected it they are viable on this about 1 hour animal science Professor Beau crabill Professor Ed Graham is internationally famous for his work in low temperature biology. He took a few of the reporters on a brisk walk through some of the research rooms on the Saint Paul campus of the University. I would like to show you some of our small animal facilities in this area. Aren't we are we have our turkey Tom's now they're located in the center of the room on the on the side will usually have a few females for specific work. The majority of the turkeys are housed at Rosemont where several thousand birds are located in which we have access to all so we collect semen from the tom turkey and attempt to freeze and store this material throughout the. Of time. We've been working on this particular project. We have developed a semen extender in which the turkey Growers can reduce the number of their Tom's by about 75% which is a contribution also as far as freezing that Marquis LS concerned we are at about thirty-five to forty percent fertility, which is too low for practical purposes the farmer expecting around 90% fertility with its use this has been an interesting project all the turkeys in the United States are bred artificially inseminated artificially because of the fact that the geneticists have improved they turkey so rapidly and so fast it with the big breasts and so far that they're incapable in this day and age to serve the original purpose in which they were designed. Therefore. We have to extract the semen and replace it then into the female. This kind of foot are nose in here. This is a mouse room and you might ask why do we an animal science deal with mice again? We are in the field of low temperature biology and preservation of the sperm cell. We have a National Institute of Health Grant from the Cancer Society that are interested in finding and studying various various types of car Soldier carcinogenic materials that are found in mice for future research. Now their interest is capturing these mice in the wild bringing them in and if they find the material that they are looking for then they would like to preserve sperm cells from these particular mice to carry on a colony for their future research there for our project is to kill the mice and understand how How we might extract the sperm cells from the dead mouse freeze the mouse spermatozoa for future use then in which they can further their projects after the mouse room Professor Ed Graham took us to the rabbit room where superovulation is being researched then to the fish room or scientists are experimenting with preserving fish sperm and eggs. The walleye is an example of why this is important in some Minnesota Lakes. The ratio of walleye females to males is 102 one the potential egg hatches probably not as high as it could be if there were more males to fertilize the eggs. The alternative is to collect sperm from males dilute it spread it around in an effort to increase fertilization. Well, we spent a lot of time talking about the animal world and we haven't said much about our green friends the plants plant research covers that brought an area is anything an animal or food science the energy crisis plays a part in one area of plant research us farmers use a lot of fertilizer to encourage their crops to grow faster bigger and better many of the fertilizers are made from petrochemicals nitrogen is one of them nitrogen occurs. Naturally. In fact about four-fifths of the air by volume is nitrogen, but only a few plants the legumes can use the nitrogen in the air other plants must get it from fertilizer, but that's becoming an expensive proposition. The worldwide production of nitrogen fertilizer uses about 800,000 barrels of oil per day transportation is costly and requires energy and there's some pollution of water weighs more nitrogen fertilized soil is rained on and the excess fertilizer runs off. So the solution is to create varieties of plants that use nitrogen the way lagoons do take it from the air by means of the nitrogen cycle. And nitrogen fixation but development of even a standard plant variety can take decades and the corn plant. For example, that can fix nitrogen is at least 15 to 20 years away another area of plant research that people such as Nobel Prize winner. Norman Borlaug have tackled is yield barriers plants have hormones just like humans humans and the hormones in Plants regulate all functions, including how much brain or fruit the plant will yield scientists are working to identify the various plant hormones and new equipment makes it possible to analyze a sample of plant material for an entire array of hormones in about 50 minutes. This allows scientists to manipulate the hormones to increase the yield and flats University of Minnesota scientist. Mark Brenner is doing this with soybeans an important cash crop and food crop in this state. He wants to break the soybean yield barrier, but he's getting uncooperative responses from soybean plants by being very complicated organism. To try to adjust an increase yield its way being in the Mystique recognizes this and that's something to do make it less efficient in another way total effect being healed as an increase that pain is a very we can't increase and go beyond a certain point other plants like corn, but you'll bury is much higher that we can't exactly apply fertilizer water. We keep increasing the yield proportion to what we do to it, but crops like soybean a much less responsive to fertilization or gets too expensive to do it. Therefore. We have a barrier. I've been working specifically with soybeans cooperatively with doctor bill Brian and I are grinding department. But I've also been working with fruit crops as well as apples and strawberries and we're quite interested in yield problems. He'll berries and peas which in many ways a legume crop a very similar to soy beans Sol bean plants green beans are the dried beans they to advertise similar to Soy being manipulated to try to change the yield barrier. We think this is the possibility in the future that yield certainly must is the genetic character and we're hoping to find a certain genetic lines. We hope the work that I'm doing and Bill Brown is doing an Agronomy to Delta Phi characters with a geneticist could look for it would identify the superior plant. That's really the mission of our research is to find out how their characters did the geneticist can identify and select for to find that soap called plant. It has a higher yield capacity might be something into the future meaning. We're not exactly doing it right now then Only an empirical sense of selection in the field and trying to identify it but yield really isn't the problem is he'll is a sum total of many many components and the total sum that we see cuz I harvest quality what we're looking for is the initial components to add to that. We're looking for the building blocks and what we hope to defy the breed are the Connecticut is what are the basic components of a need to look for and then they can begin to construct the more ideal plan Mark Brenner University of Minnesota Horticultural sciences, and that's includes our tour of a few of the research projects at the University of Minnesota agricultural experiment station. The work is expensive filled with dead ends beset by controversy, but it is often helpful people of the last generation seen the character of the foods. They eat animals, they keep the crops. They raise change dramatically and For Better or For Worse the process continues. Play One Night Only One Life to give us free the biggest spider ever seen. bodybuilding diet guide Ragsdale Navigate to Barnyard dance. Driving time to show me the little red watermelon. Mayweather sweet potato and old man got it. Navigate to Pruneyard.