Mark Boggess

Jennifer Dush Author

10/19/2018 Added

29 Plays

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A Vision for the Future at USMARC

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[00:00:00.100]Or maybe one after?
[00:00:02.360]Always hate to break up this excellent fellowship,
[00:00:06.017]but also very excited to introduce our guest
[00:00:09.210]and speaker for the day, Dr. Mark Bogus,
[00:00:12.770]who is the new center director
[00:00:15.400]at the Meat Animal Research Center and Clay Center,
[00:00:17.860]so Mark I don't know how much
[00:00:19.560]of your background you're gonna give.
[00:00:22.648]I don't want to scare anybody.
[00:00:23.680]I don't want to steal too much of his thunder.
[00:00:28.650]He gives a great presentation, he has agriculture roots,
[00:00:33.670]large animal and food animal roots.
[00:00:35.540]Grew up in southeast Iowa.
[00:00:38.072]West.
[00:00:38.905]Sorry, I knew that,
[00:00:39.738]southwest Iowa, very close to the Archie Clutter,
[00:00:44.400]and diversified livestock background,
[00:00:48.410]so name a species and I think at some point
[00:00:52.993]Dr. Bogus family was engaged in that species.
[00:00:56.620]He and I share a common interest,
[00:00:59.960]or maybe roots I should say, in the Simmental business.
[00:01:05.820]In the 70s, when that hit, all the bulls that
[00:01:10.990]would have had semen imported into the US,
[00:01:15.790]Mark has a more vivid memory than I do,
[00:01:19.340]but he can name the bulls and show you pictures
[00:01:21.750]of most of them and, again, I can remember
[00:01:24.349]those same pictures of those same bulls
[00:01:27.529]on the barn wall where my dad managed
[00:01:31.900]a purebred Simmental outfit.
[00:01:35.010]Mark is trained in Iowa state, bachelor's degree,
[00:01:38.820]master's at Cornell, and than back
[00:01:41.500]Iowa state for a PhD in genetics.
[00:01:46.340]Excellent background with regard
[00:01:48.560]to a whole diversity of careers.
[00:01:53.130]Since then, we always talk about
[00:01:56.630]how we're guided on paths that ultimately put us
[00:01:59.680]in an ideal place, and I believe that's what has occurred
[00:02:03.770]for Mark, so to have him here in Nebraska
[00:02:06.750]with the wealth of knowledge and academia
[00:02:09.900]in industry and federal system,
[00:02:12.950]and as a national program leader for Food Animal
[00:02:15.740]production for a time,
[00:02:18.150]as a director of the Dairy Forge unit in Madison, Wisconsin
[00:02:24.605]and now again, at Mark.
[00:02:27.870]We look forward to a lot of good things continuing
[00:02:30.870]and growing at the US Meat Animal Research Center.
[00:02:34.240]Excited for the opportunities to collaborate
[00:02:36.610]with you and scientists there,
[00:02:37.900]so help me welcome, if you will.
[00:02:40.710](audience clapping)
[00:02:45.260]Career paths, I had like five in my lifetime.
[00:02:47.860]What he's trying to say is that I'm probably
[00:02:49.540]the weirdest ARS employee meeter
[00:02:53.610]you're ever gonna talk to, right?
[00:02:55.291]I am a super great scientist at ARS,
[00:02:58.382]and I have never conducted an experiment a day in my life.
[00:03:00.721]Not even one.
[00:03:01.554]Not as a professional after
[00:03:04.574]I spent some time at Cornell.
[00:03:10.030]So my background is in (mumbles).
[00:03:12.148]I grew up on a diversified, small farm
[00:03:16.894]in Paige County, actually.
[00:03:19.943]I don't even know why Paige County is famous
[00:03:20.787]and now we're leaders.
[00:03:22.266]You better get your pens out.
[00:03:24.270]Jay Lash and Chuck Henderson both
[00:03:26.130]are from Paige County, Iowa.
[00:03:27.550]So I got to Cornell and they got to know me a little better
[00:03:30.073]and they looked at me and said what the hell happened
[00:03:31.621]to you, Bogus, you drink the same water I guess.
[00:03:35.711]That's some pretty powerful animal breeding
[00:03:37.920]background in that part of the world and they grew up in
[00:03:39.810]even smaller towns than I did.
[00:03:41.543]My home town is essentially now gone,
[00:03:43.550]it's about 800 people, no school or anything left,
[00:03:45.950]but in fact, when I was in school,
[00:03:48.679]it was about 50 in my class so we had a reasonably
[00:03:51.580]good FFA program and I was a big time before each,
[00:03:55.030]I was the national foray chief award winner,
[00:03:57.170]I had a beef cattle herd, that night I had pigs.
[00:04:00.110]All I was ever gonna do is farm, 1983 when I graduated
[00:04:04.468]from Iowa State, what did the farm economy look like
[00:04:07.450]those of you that remember?
[00:04:09.080]Yeah, that's pretty tough, right, there was no way.
[00:04:11.590]And so I told my advisor and Dr. Max Rothschild
[00:04:16.780]was working with me a little bit at the time.
[00:04:19.570]So where did you go to graduate school?
[00:04:21.630]Sounds good to me, what's your graduate school?
[00:04:24.046]So you pick one and I'll go.
[00:04:26.180]So they picked Cornell and I got accepted at Dale
[00:04:29.220]and that's where I got started.
[00:04:31.260]So I got my masters degree there
[00:04:33.250]in their grading and I went back to Iowa state
[00:04:37.550]and got the PhD and SIP with the chief industry,
[00:04:41.610]Ed Marco and others there.
[00:04:47.350]Which I think are the beef genesis.
[00:04:53.390]And Lauren Christian, some heavy hitters,
[00:04:55.040]right, that was a fun committee.
[00:04:57.333]So I had a masters degree in dairy, right,
[00:05:00.077]and a PhD in sheep, so naturally I went to the university
[00:05:03.060]of Bido as a full time extensions specialist in beef
[00:05:05.950]and swine.
[00:05:08.930]I was a beef specialist, that's all I did,
[00:05:12.347]specialist person there and I was a part of the original
[00:05:14.940]IRM team with Ed Duran that put together that
[00:05:17.990]integrated resource, the little red book the NCBA has.
[00:05:21.336]That was Ed Duran and I was a part of that.
[00:05:23.570]So I learned on western range and conditions,
[00:05:26.480]basically some fire and range management and all that,
[00:05:29.270]so I went in the industry for a little bit.
[00:05:32.160]Really liked that, working the pork industry,
[00:05:34.374]and that's a long story, but it was a great program,
[00:05:35.980]kind of matured, got an opportunity to go to the port
[00:05:38.710]board, so I met Benny and others at port board,
[00:05:42.278]been incredible to work there, I really liked that.
[00:05:45.243]We had a good committee there, we did a lot of good
[00:05:46.780]things, we lowered the input temperature of pork,
[00:05:48.690]we got the genome sequenced, we did lots of really
[00:05:51.640]fun things there, kind of caught the attention
[00:05:53.290]of Steve Kapas and the next thing I know I'm on my way
[00:05:56.300]to Washington D.C. to be a national program leader
[00:05:58.390]for food and production which having never been
[00:06:01.031]in academia or done an experiment, now I'm working
[00:06:04.313]with 100% research, so how does that translate?
[00:06:07.160]Well, they needed what I got, right, they needed
[00:06:09.499]a connection in the industry, they needed somebody
[00:06:11.396]to oversee production, could speak about sheep
[00:06:13.330]and beef and cattle, so it worked, it moved a lot better
[00:06:15.414]than I could imagine.
[00:06:18.208]But I liked that a lot, I really liked living
[00:06:19.510]in Madison, I wanted to get closer to the science
[00:06:22.083]and supervision and those kind of things
[00:06:22.916]so I went to Madison,
[00:06:26.220]as part of the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center.
[00:06:29.370]Back up in the actual program steps, we had a vacancy
[00:06:31.720]for pastures and forages arrangements and because
[00:06:35.189]I had cows, in Iowa and Colorado and Idaho
[00:06:37.190]and I've been a ranging specialist, a beef specialist
[00:06:41.693]in Idaho, I knew a little bit about ranging,
[00:06:43.520]can you do this for a while?
[00:06:44.590]So I went and did that for a while and the next thing
[00:06:46.210]you know I'm in charge of that program too.
[00:06:47.430]So I actually ended up being in charge of the two
[00:06:50.650]largest programs in ARS and only had one NPL.
[00:06:54.670]So they doubled my salary, right?
[00:06:58.250]They gave me all that extra work to do
[00:06:59.770]and I got paid twice, right?
[00:07:01.620]I got a nice big banking card at the union.
[00:07:05.575]While I did, it was fun, it really was fun,
[00:07:07.730]but I get it, I needed to do a little more
[00:07:10.200]so I went to Madison to work with dairy
[00:07:12.477]'cause they had a great partnership there
[00:07:14.950]with folks I knew already at the university,
[00:07:17.200]they had a really good program and dairy
[00:07:18.740]has data, right?
[00:07:20.929]It was a really good opportunity for me there.
[00:07:23.270]This was my roots.
[00:07:24.840]So when this position became open,
[00:07:26.323]you all know the background, right,
[00:07:28.285]we're getting by it, it's been a challenge,
[00:07:32.280]basically I said nobody in their right mind
[00:07:35.010]would take that position, right, to be the director,
[00:07:38.490]well, big promotion, a little money,
[00:07:42.286]a talk with John and other things and here I am.
[00:07:44.110]So I won't be speaking much about that,
[00:07:46.480]so I'll get going.
[00:07:47.860]Just wanted to underscore the fact pre-here, right,
[00:07:50.993]but I do live and breathe animal systems.
[00:07:54.210]If you ever stop and see me, or go to see
[00:07:55.860]cow hides, I have a pair of long horns above
[00:07:58.710]my fireplace, there are some fossils, I have a weird
[00:08:03.010]house because I'm into animals and all that good stuff.
[00:08:09.487]So can the lights go off or is that possible?
[00:08:15.259]So I didn't know really what to bring today
[00:08:16.550]because I'm brand new, right, so we haven't really
[00:08:18.610]dug in on programs, and we are really fortunate right now
[00:08:23.020]to have extraordinary scientists with really extraordinary
[00:08:25.300]programs, so I'm not gonna dish up that,
[00:08:28.594]I'm in a slick them up period where I promised,
[00:08:30.850]look, listen and learn, right?
[00:08:34.489]I'm trying to be good, I'm trying to let that happen,
[00:08:36.520]to understand what we do at Clay Center
[00:08:39.160]and really indoctrinate myself in the systems there,
[00:08:43.851]on the production side, the crews,
[00:08:45.170]how we manage staff,
[00:08:47.710]what are our opportunities, those kinds of things.
[00:08:50.919]And we're in about four months of that process
[00:08:53.240]but I will make it five,
[00:08:55.150]I can't guarantee six, but I'm gonna make it five.
[00:08:56.917]But we're still not gonna disrupt any of the science,
[00:08:59.580]so I just decided today I'm gonna give you
[00:09:01.430]kind of the overview of what I'm working on,
[00:09:04.270]when we host tours, we host a lot of tours,
[00:09:06.260]about three a week right now.
[00:09:10.462]Some of this you'll know, some of this is just interesting
[00:09:13.530]stuff, then at the end of the hour, I'll get to some
[00:09:16.240]of the ways that I'm thinking about evolving
[00:09:19.440]the location and thinking a little bit now about
[00:09:22.260]the future for populations and extraordinary
[00:09:24.790]depopulation in the future for other humans as well
[00:09:28.503]and we'll see how it goes.
[00:09:30.290]So we were brought online in 1964, June.
[00:09:37.150]We have, there we go, this is kind of the way that
[00:09:45.760]place got transferred from the Navy to us,
[00:09:50.240]about that side and I'll talk a bit more about
[00:09:52.430]that a little later.
[00:09:53.700]The original mission then was to develop scientific
[00:09:56.190]information and new technology to solve high priority
[00:09:58.810]problems for the U.S. beef, sheep and swine industries.
[00:10:02.466]I don't know if that's our mission,
[00:10:03.299]but that was the original intention of the location,
[00:10:05.970]so we were really built on a foundation and partnership
[00:10:09.170]with the University of Nebraska as all NSR
[00:10:11.440]locations were, we owned all the resources with the respect
[00:10:14.810]to buildings and land and that kind of thing
[00:10:16.570]and the university provided the staffing
[00:10:19.220]and a lot of the staffing and then all the animals.
[00:10:23.850]That's all changed now.
[00:10:26.292]Not for better or worse, it's just different.
[00:10:29.180]So most of you know that this was a naval ammunition depot,
[00:10:33.560]a few details about that, that I think are pretty
[00:10:36.020]extraordinary, that came online in 1942.
[00:10:39.080]So on July 14th, 1942, this location was commissioned
[00:10:44.024]at the time, that was, I'm trying to remember,
[00:10:47.368]I think there was 230 farmers were on the locations
[00:10:49.867]and they were gone in two weeks.
[00:10:52.850]Start to finish.
[00:10:56.163]Think about that.
[00:10:58.701]It's located where it is why?
[00:11:00.516]Because it was in equal distance between coast
[00:11:02.466]and to New Orleans and ports in the south,
[00:11:09.040]we had U.S. highways 6 and 281 that came through there,
[00:11:12.520]there was no interstate highways at the time.
[00:11:15.297]The original location was actually much bigger,
[00:11:16.850]48,000 acres, it took up 274 miles of roads
[00:11:20.700]in a period of matter of months, and 207 miles
[00:11:24.010]of additional railroad tracks.
[00:11:27.710]So, also think about this phenomenon,
[00:11:30.740]this was farmland on July 14th, 1942,
[00:11:34.158]and the first munitions shipped on July 1943.
[00:11:37.152]So to say that it was a big deal in a hurry
[00:11:38.880]was kind of an understatement.
[00:11:42.000]It employed 11,500 workers, a large majority of those
[00:11:45.850]were women and a lot of them came to town with children,
[00:11:49.380]all the other men were in the military, older men,
[00:11:52.123]so it was an extraordinary recruitment and training
[00:11:54.870]effort because they all had to have security clearance
[00:11:57.747]and all that kind of stuff.
[00:11:59.113]And ultimately, our location out there produced 40%
[00:12:01.160]of the Navy munitions for WWII, ran 24 hours a day,
[00:12:04.960]in 2200 buildings, which was eight bunkers per day,
[00:12:08.840]they were pouring concrete just in four days, right,
[00:12:11.160]to build all kinds of big shells and small shells,
[00:12:15.170]and torpedo warheads and rockets and heavy depth charges,
[00:12:18.550]all mixed up, you see it all in movies,
[00:12:20.880]it was built there and placed there,
[00:12:23.430]the biggest shells were the 16 inch shells
[00:12:25.250]for battleships.
[00:12:27.190]Amazingly those weight 2700 pounds and they could
[00:12:29.440]throw them for 24 miles, and they could fire every
[00:12:32.620]20 seconds and they could fire all nine at once.
[00:12:36.453]The fact is, there is the picture of USS Iowa firing
[00:12:40.210]all nine at once.
[00:12:42.900]So it's pretty remarkable wasn't it,
[00:12:45.398]that they put that all together in that short period of time
[00:12:47.670]and it only lasted four years, right?
[00:12:51.170]They did keep it online for seven years after
[00:12:53.560]the war, but it took them, up and running in a year,
[00:12:57.200]and it produced ordinances for four years
[00:12:58.987]and it took eight years just to clean it up.
[00:13:02.634]Just to be neutralized, to tear it apart,
[00:13:04.860]and that's just in a nutshell, that's the history
[00:13:07.370]of the location and I find that fascinating.
[00:13:09.630]But what I didn't talk about is the impact on the town,
[00:13:12.770]which was dying from 40% unemployment from the depression,
[00:13:17.154]and when 10,000 new people showed up over night,
[00:13:19.340]plus families, schools and kids attending the class,
[00:13:23.681]60 in a class, and people were renting beds out
[00:13:28.140]in six hour shifts, so you would rent your room,
[00:13:31.680]your spare room and you'd come in for six hours,
[00:13:34.803]he'd come in for six hours and then your turn
[00:13:36.470]and your turn, going back to work.
[00:13:40.260]That's how they lived, there was a huge group
[00:13:42.730]of Native Americans up in there with tents
[00:13:44.480]in Nebraska for four years,
[00:13:47.212]on the side of the road, so it was a remarkable
[00:13:51.518]cultural, sociological phenomenon in addition
[00:13:55.334]to the war effort.
[00:13:56.810]So back to the modern times I guess, we have about 110
[00:14:01.190]employees out there, that changes a little bit
[00:14:03.952]as you know, some of those folks are being,
[00:14:06.883]UNL folks are being converted to Federal employees,
[00:14:09.720]so we're growing a little bit, plus or minus,
[00:14:13.050]about 50 scientists and then the rest of these
[00:14:14.820]are the support staff.
[00:14:16.720]We have about a 100 to 110 UNL employees at any time,
[00:14:20.734]and they're still providing animal care, farming
[00:14:23.550]and maintenance and all kinds of things
[00:14:26.053]they're doing for us.
[00:14:28.030]That partnership is really effective.
[00:14:30.160]We are right at $23 million dollars in appropriated times,
[00:14:33.448]we generated about $7 million or so in ranch
[00:14:36.040]and farm receipts and we have anywhere from 500,000
[00:14:39.790]to about $3 million dollars in grant funds,
[00:14:41.910]so I just kind of picked the middle number there.
[00:14:44.827]The good news potentially is with the new budget this year,
[00:14:48.190]we are hearing that we are in line, not guaranteed
[00:14:51.301]for what's called capital investment strategy funding,
[00:14:54.670]that's a one off bout of funding that ARS used
[00:14:58.140]to modernize the location so that if it happens
[00:15:00.240]for us, we'll have a net total of around $7 million
[00:15:03.640]dollars to spend, so we're hoping, right,
[00:15:06.105]we're hoping that's intact in the budget
[00:15:07.825]and that we can use that.
[00:15:09.575]Then we're gonna focus on new coal sheds,
[00:15:11.682]and modernizing the swine unit,
[00:15:14.610]all kinds of things, focusing on animals first
[00:15:17.190]and then other things.
[00:15:18.880]We're a big farm operation, ranch operation,
[00:15:21.390]there's about 8,000 cows right now,
[00:15:22.477]with about 2,200 ewes who produce
[00:15:25.790]about 950 litters per year,
[00:15:27.820]we don't really count per set house,
[00:15:30.410]but that's about the average and they give about
[00:15:32.572]6,400 head capacity at the feedlot,
[00:15:38.090]we're using that for the moment in time.
[00:15:42.060]We have again 34,000 total acres,
[00:15:44.370]we graze about 24,000 of that, but a lot of those
[00:15:47.220]grazing acres are now coming under some form of irrigation
[00:15:50.950]so we have irrigated pastures, about 2,300 acres
[00:15:56.680]of corn this year, we're gonna break our yield records
[00:15:58.900]by 2020.
[00:16:00.254]More than 20 bushes per acre this year,
[00:16:01.697]we had the best year ever, we were dry early
[00:16:03.910]and that just stiffened that corn up and made it tough
[00:16:06.300]when it started raining and we're in the 250,
[00:16:09.819]270 bushel range for most of this whole country out there.
[00:16:14.374]So it means also that a lot of alfalfa and alfalfa grass
[00:16:18.010]mix and hay production.
[00:16:21.600]I'm going really fast because I know you've probably
[00:16:24.010]seen or been exposed to some of this, we can come back
[00:16:27.532]if you have questions, so just a few pictures,
[00:16:28.910]this is the terrain, beneath are some of the new
[00:16:30.870]facilities that we've added to modernize
[00:16:34.290]a piece of it and we're gonna continue to do that.
[00:16:36.430]So these are electronic self-feeding stations
[00:16:38.620]and we're trying to get to them,
[00:16:41.360]these are filing stations that are used to collect
[00:16:43.060]feed and forensic data.
[00:16:46.570]There's a few pictures of the sheep flock,
[00:16:48.802]this is the famous Easy Care, a composite that we're
[00:16:51.560]building for the industry, to look at production
[00:16:54.470]and efficiency with minimal input so that's a pretty
[00:16:57.450]nice picture representation of that.
[00:17:00.760]This is the Amonia BP Group and this is couple
[00:17:04.080]of pictures.
[00:17:06.090]This dog comes up and visits me in the front yard
[00:17:08.550]of the location very often.
[00:17:12.484]A few pictures from the GPE herd which is the general
[00:17:15.700]plasm herd that we used to sample the industry
[00:17:18.240]on the annual basis.
[00:17:21.260]Pictures of feed lot.
[00:17:24.260]And then, maybe something you don't know as much
[00:17:26.250]about, but there could also be some contamination
[00:17:28.910]on the ground,
[00:17:30.130]there's one particular chemical that when it's
[00:17:32.090]exposed to sunlight, it gets neutralized,
[00:17:35.940]so we have a project where army core has come in
[00:17:39.040]and this facility right there and right there,
[00:17:42.000]they pump 24 hours a day now out of this canal
[00:17:44.820]and goes down through the established series
[00:17:47.020]of really extraordinary wetlands,
[00:17:48.950]all through the project,
[00:17:51.479]so there are a lot of wildlife,
[00:17:53.123]fish wildlife, algae, and we did a lot of interaction
[00:17:57.280]with water quality and that kind of stuff,
[00:17:59.710]that needs to be improved and expanded
[00:18:01.860]and into all kinds of opportunity.
[00:18:03.580]We're getting full right now with all this stuff
[00:18:06.230]already, we're right to the top of every dike,
[00:18:09.661]and there's craw marks and ducks and pheasants,
[00:18:13.261]all kinds of things out there, hares, yeah,
[00:18:17.310]pelicans, lots of wild life.
[00:18:19.490]That is good and bad, right?
[00:18:21.580]We're not coming in free of all packages,
[00:18:26.777]so it's an opportunity because we know exactly
[00:18:28.730]what the water is, and the rebus,
[00:18:33.176]it infiltrates back into the ground
[00:18:35.011]and we have a real opportunity.
[00:18:36.896](mumbles)
[00:18:38.261]It has a relatively large amount of water.
[00:18:39.810]So I think you'll be hearing more about that
[00:18:41.917]in the future, of course we have lots of wild life.
[00:18:45.300]We had a nesting eagle on the location,
[00:18:47.520]there's only three tress
[00:18:48.942]in the whole place, so that's a surprise,
[00:18:50.985]other than a few pine trees.
[00:18:55.140]And in the end, the history of the location,
[00:18:57.640]one of these bunkers blew up and that's a big
[00:18:59.560]story from the war effort, but this is from the original
[00:19:02.970]land owners out there, they still take good care of that,
[00:19:06.567](mumbles) we knocked some of it and we're gonna leave
[00:19:11.725]it on purpose to keep the cash up there.
[00:19:13.120]But that's all top soil, those things,
[00:19:15.430]who inherited that, despite top soil,
[00:19:18.359]was also getting the summer swells,
[00:19:19.380]so everywhere they padded it, it's all top soil.
[00:19:21.930]So we will go back and get some of that.
[00:19:26.961]Use it to remediate the location.
[00:19:29.900]So a little bit now about the evolving mission,
[00:19:32.630]we were founded to study large herds
[00:19:35.630]and flocks and this has come around from the original
[00:19:38.337]documentation,
[00:19:39.170]develop integrated scientific information,
[00:19:42.726]animal production in industry-like conditions.
[00:19:45.330]How many of you would agree that that's even more
[00:19:47.760]important now than ever?
[00:19:48.820]Right, looking at big systems around the world
[00:19:51.513]and we're looking to understanding all things
[00:19:53.310]genomic, phenomenon, we need access to large populations
[00:19:56.880]that we can control and manage accordingly.
[00:19:59.810]We're also founded on the idea that livestock
[00:20:01.740]production needs to be studied
[00:20:03.245]as an integrated system, really I think coming back
[00:20:05.710]to that and simultaneously by many different
[00:20:08.820]scientists so multi-disciplinary and connecting
[00:20:11.817]the dots, I know that as well.
[00:20:15.136]Our original mission is still valid
[00:20:15.969]and I think that it's even in the place
[00:20:18.129]where we can go back now and kind of look at what
[00:20:19.815]that committee set for us early on and how we
[00:20:22.470]need to evolve that thinking more contemporary,
[00:20:24.820]but I don't think it's gonna change too much,
[00:20:27.006]I think we're still gonna drill down and make it better.
[00:20:28.960]So we have now four units there, research units
[00:20:32.340]that has changed over time and we probably will
[00:20:35.290]go back to five at some point, but right now
[00:20:38.370]we have a genetics unit now, and that's sort
[00:20:41.200]of an odd way to look at the world, but it works
[00:20:43.010]really well for us, it represents two national
[00:20:45.670]programs at the ARS, loot of work with meat safety
[00:20:49.430]and meat quality as you know,
[00:20:50.700]those are real powerhouse groups there.
[00:20:55.220]Tommy Weeder and Chuck Lafer and the boys,
[00:20:57.960]everybody there.
[00:21:00.450]Three different national programs there,
[00:21:03.660]nutrition and environmental management,
[00:21:06.320]Chris and Hale is another, really doing some
[00:21:09.310]amazing work, a little bit of 212
[00:21:12.460]which is Soil and Air, national program Soil and Air,
[00:21:15.518]with (mumbles), he's worked with management.
[00:21:22.350]And reproduction, it's been a wheelhouse
[00:21:25.240]place for us, we spent a lot of time in energy,
[00:21:27.490]and that's still the case, we do a lot of really
[00:21:30.138]good work there, and in fact, we're running
[00:21:31.519]some things about beef that are gonna change,
[00:21:34.386]we're gonna look at better selection and managing cows
[00:21:36.980]and cow longevity and we've really seen the impact.
[00:21:40.350]So we've got lots of opportunity.
[00:21:43.380]So I'd say now we're even more focused on large populations
[00:21:46.829]for integrated research and we're gonna study these
[00:21:50.602]in systems based, we are looking to do a better job
[00:21:54.480]of collecting that data, phenotyping, making sure
[00:21:57.170]our extraordinary research populations are still
[00:22:00.326]where we want them to be.
[00:22:02.100]So historically, the nutrition, the reproduction,
[00:22:04.770]engineering, animal health, genetics quality,
[00:22:07.970]there's been a lot of collaboration there,
[00:22:09.470]but we haven't really picked up on that full systems
[00:22:12.480]perspective and I think that's where we're going,
[00:22:15.422]so the new focus that I'm trying to bring is looking
[00:22:17.540]at all of this.
[00:22:20.343]A much more integrated network-based perspective,
[00:22:23.910]so we're really wanting to start to look at not
[00:22:26.580]statistical analysis, but a relationship
[00:22:28.983]framework within the genetics environment,
[00:22:33.230]management, socio-economic factors and all that GEMS,
[00:22:36.850]we just call that GEMS, G-E-M-S.
[00:22:40.130]So what's a little different than what maybe we've
[00:22:42.200]been doing is we're gonna add places where we're gonna
[00:22:44.362]drill down precision agriculture engineering,
[00:22:47.970]antibiotic resistance, we're doing a lot of amazing
[00:22:50.770]work there and we're looking at all things microbiome,
[00:22:54.169]the common thing is that you know if you open the door
[00:22:55.982]to discussion about the microbiome,
[00:22:58.222]there's 10 more doors in there, right?
[00:23:00.290]We don't know where all the pieces are yet,
[00:23:01.803]and let alone how they work together, how we manage them
[00:23:04.926]and manipulate all that, so that's a great area,
[00:23:07.594]more all the time on water waste and environment
[00:23:10.410]management and then again with the new water shed,
[00:23:13.180]right, we have an opportunity to look at a lot of
[00:23:15.280]interactions between (mumbles) and resident wildlife,
[00:23:22.313]and yeah, a lot of opportunity.
[00:23:24.230]So maybe just a little different spin on how we're
[00:23:26.230]gonna tie all this together which I think is swell.
[00:23:30.290]So just a quick little bit of background
[00:23:32.590]on one area, so that's all ARS providing you with
[00:23:35.590]a couple of slides that show the history
[00:23:37.070]of the impact of the programs in general,
[00:23:40.610]where we're at now and where we're going,
[00:23:42.400]and I got them for comedy, so I threw them in here,
[00:23:44.914]I don't have them for anybody else.
[00:23:46.227]I'm gonna show those to you today.
[00:23:50.490]So this is the history of what we did in a place
[00:23:52.803]for meat safety and quality, right, new technologies,
[00:23:56.450]understanding and doing a better job with pathogen
[00:23:58.654]detection, this is world-famous now right.
[00:24:02.340]If you bring about beef grading,
[00:24:04.430]this is online everywhere, antimicrobial
[00:24:08.583]interventions, all these things, so now where are we at?
[00:24:11.150]We're looking at that AMR, as part of the separate,
[00:24:14.314]we think we found the marker for dark cutters,
[00:24:17.542]have you heard that?
[00:24:18.850]Staff report thinks he's got them pinpointed,
[00:24:21.380]we're looking for it now so maybe we're gonna
[00:24:23.500]have a test for dark cutters in beef.
[00:24:26.830]This is the new technology that they're beta-testing
[00:24:29.766]online, they got a big tech transfer award
[00:24:33.154]from ARS and it's a real time scan of samples
[00:24:38.310]of that trim, going to this bin for the pathogen
[00:24:41.882]that they're looking for, 457 or whatever,
[00:24:44.690]so instead of just palpating in there
[00:24:46.600]with manually collecting that sample,
[00:24:50.230]this is actually sampling every single piece
[00:24:52.190]sliced across it so they got it working
[00:24:54.950]in a couple of plants and they're trying
[00:24:56.614]to perfect the mechanical pieces of the process,
[00:24:59.902]otherwise that's been perfect and they're working
[00:25:03.410]also on similar kind of grading opportunities
[00:25:05.420]for pork.
[00:25:07.050]So in future, autonomy is,
[00:25:09.260]you know what does it give us, an opportunity
[00:25:11.854]to understand and what does the living
[00:25:14.106]ecology USMARC look like,
[00:25:16.430]we'll have time to talk more about that,
[00:25:18.634]applying all kinds of omics to all things meat
[00:25:21.520]and meat quality and safety and understanding
[00:25:24.630]this relationship between and in his mind,
[00:25:27.990]in particular food safety and microbiome, right?
[00:25:31.030]So all kinds of opportunity and new thinking there,
[00:25:34.380]lots of publicity from those guys.
[00:25:37.697]We'll elaborate on what they think the opportunities are.
[00:25:40.020]So, GP projects, maybe one of the most famous
[00:25:43.520]beef, cattle selection projects in the world,
[00:25:45.817]I don't think that is an overstatement,
[00:25:47.540]it's 60 years old now, sample of all these different
[00:25:51.270]combination cattle and producing remarkable results,
[00:25:55.210]we're still fully engaged here and in fact
[00:25:57.920]we still have almost 4,000 cows on this project
[00:26:00.750]alone, we're gonna use them for lots of good things,
[00:26:04.106]to feed the lot or whatever.
[00:26:05.840]It's an odd looking group of cattle if you drive by,
[00:26:08.720]there's tiger stripes, there's brown looking cattle
[00:26:12.970]out there and there's the best red and cream colored
[00:26:16.130]cattle you've ever seen as well.
[00:26:18.240]So it's a fun group of cattle to drive by every morning.
[00:26:23.099]These are the bulls we sired since 2006
[00:26:25.416]and this is sort of representative of population
[00:26:28.290]of what's available to producers in the industry,
[00:26:31.680]so (mumbles) and a whole lot of eggs.
[00:26:35.610]We're gonna look at this, how we envision this population
[00:26:39.594]in a five or two year period here coming up
[00:26:41.920]over the next year and I suspect we may eliminate
[00:26:45.000]a few breeds but we may not too, we may add some
[00:26:47.630]who knows, but we're definitely gonna take a good look
[00:26:49.880]at this and Matt and others here will be involved
[00:26:52.570]in those discussions I'm sure, so that will be a fun
[00:26:54.762]exercise, so again, those cattle,
[00:26:59.660]we're used to looking at a lot of things,
[00:27:01.644]and most things are pretty traditional.
[00:27:04.012]We got a group over here that aren't
[00:27:05.250]and we look to see how those new traits
[00:27:08.090]might be added and what kind of data mining
[00:27:10.740]and leveraging goes with all that and we're going
[00:27:12.477]to try to evaluate as many biologically
[00:27:15.710]or economically important traits as possible
[00:27:17.660]and that's the goal of this project, to achieve that
[00:27:21.676]and to continue to develop that extraordinary
[00:27:24.044]resource from the past year.
[00:27:28.726]So interesting right here, the genetic trends
[00:27:31.719]associated with that group of cattle,
[00:27:33.513]they reflect the industry returns pretty well, right?
[00:27:38.074]So where's the light one, we sorted them out yet,
[00:27:39.890]right here in 1972,
[00:27:42.510]look at that now.
[00:27:46.655]We just got to look at the location,
[00:27:50.760]I for one think that's a good thing,
[00:27:52.650]but it does show you what selection pressure
[00:27:54.620]can do to yearly weights, right?
[00:27:56.520]Pretty clear,
[00:27:57.890]they're all up, they're all pretty positive
[00:28:00.640]but the big cattle are Simmental
[00:28:03.750]and Charolais I guess.
[00:28:10.010]So just a few examples of some new research,
[00:28:13.870]anti-microbial resistance and we're studying
[00:28:16.380]reproduction and impact on AMR on the end
[00:28:20.006]product and the environment both
[00:28:20.839]so we're tracking and monitoring the development,
[00:28:23.383]propagation and the ultimate impact
[00:28:27.250]or manifestation of that resistance in both the animal
[00:28:32.001]and the effects on human health
[00:28:33.810]but also on the environment.
[00:28:36.050]We learned a lot of things that are very
[00:28:38.810]interesting with the respect to the argument
[00:28:40.505]that you hear in the news all the time
[00:28:41.873]that we are guilty parties, that the animal systems
[00:28:44.810]our production is creating, that's been said
[00:28:47.713]so many times in a while now that it's a fact, right,
[00:28:51.343]that we are a problem?
[00:28:53.600]They still don't have a single conclusive piece
[00:28:55.120]of evidence that supports that,
[00:28:57.401]and what we're learning now, don't quote me on this
[00:28:59.490]exactly, but what we're learning now is that we might
[00:29:01.992]have less AMR where we're feeding antibiotics
[00:29:06.490]than we do where we're not feeding antibiotics,
[00:29:09.030]or at least not anymore, right?
[00:29:10.794]So their journey is still out and some of it
[00:29:14.728]results (mumbles).
[00:29:18.390]So again this is the big deal with USDA
[00:29:21.383](mumbles) partnerships and others.
[00:29:28.140]Of course we donate a lot of time and resources
[00:29:31.630]to DNA referencing and we are upgrading the bio
[00:29:34.570]right now, we're upgrading again next summer,
[00:29:36.490]and purchasing new nano core technology that
[00:29:40.890]we are also starting to use, so we're trying
[00:29:42.930]to remain at the forefront of all things
[00:29:46.000]genomic reference genomes assemblies
[00:29:48.140]and all that.
[00:29:49.799]We've done the work to support the pig effort,
[00:29:51.670]this is Domanaete, right there, that's here,
[00:29:54.100]she works in original sequence cap,
[00:29:56.037]she's from Kioshi, and this is the example,
[00:29:59.690]that's not for sheep, just a cool sheep
[00:30:02.190]picture, but we also work with sheep genome as well
[00:30:05.946]and many of you already know this cow,
[00:30:09.520]right?
[00:30:10.353]How many of you know Esperanza?
[00:30:11.780]Right, she was here, right, she's pretty cool,
[00:30:15.210]she represents the new technology that's just being
[00:30:18.610]published now where we have it perfect,
[00:30:22.260]literally a perfect reference sequence
[00:30:25.830]with respect to whatever perfect means
[00:30:29.170]with respect to other genomes, but she is,
[00:30:31.880]she represents the highest quality genome
[00:30:34.530]on the planet.
[00:30:36.270]With the exception of the X chromosomes,
[00:30:41.160]so an amazing advancement in technology,
[00:30:44.138]I still think, I really don't think of how
[00:30:46.685]big a step this is, it's gonna take us light years
[00:30:52.236]further down the road, at how we look at animal
[00:30:56.383]breeding and others things, personalized medicine.
[00:31:01.330]So that's trio binning, if you don't know what that is,
[00:31:03.790]just Google that paper, it's been pre-published,
[00:31:06.826]you can go at it, it's really interesting, it involves
[00:31:09.420]the sequence on the parents as well as on the individual.
[00:31:16.130]Provide opportunity to really look at vastly
[00:31:18.020]improved assemblies.
[00:31:19.740]Also it will enable better annotation
[00:31:21.430]of sequences and allows us to look at real effects
[00:31:24.530]and eventually when it's updated to dig into things
[00:31:27.970]like heterosis and things with much more sophistication.
[00:31:34.400]We empower a lot of technology in ARS,
[00:31:37.420]it's probably also in genome sequencing
[00:31:39.666]and the area originally that's been adopted all over
[00:31:43.380]the place, including 23 and me, as far as I can
[00:31:46.821]23 and me and Ancestry.com are 700,000 paid chips
[00:31:52.310]that are built in ARS.
[00:31:54.820]As far as I can tell and they won't tell you that,
[00:31:57.150]but I think that's what they are,
[00:31:58.610]so that's pretty cool.
[00:32:00.247]And again a lot of genomic evaluations,
[00:32:02.590]particularly for livestock and dairy.
[00:32:04.948]Lots of partners from all U.S. as well,
[00:32:08.719]but now we're shifting focus a bit and looking
[00:32:11.910]at functional meals and looking at novel data sets
[00:32:15.800]mainly and looking at microbial systems
[00:32:18.600]and viral pathogens and how they influence
[00:32:21.290]the microbiome in lots of things,
[00:32:23.420]so we're developing more insights
[00:32:26.290]and more research avenues in those directions.
[00:32:29.430]Extensive research in Food Safety,
[00:32:30.900]E.coli 157 and also other things, we're continuing
[00:32:35.007]to do a lot of that and now we're looking at a lot more
[00:32:37.310]old genome sequencing in that area,
[00:32:40.130]pre and post harvest interventions.
[00:32:43.690]Pathogen movements and all kinds of things
[00:32:46.582]that are associated with food safety,
[00:32:48.276]and we get a lot of amazing collaborations
[00:32:50.499]from the industry and that's where the real
[00:32:52.083]successive thinking, how well we get support
[00:32:53.669]from the industry and how well they have done
[00:32:56.260]with respect to transferring those things and technologies
[00:32:59.630]in the field, it's been an amazing success.
[00:33:04.259]With Mary and others, we've created a model farm
[00:33:07.420]within market and we dedicated a large area,
[00:33:10.550]seven to nine pivots is what we need to make these
[00:33:14.325]systems work and we allocated infrastructure
[00:33:18.789]and we're committed to this,
[00:33:21.174]got a three-year project going.
[00:33:27.254]I hit the wrong button there.
[00:33:32.550]Three years, we're focused on growing cows through
[00:33:35.860]finishing, including carcass data and two years
[00:33:39.065]of working with efforts.
[00:33:41.270](mumbles)
[00:33:47.160]Living Lab, concept is one that John pioneered
[00:33:50.300]and we want to pick up on and try to tip
[00:33:52.670]that to a systems ecology verbiage.
[00:33:56.550]If any of you looked up Living Lab on Wikipedia,
[00:33:59.429]do you know what living lab is?
[00:34:03.137]It has nothing to do with biology or agriculture,
[00:34:06.100]Living Lab is where you bring folks in like you,
[00:34:08.960]you lock the door and you work together
[00:34:10.500]to come up with some technology,
[00:34:12.090]it wouldn't matter,
[00:34:13.247]and it's kind of a crowd-source perspective of developing
[00:34:15.750]technology.
[00:34:17.170]So we got on the call with Europeans and Canadians
[00:34:21.280]and other folks around the world to talk about
[00:34:23.374]living lab and ARS, and I'm thinking cows and biology
[00:34:29.700]and capturing the systems perspective
[00:34:31.990]and they're thinking market (mumbles) and developing
[00:34:34.640]technologies so they want to know about socio
[00:34:37.450]economic analysis and they want to know about stakeholder
[00:34:40.100]involvement, so we get off this call with Jeff Elle,
[00:34:45.869]you know Jeff, Jeff what the heck are they talking
[00:34:49.341]about?
[00:34:50.174]I don't know, what were they talking about?
[00:34:51.441]So we Googled living lab and we had a decidedly
[00:34:54.650]different definition, so I don't want to disagree
[00:34:58.301]that's the right term, just not being interpreted
[00:35:01.270]that way outside of what you're looking at,
[00:35:05.133]so we're trying to make it more system developed.
[00:35:09.133]But what we really want to look at is the production
[00:35:10.780]systems, start to connect the dots with those
[00:35:13.900]GEMS relationships, and promoting the use of MARC
[00:35:17.120]as a laboratory for that kind of work,
[00:35:19.070]we'll be bringing in a lot of extraordinary
[00:35:22.820]collaborations over time,
[00:35:25.467]and we're leveraging our current relationships with others.
[00:35:28.828]Environmental impact of beef production including
[00:35:31.806]AMR, (mumbles) a lot to do with that, right?
[00:35:36.580]I'm gonna be talking a bit about this I hope today,
[00:35:38.270]if we have time, but what we're really trying now
[00:35:40.150]is expanding this into a research consortium
[00:35:42.520]that would be focused on comprehensively capturing
[00:35:46.880]the value of those beef systems and closing the loop,
[00:35:49.948]soil health, forage systems, cow, calf,
[00:35:54.890]feedlot, manure,
[00:35:57.211]meat quality and safety in the continuum.
[00:35:59.548]We'll dig in here a little bit on that.
[00:36:02.020]So the quick summary of all that
[00:36:03.950]and again this is the topic I'm generally putting together
[00:36:07.190]to give to visitors, not really tailored
[00:36:09.260]to you very well, but the idea is to brag here
[00:36:12.301]a little bit, right, extraordinary history,
[00:36:13.410]mission, partners, resources, expertise,
[00:36:18.020]and research and embracing the opportunity.
[00:36:22.170]So now just back to some initial steps,
[00:36:26.810]so that's kind of an overview of the location
[00:36:28.043]from a historical perspective,
[00:36:31.590]so what am I doing?
[00:36:33.186]I've been here like I said about four months,
[00:36:35.390]so we had a big stakeholder meeting
[00:36:36.940]early on just trying to reconnect that group
[00:36:39.120]and get on forward with some things
[00:36:41.400]and Glen participated in that.
[00:36:43.457]I asked, I know a lot of the folks,
[00:36:46.592]but I didn't know them all so I thought
[00:36:47.425]we're gonna set the stage, we're gonna give
[00:36:48.880]everybody a change, give me a five minutes
[00:36:51.890]of why you're there, why are you at Clay Center
[00:36:54.300]today and what energy do you bring to this,
[00:36:57.622]what's encouraging, why are you here with respect
[00:37:00.890]to all things, and I guess who was the first one up?
[00:37:04.947](mumbles)
[00:37:08.393]He got to talking and he got back to literally
[00:37:11.923]preschool, he started in preschool, and here's
[00:37:15.140]who my mentors were and here's why it's important
[00:37:18.700]to me and here's all people who are outstanding
[00:37:22.061]and I'm looking at my wrist watch, he goes five
[00:37:24.924]minutes, seven minutes, 10, 12 minutes,
[00:37:27.902]14 minutes and he was the shortest one.
[00:37:32.350]If you know Dave Nichols, right, Dave was pushing
[00:37:37.960]on 20 minutes, Bill Rachel wasn't far behind,
[00:37:41.308]anyway, by the time I got to my agenda timeline
[00:37:45.515]and I wanted to be done with that, we hadn't come around
[00:37:47.270]the corner of the room, we were still on the back end,
[00:37:50.858]but it was remarkable, wasn't it?
[00:37:52.926]It was amazing, everybody just took a deep breath
[00:37:57.010]and exhaled and it felt really good because
[00:37:59.860]it kind of cleared the air on it, on all the trials
[00:38:03.230]and tribulations around USMARC, and it set the stage
[00:38:05.570]for a lot of really frank communication and discussion,
[00:38:09.101]it ended up being very good.
[00:38:12.000]So we will have, swine and beef, swine and sheep
[00:38:16.508]coming up relatively soon, we have a new scientist
[00:38:21.597]coming in, Tom Murphy is gonna be taking over
[00:38:24.542]our sheep program and he comes in on November 19th,
[00:38:29.030]as soon as he's on board, had a couple of weeks
[00:38:30.810]to figure out which office is his,
[00:38:33.404]we'll try to bring you together
[00:38:35.947]and some of you to get involved in that.
[00:38:40.171]Again we're looking at strengthening partnerships
[00:38:41.870]so the one reason I'm here, and I want to talk
[00:38:44.540]about some idea we have about collaboration,
[00:38:46.850]we have the vet claims, veterinary out there,
[00:38:50.283]SCAL culture lab and I want to partner with them
[00:38:54.876]very strongly and I want to get them with us,
[00:38:58.560]to be better partners than we've been in the past,
[00:39:00.017]but I want agreements, I want to understand
[00:39:02.370]what their perspectives are and where those
[00:39:04.900]are coming from, for both structures
[00:39:07.946]reaching beneficial relationship.
[00:39:11.160]So we're working on that with the vice provost Bane
[00:39:14.184]and Archie Clever, he's a good friend of mine.
[00:39:17.920]So, also looking at a lot of production system
[00:39:21.373]improvements, for example, with respect
[00:39:23.900]to forage management, I learned when I was in medicine
[00:39:27.030]that I can build a pig barn with no blessing needed
[00:39:29.980]from any DND anywhere in the ARS or the USDA.
[00:39:32.800]So guess what I'm building, two barns, lots of them,
[00:39:35.981]with the hay inside.
[00:39:37.240]So right now we're wrapping big bales and we're storing
[00:39:40.430]them outside and then we're gonna go to square
[00:39:42.240]bales and put them inside so that's a 30%
[00:39:44.789]improvement in forage management right there,
[00:39:46.960]so that's one place we're going.
[00:39:48.440]We're looking really intensely at beef and sheep
[00:39:51.570]production and relative salaries and all kinds
[00:39:54.010]of challenges there, education, information,
[00:39:56.693]I'm putting together a manual on animal care
[00:39:59.525]and well-being, so there will be industry experts
[00:40:03.220]and some of you and folks from Kansas state
[00:40:07.040]or Colorado state or Iowa state in the industry,
[00:40:10.735]going to the location a couple of times a year
[00:40:12.390]for workshops exchange of ideas,
[00:40:15.761]what's working, what's not, where can we improve,
[00:40:17.830]what can we share and email.
[00:40:19.140]Their systems improved, what research might be
[00:40:22.103]prescribed by that effort, all kinds of development,
[00:40:25.890]that's the proactive look at healthcare and well-being.
[00:40:28.310]Keeping people engaged, but also showing that we have
[00:40:32.250]taken the full breath of arms so to speak
[00:40:34.580]and we're gonna move forward working on this.
[00:40:37.150]We had a lot of trouble with qualified cowboys
[00:40:41.670]and folks that work on the farm
[00:40:44.590]so we're gonna be putting together
[00:40:46.880]a team of consultants industry folks to help us
[00:40:49.784]to get on the right page with hassle fees
[00:40:53.095]and protocols for calf, beef or whatever it might be,
[00:40:58.560]we're gonna take this also from a very proactive
[00:41:01.078]highly perspective.
[00:41:02.780]Not gonna be yelling at them to get better
[00:41:04.320]or do better, train yourself, but how can we come
[00:41:07.364]and focus on what we do well and improve that,
[00:41:09.810]to then address shortcomings in the meantime
[00:41:12.389]and we have too many of those.
[00:41:14.787]So we're gonna work hard on that and the strategy
[00:41:16.970]to empower people, make the whole location
[00:41:19.200]more efficient, more productive and obviously
[00:41:22.664]keep putting a lot of pressure on animal care
[00:41:25.780]and well-being.
[00:41:27.470]So last thing I want to talk about is an idea
[00:41:30.413]that we have, I have a whitepaper
[00:41:32.436]for you if you're interested,
[00:41:34.505]from an UNL/ARS Research Consortium,
[00:41:37.780]so the idea here is that we're not worthy
[00:41:40.147]of pointing out a paper, to develop research
[00:41:43.460]strategies, to improve the productivity,
[00:41:46.400]efficiency of environmental sustainability,
[00:41:48.780]safety and quality of beef products and diversified
[00:41:51.610]beef production systems,
[00:41:53.690]but for the maximized value of Federal state
[00:41:57.040]research practices in this consortium,
[00:42:00.090]leveraging expertise and resources and through
[00:42:01.890]an improved communication, coordination
[00:42:05.800]and data management and then provide
[00:42:08.470]a stable, inclusive framework to empower both
[00:42:11.490]foundational research on that tech bench,
[00:42:15.740]and translational research programs.
[00:42:17.660]So this is a framework to empower a lot of these systems,
[00:42:21.080]right, so anything that you're doing with respect
[00:42:23.940]to foundational or basic research should be protected
[00:42:27.400]by this framework, but it should also give you a place
[00:42:30.510]to land in the continuum that starts in the soils
[00:42:33.830]and goes into calf, in the forages and then into calf,
[00:42:36.790]manure management, feed lot, end product,
[00:42:40.000]manure management, back to soils, range and all those
[00:42:43.490]resources.
[00:42:44.680]So what we're after then is a stable framework
[00:42:48.330]that people can get their mind arounds, that they can see
[00:42:50.300]where they fit, they can see how it works
[00:42:52.300]and how it empowers collaborations
[00:42:55.257]and empowers data transfer and connectivity
[00:42:58.700]and it supports a really great work
[00:43:01.690]that a lot of you are doing and it will impact all,
[00:43:05.390]just giving you a larger vehicle
[00:43:06.777]and a better place to work.
[00:43:08.860]So the focus will be on improving research
[00:43:10.910]coordination, enhancing stakeholder engagement,
[00:43:14.477]combining outreach and extension which we don't do
[00:43:17.422]very well at all at Clay Center and real time
[00:43:21.600]identification like a beef SWAT team,
[00:43:23.770]right where we can be nimble and active
[00:43:26.043]in the industry on a very short notice.
[00:43:29.410]And then focus on real industry innovation
[00:43:31.970]and problem solving on the ground.
[00:43:35.210]So then again, also identify what we're missing
[00:43:38.122]from this effort, where we get the prioritized
[00:43:39.870]resources to get out.
[00:43:42.278]Log our research efforts and other resources.
[00:43:46.660]We feature a series of working groups,
[00:43:48.183]again this is a part of the discussion,
[00:43:51.090]forage and rangeland systems, beef animal production
[00:43:54.028]and efficiency.
[00:43:55.393]Health and well-being, product quality and safety,
[00:43:59.080]precision agriculture and integrated system optimization,
[00:44:02.170]that's what we're working towards,
[00:44:03.749]just being modular, right, just a lot of coordination there.
[00:44:09.607]Objectives have been specifically developed or approved
[00:44:11.410]in environmental sustainability,
[00:44:13.639]production systems, improve the overall production
[00:44:20.440]capacity, efficiency and economic end environmental
[00:44:23.150]sustainability of beef systems.
[00:44:25.423]Improve safety and quality of beef products
[00:44:27.970]through optimization of these systems
[00:44:29.770]and through improved animal health and well-being.
[00:44:32.813]Develop or improve integrated beef management systems
[00:44:34.890]that integrate these factors and then provide
[00:44:39.315]the corresponding outreach associated with it.
[00:44:44.470]So, a couple of graphics that I adapted.
[00:44:50.240]How much time do I have?
[00:44:51.360]So I can slow down.
[00:44:55.340]This is a quick look, we call this consortium
[00:44:57.470]in the middle and this is very, very preliminary,
[00:45:00.710]I wouldn't even share this with you,
[00:45:02.546]but here's what I'm trying to look at,
[00:45:03.530]here's the national programs that we've interacted
[00:45:05.470]with in ARS, and here are some of the industry partners,
[00:45:09.411]here are some of the nutrition labs,
[00:45:12.084]beef systems in USDA, grant challenge group
[00:45:15.580]that's working now already and then all kinds
[00:45:19.330]of LTA partners, international partners and management
[00:45:24.050]stuff, so from USDA perspective, this would include
[00:45:30.915]of course and we're listing the ULN as a primary
[00:45:34.350]partner so you folks and then whoever else, right?
[00:45:40.080]They'd be included as well, so we put sustainable
[00:45:41.660]beef systems in the middle, we kind of start again
[00:45:44.617]down here at the bottom, the soil and ecology as well,
[00:45:49.505]but you want to look at the interactive relationships
[00:45:51.730]between soils and rangelands and forage systems,
[00:45:54.970]right, we have extranalities and we have links,
[00:46:01.102]or inefficiencies that we will have to deal with
[00:46:04.450]and the whole idea is that we have better soils,
[00:46:07.700]better arrangements,
[00:46:08.850]better forages, and we learn year on year
[00:46:11.359]from those relationships.
[00:46:13.470]We take what we understand here,
[00:46:15.010]we trade information and we do the same thing
[00:46:19.040]between the cow herds on the landscape,
[00:46:22.130]what can we learn about forage production to optimize
[00:46:24.310]beef production and vice-versa,
[00:46:26.670]our light links, our extranalities,
[00:46:29.970]the ideas for better forages, better cows,
[00:46:32.690]better production, same thing between the animals,
[00:46:36.068]animals systems, beef systems and end product,
[00:46:40.270]same kind of special points and how does that cow herd
[00:46:44.691]impact the reignsmen on the farm or ranch
[00:46:49.666]and what's the best way to look at this resource
[00:46:52.330]and how we provide ecosystem services with respect
[00:46:55.250]to harvest and soil health, ecology
[00:46:57.905]and water quality, all of that and we just keep going,
[00:47:02.070]right?
[00:47:02.903]So all of you that, if you do any kind of beef
[00:47:05.660]research at all, raise your hand, anybody,
[00:47:09.060]can you find yourself in there, are you in there?
[00:47:16.641]Yes, can you not find yourself in there?
[00:47:20.723]I think you're in there, that's my goal,
[00:47:23.293]I want you to be in there,
[00:47:24.978]but I want to be able to represent this as a framework
[00:47:28.619]for entirement and resource utilization,
[00:47:30.820]partnerships, collaborations, big, healthy teams,
[00:47:34.640]and I wanted you to buy insurance from them.
[00:47:37.600]Maybe some of the leadership is not as well
[00:47:39.960]informed, but what we do is they should be,
[00:47:41.990]right, and they have other ideas about how
[00:47:44.010]we should look at location resource
[00:47:46.074]and that kind of thing.
[00:47:46.907]So it's a politically advantageous thing to do
[00:47:49.470]for us as a location for your as an academic unit
[00:47:54.020]and others, Brian Raynolds may interest you
[00:47:57.915]in working with those folks as well,
[00:47:59.609]in other locations throughout ARS.
[00:48:02.550]So with respect to that Living Lab,
[00:48:05.550]really off track discussion we had,
[00:48:07.640]with Europeans and others,
[00:48:10.237]we put this together for the dairy industry,
[00:48:13.530]dairy bench challenge project as well,
[00:48:16.120]but adapting it to beef, but looking at systems
[00:48:18.880]biology, in other words, problem with DNA.
[00:48:20.810]How does DNA move through that same system?
[00:48:24.245]And I think it's interesting to think about that way
[00:48:26.105]because you got soil, microbiome, you know,
[00:48:28.610]all things that are associated with soils,
[00:48:30.970]soil health, how does that translate into
[00:48:33.075]whether the DNA is associated with that, good and bad
[00:48:36.810]and how does that translate into integrated
[00:48:39.703]forage systems and how we look at soil management
[00:48:43.733]and forage production and species composition
[00:48:47.100]and all kinds of things.
[00:48:48.500]How does that influence and vice versa,
[00:48:50.869]there's some anecdotal evidence that cow spit
[00:48:55.100]influences some micro forage plants or something,
[00:48:59.509]so all kinds of maybe off the edge of the map
[00:49:02.900]kind of thinking there, but how does the DNA
[00:49:06.215]here and here influence what might end up
[00:49:08.680]in the system based off inflation and around
[00:49:11.890]the corner and of course into human health
[00:49:14.130]and food safety and all of that.
[00:49:16.060]So trying to get our minds around this Living Lab
[00:49:19.360]as far as what living ecology should look like
[00:49:22.934]and how it should be described.
[00:49:25.050]So if we go back to maybe this concept here,
[00:49:30.577]`one idea I have, if we get the forage pieces
[00:49:34.090]in order and we do a better job with hay
[00:49:36.770]and we're bringing in a whole bank of consultants
[00:49:39.177]to help us there, with that soil/forage systems
[00:49:44.620]interface and not from the research perspective,
[00:49:46.830]but with respect to managing the resource, right,
[00:49:50.620]get that better, I think we can easily support
[00:49:53.120]10,000 cows, without questions, we could support
[00:49:56.056]10,000 cows.
[00:49:56.889]We keep the GP population, we keep the Mark 1s,
[00:49:59.994]and the Mark 2s.
[00:50:01.160]Mark 3s were not using those message we used to,
[00:50:03.800]that's the really good cows on the place,
[00:50:05.780]maybe one idea is we're gonna dedicate 3,000 cows
[00:50:08.344]to this, right, then sort them on metabolic size,
[00:50:11.730]all that, some kind of experiment with it,
[00:50:15.200]we try to look at how those cows
[00:50:16.910]were optimized for that continuum, right?
[00:50:20.726]What does this set of cows look like
[00:50:23.529]at our location in Clay Center,
[00:50:27.810]how are they optimized for that resource,
[00:50:29.750]gonna perfect that whole system,
[00:50:32.130]gonna perfect this cow herd,
[00:50:33.786]we're gonna protect this management system,
[00:50:36.790]we're gonna get everybody to come in and be a part
[00:50:38.888]of that with the respect to the research that we're
[00:50:41.338]doing and maybe we take some cows
[00:50:43.414]and we replicate that herd genetically
[00:50:45.250]at Keel, you know where that's at, at Montana,
[00:50:48.220]it would be much colder, right?
[00:50:49.910]It's pure range on conditions, irrigated pastures,
[00:50:53.048]and the same cow herd, we replicate it
[00:50:56.160]at Almeno, Oklahoma and so we do that real G by E,
[00:51:00.750]right, you can get the same genetics, dramatically
[00:51:03.930]different environment, but we're still focused
[00:51:06.530]on optimizing that set of cows at that location
[00:51:10.120]or not if they don't work, right.
[00:51:12.231]But I'm really interested in metabolic size,
[00:51:15.482]so with your permission I'll use a dairy example,
[00:51:19.240]how many of you know Holesten cows, all right,
[00:51:20.990]everybody knows, you know what Jersey cows are,
[00:51:23.140]so Holesten cows at Madison weigh 1700 pounds,
[00:51:26.712]plus produce, that's average weight, did that surprise you?
[00:51:31.520]What's the correlation between lactation yield
[00:51:34.358]and sheer size in Holesten?
[00:51:36.743]Sheer size and lactation.
[00:51:40.120]Little, zero, what, what do you think?
[00:51:43.015]I think it's probably near zero.
[00:51:45.672]So cows have gotten bigger, though,
[00:51:47.350]and lactation has gone up a lot, yield has gone
[00:51:49.380]up a lot, 9,000 pounds in 1950, they got that over here,
[00:51:52.940]year 1950, 9,000 pounds, 30,000 pounds in 2018,
[00:51:57.746]1,200 pounds in 1950, 1,700 pounds now,
[00:52:02.116]that looks like a pretty good,
[00:52:04.130]you're exactly right, it's zero,
[00:52:05.600]there's no reason for those cows to be like that.
[00:52:07.860]Right, so I just told you what the average is now,
[00:52:10.730]right, 30,000 pounds per lactation yield at Holesten,
[00:52:13.802]what's the world record?
[00:52:16.010]Effective population size of Holesten is 3937 cows,
[00:52:20.424]so they're very similar genetically,
[00:52:21.730]is that right, many, do you know?
[00:52:23.734]I think it's about this.
[00:52:25.770]Yeah, not very big, so average is 30,000 pounds,
[00:52:29.500]what's the world record, anybody know?
[00:52:32.940]78,000 pounds.
[00:52:35.640]Living in Wisconsin, eating the same things
[00:52:37.490]in the same building, same genetics,
[00:52:39.387]same size and everything,
[00:52:41.196]she's 16 standard deviations from her herd.
[00:52:45.710]And that trendline is going up because we have
[00:52:47.650]genomics, selection and we really truncated
[00:52:50.160]the population interval, generation interval,
[00:52:52.770]right, because there are selective peppers
[00:52:54.800]based on genomic proofs, so we've gone from
[00:52:57.490]two percentage yield, lactation yield
[00:53:00.841]to four percent annually, but that world record
[00:53:04.411]is still up two, just at the same weight, 72, 74, 76, 78.
[00:53:08.251]So what's the microbiome of that cow plot,
[00:53:11.835]don't you want to know that?
[00:53:14.121]What happened that made her perform like that?
[00:53:18.060]We do it with cows too, so we have all that right,
[00:53:19.970]so another thing we're gonna do here is look
[00:53:22.060]for those kinds of features,
[00:53:25.120]the free database, right, ones that are really out there,
[00:53:28.680]and you, how many of you know for a fact you've seen those?
[00:53:32.910]Every time I drive by a field of corn,
[00:53:34.810]I see one that's three foot taller
[00:53:36.667]and what might I think, that one is different,
[00:53:39.560]right, but if you work with animals right on,
[00:53:43.434]you've seen that bull that gained six pounds
[00:53:45.983]a day, or that feeder when the first cut went out
[00:53:48.640]at 260, and now he's 320, right,
[00:53:51.610]in the confinement operations, they have those
[00:53:56.680]big, heavy pigs that get ahead of everyone.
[00:53:59.210]So this is not the dairy phenomenon, this happens
[00:54:01.708]everywhere, and what do we do with that data now?
[00:54:06.810]Get your data set in, and go that one was freaky,
[00:54:09.620]and something happened, you throw that data away,
[00:54:13.160]I want to go and figure out what's going on with it,
[00:54:15.980]so that's another aspect of this system
[00:54:18.221]that you can leverage now that we have the tools
[00:54:20.542]and the insights.
[00:54:22.940]So, there, so I have the whitepaper,
[00:54:27.530]again, I want nobody to be offended,
[00:54:29.770]this is hot off the press,
[00:54:30.747]the whole systems thing is being put together
[00:54:33.628]by John Hollock, it's not UNL approved,
[00:54:35.352]he didn't go there, he works for you now
[00:54:37.003]and myself to try to capture the value
[00:54:39.806]of all of these systems, what you're already doing
[00:54:41.920]and incorporate some ideas I have across location
[00:54:43.646]work in ARS.
[00:54:46.381]I want to do my piece now that we have you onboard
[00:54:48.474]and I'm sure we're gonna have you onboard,
[00:54:50.793]but I'm just telling you I'm dedicated
[00:54:53.200]to looking at this from USDA side,
[00:54:56.470]but if you want a copy of the whitepaper,
[00:54:58.597]don't assume it's carved in stone,
[00:55:01.420]if you got, you're gonna take out a few minutes
[00:55:03.220]to read it and send me your thoughts,
[00:55:04.540]or you want me to send it to you electronically,
[00:55:06.190]just let me know, it's all fair game.
[00:55:08.530]John and I, the first version that John and I put together
[00:55:11.070]was over Labor Day weekend and we iterated on a couple
[00:55:13.710]of times and presented it to your colleagues,
[00:55:16.500]Ian Thunder and Mike Bane,
[00:55:19.337]lap her back, assuming good shape there.
[00:55:21.150]So it's not really for public dissemination,
[00:55:23.660]but I'd sure like you to have a look at it
[00:55:25.911]and be perfectly willing to provide me feedback
[00:55:29.040]if you think it's appropriate, okay?
[00:55:31.031]Some of you, I'm trying to count on for doing that.
[00:55:33.873]With that, any questions, and sorry for all the blabber
[00:55:35.630]and disconnected approach to this whole thing,
[00:55:38.010]but I tried to provide as much as I could
[00:55:41.748]in a short amount of time.
[00:55:43.217]Any questions?
[00:55:46.693]Dale?
[00:55:47.526]Just a comment, you had about
[00:55:49.114]100 employees by USPN and 100 for UNL,
[00:55:51.713]but UNL aren't actually paid with Federal money, right?
[00:55:55.310]Yeah, they're paid on the UNL
[00:55:56.700]salary scale, but it all comes out of our receipts,
[00:55:59.652]so it's our money, you know, as far as the location
[00:56:03.300]is concerned, but they're paid according to UNL.
[00:56:07.763]And what actually could change that, is that we cannot
[00:56:10.300]pay Federal employees out of it, with all the account
[00:56:13.558]money, so for us to have say less, fewer UNL employees
[00:56:17.430]and more Federal employees, we'd have to have the money
[00:56:19.340]because we couldn't use the same commerce,
[00:56:21.090]but over time, we have evolved some positions
[00:56:24.211]to the Federal side.
[00:56:26.720]But I don't know what that feature looks like,
[00:56:28.530]we're talking about it.
[00:56:29.971]That's how it works, there's no state money that goes
[00:56:34.610]to the location, other than HR support.
[00:56:38.308]Is that what you're asking?
[00:56:41.070]Other questions?
[00:56:42.240]We need to step out for different
[00:56:43.420]class, so anyone else wishing to?
[00:56:50.420]Do we have time?
[00:56:52.564]We can take a couple of minutes I think,
[00:56:54.100]I guess worthwhile.
[00:56:55.780]I'm just curious, how much of the,
[00:56:58.404]when you look at the directions,
[00:57:03.767]the research, how much of that comes internally
[00:57:07.190]through grass root effort and how much comes from D.C.?
[00:57:10.599]So right now I'm not changing any
[00:57:13.590]research direction at all, I want to make that real clear,
[00:57:16.950]we're envisioning what these populations
[00:57:19.030]and resources look like and we're gonna do
[00:57:20.523]a really in depth job of that,
[00:57:23.320]but I'm not saying to Tommy Wheeler, you need
[00:57:25.920]to change what you're doing, right, at any level,
[00:57:28.140]so no threat, no influence at all,
[00:57:30.910]so that comes from natural programs,
[00:57:32.807]originally with the ARS, right?
[00:57:35.120]But they're out all the time talking
[00:57:37.650]to the same stakeholders we are,
[00:57:39.250]they are betting all of that and Jeff's a great guy,
[00:57:42.838]do you all know Jeff I'm talking about,
[00:57:45.185]he's a big guy, right?
[00:57:47.310]So sheep and cattle, logically he's gonna
[00:57:49.730]defer a lot of things he's hearing from us
[00:57:51.650]and from others, he's gonna use a composite
[00:57:54.230]source of all information available and that being said,
[00:57:57.011]I'm pretty opinionated, I kind of think
[00:58:00.510]I know where we need to go a lot of places
[00:58:03.120]and that's where I'm sure right now,
[00:58:03.993]in a pretty good spot, right,
[00:58:05.809]we have great scientists being able to do great things.
[00:58:07.780]Not saying that they don't need to evolve,
[00:58:09.570]but I'm gonna have a lot to say about that I hope
[00:58:11.930]and I hope that it's a balance between what I hear
[00:58:13.830]from you folks, from stakeholders,
[00:58:16.542]and you know, all kinds of other input,
[00:58:18.030]but yeah, that comes, matrix arrangement, right?
[00:58:21.195]You have a group that administers the finances
[00:58:23.090]and you have a group that administers programs,
[00:58:25.500]that's where Steve Kapas is, he's leading that whole
[00:58:27.620]program effort now, if you know Steve.
[00:58:31.757]Perhaps one more question.
[00:58:39.290]Must've answered them all.
[00:58:40.710]Just one curiosity, this idea
[00:58:42.846]of connecting the different centers together
[00:58:46.220]is one that I'm really excited about.
[00:58:50.488]Hard to imagine getting that done,
[00:58:51.760]it's the best of GEMS, I think comes into play
[00:58:54.760]in trying to coordinate these different U.S.,
[00:58:57.890]the different ARS centers?
[00:58:59.250]Yeah, you have an idea.
[00:59:00.250]So the bad answer is that if it was easy,
[00:59:02.490]everybody would be doing it,
[00:59:04.350]so that's the trick, so the data
[00:59:06.000]is the most important aspect, so we have
[00:59:08.720]to be ahead of the bio-informatics,
[00:59:10.920]it's not just sequence data
[00:59:12.950]and production data,
[00:59:13.850]it's how does that soil help data
[00:59:17.610]translate into forage systems
[00:59:19.341]and how does that translate into inferences
[00:59:21.487]for big production.
[00:59:22.320]So those are the great questions, right?
[00:59:24.240]But just understanding that if we don't produce
[00:59:27.950]a beef system that takes care of soil,
[00:59:29.870]we're not sustainable, I don't care what
[00:59:31.369]the rest looks like.
[00:59:32.247]We're in the grading soils or we're eroding carbon.
[00:59:34.701]We're not sustainable, so starting in right there,
[00:59:38.686]so now, what does that mean and how does that connect?
[00:59:41.310]I think then we'll have conversations
[00:59:43.247]around that that will be very informative.
[00:59:45.290]I don't have by any shape or imagination,
[00:59:48.810]I don't have all those answers in place,
[00:59:51.220]I'm just trying to look for a way to get at those
[00:59:54.958]because I'm gonna rely on you guys to help me
[00:59:55.791]answer those questions,
[00:59:57.130]you in particular in some order and others,
[00:59:59.199]right?
[01:00:00.590]I'm more concerned about getting
[01:00:02.630]the framework in place,
[01:00:03.970]carving it in stone,
[01:00:05.550]so that the rest of it can be where it needs to be,
[01:00:08.304]to iterate over time, irritate too probably,
[01:00:10.770]but iterate over time and what I want to say is
[01:00:14.030]look what we learned about forage systems,
[01:00:15.886]meaning that we're in the middle of a trial,
[01:00:17.910]but we need to apply that absolute,
[01:00:19.247]that's what I want, these dynamic, nimble,
[01:00:21.550]evolving experiments that learn from year to year
[01:00:25.370]and don't just carve out a five year period
[01:00:27.173]that are static and you've drawn the boundaries
[01:00:29.840]around it, you know.
[01:00:32.014]Install them, right, that these are iterative,
[01:00:34.727]and they get better and they improve over time
[01:00:36.643]and you can see the end product in some kind of measure
[01:00:40.300]and sustainability of profit,
[01:00:41.980]or production or efficiency or whatever it is.
[01:00:44.330]50 years from now, what are you gonna get paid for,
[01:00:46.560]if you're a beef producer?
[01:00:49.260]Calf weight or your ability to make maximum
[01:00:53.087]efficient use of your resources,
[01:00:55.650]which one is gonna take?
[01:00:58.527]Second one, you're gonna get paid for how efficiently
[01:01:01.650]you use your resource and how well you match that
[01:01:04.770]resource to your production system,
[01:01:06.123]your production environment, you're not gonna
[01:01:08.050]get paid per pound, you may get a check for pounds,
[01:01:10.800]but your profitability is gonna be determined
[01:01:12.720]by how efficient you are with the resources
[01:01:15.020]that are afforded to you.
[01:01:16.467]And that pressure is mounting, that's the whole reason
[01:01:18.743]you're in, as all over system research and system
[01:01:22.160]perspectives, because you can't just go full tilt
[01:01:25.810]and folks on efficiency and resource utilization,
[01:01:28.731]balance those, right?
[01:01:30.510]So that's another reason that this needs to balance
[01:01:32.290]and ebb and flow and learn from itself,
[01:01:35.530]it can be a dynamic framework for all.
[01:01:39.187]Thank you for joining us today, Mark.

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