Friday November 6 Ag News

 2020 Corn Hybrid Trial Data Available
Cody Creech - NE Extension Dryland Cropping Systems Specialist

This year, the Nebraska State Variety Trial team resumed corn hybrid trials. These were planted at four rainfed sites (Saunders, Clay, Perkins, and Cheyenne counties) and two irrigated sites (Clay and Perkins counties). Data from these trials will be posted on the CropWatch Corn Variety Test page as it becomes available... https://cropwatch.unl.edu/varietytest/corn.

As with much of the state, the hybrid trials faced significant heat stress at flowering, limiting potential yields, and drought in a number of the rainfed sites. The trial in Cheyenne County, in particular, saw very high temperatures at silking and average corn yields across the Panhandle were 30+ bushels lower than in recent years. Dry conditions earlier in the season also seemed to reduce stand counts in the Cheyenne County trial and may have impacted the final yield CVs. Rodent damage is believed to be responsible for lower emergence/stand in the Saunders County trial.

2020 Corn Variety Trial Results
Entries in the trial included conventional and organic hybrids from a number of companies, including Dyna-Gro, Prairie Hybrids, Hi Fidelity Genetics, and entries from local seed representatives. Harvesting was completed when all hybrids had reached physiological maturity and the majority were near optimal moisture. The yields were calculated assuming a test weight of 56 lbs/bu and adjusted to 15.5% moisture based on observed moisture at harvest. Emergence was calculated based on stand counts collected around V4-V6 and divided by the seeding rate for each location.

In order to provide the data in a timely fashion, the details on cultural practices and hybrid characteristics are limited at this time, but will be included in a forthcoming 2021 Spring Seed Guide. We anticipate publishing this seed guide in February 2021, but do not hesitate to contact Drs. Easterly, Creech, or Maust with questions about specific trials or hybrids.

We are looking forward to expanding the number of corn entries in the coming years, and potentially increasing the number of sites available for testing.



November 2020 Beefwatch Webinar Series Registration Now Open
Kacie McCarthy, UNL Cow-Calf Specialist

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension will host the 2020 BeefWatch Webinar Series. The second installment of webinars will take place weekly beginning on Tuesday, November 3.

The BeefWatch Webinar series is designed to highlight management strategies in grazing, nutrition, reproduction, and economics to increase cow/calf and stocker production efficiency and profitability. Each session will feature industry experts and plenty of opportunity to interact to get your questions answered.

Each webinar will begin at 8:00 PM Central Time. Dates are November 3, 10, 17, and 24.

Topics and speakers are as follows:
November 3, Drylotting Cows - How to feed them?
    ■   Dr. Karla Wilke, Panhandle Research Extension Center
    ■   Do you know how to manage cows in the drylot in order to meet requirements through limit feeding? Karla will cover limit-feeding dry matter while meeting nutrient requirements. She will describe how to limit feed dry pregnant cows as well as how to estimate feed for lactation and the nursing calf.  

November 10, Grazing Corn Residue
    ■   Dr. Mary Drewnoski, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
    ■   How long can I graze and when do I need to provide supplement?  Mary will help you understand the fundamentals of corn residue grazing and how to monitor corn residue when grazing to make management decisions.

November 17, Body Condition Scoring
    ■   Dr. Travis Mulliniks, West Central Research and Extension Center
    ■   How do I and why should I body condition score my herd at weaning? Travis will cover how to evaluate and utilize body condition score after weaning and into the calving season.  

November 24, BeefWatch Talk - Chat with the Experts
    ■   This session is all about getting your questions answered! The presenters of webinars for the month will be joined by authors from this month's BeefWatch Newsletter to discuss any ideas or questions that you have related to forage, cow/calf, or stocker production.  

There is no cost to participate in this webinar series.  Get more information at beef.unl.edu.  

CONTACT:
Dr. Kacie McCarthy, Beef Cow-Calf Specialist, 402-472-6074, kacie.mccarthy@unl.edu
Dr. Mary Drewnoski, Beef Systems Specialist, 402-472-6289, mary.drewnoski@unl.edu



Northeast Community College places importance on apprenticeships in workforce development

While the apprenticeship model has been instrumental for decades, the current system applies to more than the typical occupations that often come to mind - plumbers, electricians and linemen, among others. Apprenticeships have greatly expanded in the last decade to include more non-traditional occupations in areas that include healthcare, information technology (IT), advanced manufacturing, and engineering. The United States Department of Labor currently has 1,349 approved occupations that qualify for apprenticeships.

As National Apprenticeship Week (Nov. 8-14) gives businesses, industry, communities, and educators the opportunity to showcase their apprenticeship programs and apprentices, the state of Nebraska has been working on expanding apprenticeship programs across the state over the last several years.

In October 2018, the Nebraska Department of Education, in partnership with Northeast Community College, Wayne State College, Educational Service Unit #2, Nebraska Department of Labor, and Nebraska Department of Economic Development, received the Pathways to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) federal grant to expand youth apprenticeships in the region. The focus is to create additional IT career pathways for high school students. With a shortage of IT workers across the state, plans are being developed to determine how to fill these skills gaps.

Kimberly Andersen, youth apprenticeship coordinator at Northeast, said it begins with exposing youths at a younger age as to what a career in IT could mean for them. Careers in information technology range from cybersecurity, help desk and system administration to programming and web design. In addition, more IT jobs have been moving into the agriculture sector, specifically with more modern precision ag equipment being introduced.

Andersen said there are a multitude of apprenticeship options that youths may not even think of.

“With this grant, our mission is to match up students ages 16-24 with area businesses who desire more IT employees. This is a great opportunity for our youth to be exposed to the real world of IT while they are going to school as well as for our businesses so they are able to build a workforce pipeline to fit their needs,” she said. “It has been difficult to attract IT professionals to the area, so we need to start thinking about growing our own. The best way to do this is to work with our area businesses.”

Apprenticeship is an earn-and-learn model that is centered on involvement with business and industry.

Andersen said not all students are cut out for the traditional college model, so apprenticeship is another alternative to get young people the skills they need for high demand jobs in the area.

“By going through an apprenticeship program, students are able to apply what they learn in the classroom on the job, which can greatly help with knowledge absorption. Higher classroom engagement is also typical from apprentices as seeing real world examples sparks further questions and conversation in the classroom.”

The U.S. Department of Labor reports apprentices who complete a program could earn up to $300,000 more over their lifetime compared to individuals who only possess a high school diploma or GED®. In addition, 94% of apprentices retain employment with that employer three-years post apprenticeship completion.

So far in 2020, Nebraska has added 68 new business partners who have a Registered Apprenticeship program with 1,779 new apprentices. At the beginning of 2016, when the state started to focus on expanding apprenticeships, Nebraska had 131 programs with 1,909 apprentices. However, Andersen said there are opportunities to fill additional apprenticeship positions.

“It’s stats like this that make apprenticeship an enticing pathway for students and employers,” she said.

To learn more about apprenticeships, go online to apprenticeship.gov or contact Andersen at kander61@northeast.edu or call (402) 844-7121.



AFBF Statement on the National Vote Count
American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall

“A record number of Americans turned out to fulfill their civic duty and cast their ballots. We hold the right to vote as the foundation of our democracy. Behind each vote is a voice, and it is crucial that we all be heard this election. We encourage Americans to remain patient throughout the ballot counting process and join together to support those elected to lead this great nation.

“The issues facing agriculture and rural America are larger than political parties. We need to build on the advancements toward regulatory reform and strengthen the farm bill. We must continue to expand trade and improve market access so farmers can focus on competing in a fair marketplace. The time has come to complete the broadband grid and end the disadvantages faced by farms, families and communities without access.

“We will continue to work with elected leaders of both parties on these and other priorities for agriculture.”



Upcoming Symposium Highlights Advances in Nutrient Stewardship

To increase agriculture production and profitability in cropping systems while improving sustainability and protecting the environment, researchers look to the concept of 4R. This concept involves using the right source of fertilizer at the right rate, at the right time, in the right place. The "The 4 R's Advances in Primary Research of Nutrient Stewardship" symposium at the Translating Visionary Science to Practice ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting will address these topics.

The meeting is being held virtually Nov. 9-13 and is hosted by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America.

The presentations are:
1. "Balancing Agronomic and Environmental Outcomes with the 4Rs of Phosphorus Management" will be presented by Nathan Nelson, Kansas State University. Identification of the right rate, right source, right time, and right place (4Rs) for phosphorus management requires understanding the agronomic, economic, social, and environmental factors that influence producer decisions. Studies that can quantify 4R effects on these diverse outcomes will provide the information producers need to achieve a balance in agronomic and environmental outcomes of cropping systems.

2. "Impact of 4R Management on Crop Production and Nitrate-Nitrogen Loss in Northwest Iowa" will be presented by Matthew Helmers, Iowa State University. Farmers in the Corn Belt are challenged to maximize corn and soybean production while addressing hypoxia concerns in the Gulf of Mexico. Four nitrogen application treatments were compared, including fall anhydrous ammonia with nitrapyrin, spring anhydrous ammonia, split nitrogen application of urea at planting and in-season, and no applied nitrogen. Helmers will present the research results evaluating these nitrogen management methods based on nitrate export and crop yield.

3. "Exploring the 4R's for Potassium-Based Fertilizers in Conservation-till Corn Systems," will be presented by Tony Vyn, Purdue University. Potassium is not known to be an environmental hazard, but corn farmers still want to adapt their 4R strategies to improve yields and tolerance to stresses. This presentation will provide a research-based overview of the opportunities to increase plant potassium uptake, as well as yields, via potassium rate, potassium timing and potassium placement alternatives in Eastern Cornbelt production. There is considerable scope for more 4R potassium research to achieve improved climate resiliency, higher yields and optimum fertilizer efficiencies in corn and other crops.

4. "Trends and Opportunities in 4R Nitrogen Management of Field and Fruit Crops in the Intermountain West," will be presented by Matt Yost, Utah State University. Trends in 4R nitrogen management of major crops in the Intermountain West are not well documented, and reports of 4R nitrogen and irrigation do not exist. These interactions are critical to nutrient stewardship as irrigation is the major yield-limiting factor in most of the Western United States. Results from a 2019-2020 survey of corn, small grain, potato, and tart cherry growers about their 4R nitrogen and irrigation management will be shared during the presentation.

Presentations may be watched asynchronously, and there will be a scheduled Q&A time to speak with presenters during the meeting. Presentations will be available for online viewing for 90 days after the meeting for all registrants. For more information about the Translating Visionary Science to Practice 2020 meeting, visit https://www.acsmeetings.org/.

Collectively, the host societies represent more than 12,000 individual members around the world. The scientists' memberships build collaborating partnerships in the agronomy, crops, and soils science fields for the advancement of knowledge.



Growth Energy Highlights Environmental Advantages of Ethanol in California

Growth Energy submitted comments to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) following an October 14-15 workshop on the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). In his written submission, Growth Energy Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Chris Bliley urged CARB to expand the use of higher biofuel blends “to bring better and more affordable choices at the fuel pump to consumers, improve air quality, and protect the environment for future generations.”

“[L]iquid fuels will continue to play an important role in the transportation sector, even as alternative technologies flourish, wrote Bliley. “As such, it is imperative to look at ways to improve the availability and affordability of more environmentally sustainable fuel options that can be used in current vehicles and future vehicles.”

Bliley also emphasized the proven track record of biofuels in reducing California’s carbon emissions and improving air quality.

“Already, we’ve seen biofuels provide the foundation for the LCFS. In fact, biofuels like ethanol have generated more than 75 percent of LCFS credits. Additionally, even with room to further improve GHG lifecycle modeling, CARB recognizes the significant improvement in ethanol’s carbon intensity. In 2011, CARB reported the average carbon intensity (CI) for ethanol at 88 g/MJ. Through the first half of 2019, the average recorded CI for ethanol has decreased to 63 g/MJ, a 29 percent reduction in CI,” noted Bliley.

“Ethanol’s other environmental benefits are also noteworthy. As has been researched by the University of California, Riverside and the University of Illinois at Chicago, the use of more ethanol and ethanol-blended fuel reduces air toxics such as carbon monoxide, benzene, and other harmful particulates.3 To fully realize these and other important air quality benefits, there needs to be a clear policy with a firm future for the role and growth of cleaner-burning, affordable ethanol fuels,” added Bliley.

To maximize the benefits of low-carbon biofuels, Bliley urged CARB to press ahead on its evaluation of E15, promote E85, update internal modeling, incentivize sustainable farm practices, embrace novel technologies, support carbon capture, and consider ways to advance direct ethanol fuel cells.




Corn Grower STEM Program Seeks Teachers for a National Leadership Experience

National STEM Day 2020 is Nov. 8, and it’s a holiday National Corn Growers Association celebrates every day. That’s because the intent is to recognize the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in our schools and to the future of agriculture.

NCGA believes agriculture is a vital partner in engaging students in STEM concepts in ways that directly and indirectly impact their lives and the lives of farmers. Not only does teaching an ag-based curriculum in the science classroom inspire students to solve real-world science issues, reaching students is critical to address the job gap in agriculture-related careers, many of which go unfilled.

NCGA and its state corn checkoff programs began investing in making the latest teaching materials and teacher training available nationwide before COVID but quickly shifted gears to more virtual tools with the emergence of the pandemic. If you want to see how your checkoff support is helping teachers go to www.nourishthefuture.org.

NCGA is in the second year of investing state corn checkoff dollars in the STEM-oriented initiative called Nourish the Future and is recruiting teachers to participate in the 2021 program. If you are interested, you can apply now at www.nourishthefuture.org/tlc-2021

The Nourish the Future national leadership experience is a year-long cohort program designed for middle and high school science teachers who want to:
    Enhance your professional development capacities to fit diverse audiences and venues
    Become skilled in inquiry-based lesson design
    Become a leader in exploring solutions with your students on issues affecting sustainability, climate, environment, food production
    Become a career coach for your students
    Expand your professional network to include teachers and industry experts from different states

Providing high-quality Stem-based teaching resources is another key part of Nourish the Future.  Teachers and parents can find a trove of traditional and virtual teaching resources and activities that can be useful during COVID-19.

The Nourish the Future team has designed virtual resources that can be found at nourishthefuture.org/virtual.



Honoring Veterans Every Day at Farmer Veteran Coalition

Many veterans return home feeling lost, without purpose.

They seek that “new mission” they grew so accustomed to during their time in the military. An agricultural non-profit is helping with just that.

When Michael O’Gorman founded Farmer Veteran Coalition (FVC) in the back of his pick-up truck in 2008, he thought he could help our soldiers have meaningful careers and find healing on our nation’s farms.

At that time no one was connecting veterans with the farming community. Today there are more than 250 organizations supporting this military-to-agriculture movement.

Simply put, FVC helps veterans pursue careers in agriculture. For these men and women, farming has become their new mission. FVC recognizes that agriculture additionally offers purpose, opportunity, and physical and psychological benefits.

This is the difference maker for many veterans in their civilian re-integration.

With Veterans Day upon us, the team of Farmer Veteran Coalition is reflecting on the thousands of farmer veterans they have supported in pursuit of new agricultural endeavors, including those highlighted here.

This year, after a decade of leading the charge, O’Gorman passed the pitchfork to newly appointed executive director Jeanette Lombardo. Raised by an Air Force veteran father, Lombardo grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, on a family dairy farm. She spent decades in agricultural banking and now is eager to carry forward the single best way that FVC assists veterans – through their Fellowship Fund.

A small grant program, the Fellowship Fund purchases farm equipment the member has identified as crucial to their operation. The program has funded $3 million in equipment to over 600 veterans.

Veterans like Alex Jauregui. A double-amputee, Alex lost both legs when he stepped on an IED in Afghanistan during his fourth deployment. Now he finds new purpose in his Fury Bees operation in Northern California. “Farming makes me feel enabled,” shares the former Staff Sergeant. “I never would have imagined beekeeping but it’s been very therapeutic.” FVC teamed up with Work Vessels for Veterans and Semper Fi Fund to purchase a Hummerbee forklift, which significantly reduces the physical impact on Alex’s body.

Veterans like Ladonna Avakian & Heather Paterson. Twin sisters, both women served in the Air Force. Both returned home to Oregon with service-related disabilities. They were awarded a grant to fund an air sprayer for their Hollyaire orchard where they primarily farm sour cherries, hazelnuts, and holly under the Homegrown By Heroes label. “It’s small grants like this one that make us feel valued and supported,” Heather reflects. “Farming is all about community, and FVC really is its own community. To be physically active, outside, working with my twin, and having our family out there – it’s really an American dream.”

Ben Misko, a Marine who suffered a brain injury during combat, has found healing in his Restless Roots farm. He grows vegetables and cut flowers in Central Pennsylvania. “Having a brain injury can be very frustrating at times, but animals provide a reprieve for me. Farming keeps me sound in my mind, and the animal and plant care keeps me on schedule,” shares the former Motor Vehicle Operator. “I asked for this equipment so I can provide for more animals without additional financial burden.”

Michael Trost, who served a decades-long Army career, suffered gunshot wounds that resulted in the amputation of his right leg and the reconstruction of his hand using his toes. After 30 surgeries and two years of hospitalization, he turned to hop growing in Tennessee. “Starting this farm has given me a new mission, purpose and direction in my life. I feel more alive than I have been,” expressed Michael, explaining that the farm is a major part of his post-service recovery. “FVC believed in me and awarded me funds to install fencing around my hopyard. Now we are using the farm to help other wounded veterans. We were made to become farmers. We love to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.”

Lovay Wallace-Singleton, the president of FVC’s North Carolina chapter, served 20 years in the Navy before founding Veterans Employment Base Camp and Organic Garden. VEBCOG provides temporary employment for post-war veterans transitioning back to civilian life, teaching urban farming skills. A Fellowship Fund grant helped Lovay repair her farm’s hoophouse after hurricane Florence struck and flooded her property.

And James Webb, whose career as an Army Ranger ended when he was hit by a drunk driver while riding his motorcycle near Fort Benning. “After my accident and getting medically retired, I lost the career I wanted and worked hard for, and lost the brotherhood unlike anything I had ever known,” lamented the veteran who comes from a long line of military service. “Once I realized I could use horses to work cattle – my whole world changed.” He now operates Conway Cattle Company in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and last year spoke at FVC’s national conference in Austin on the panel ‘Rangers on the Range’, featuring five former Army rangers all now ranching cattle.

When FVC was first established, the plan was simple: find a way to help these veterans, and then tell their story. For Michael O’Gorman, getting to work with the men and women of FVC on their own individual journeys to becoming farmers has made it the most rewarding thing he has done. “I’m really proud of the organization that I started and watched grow,” shared the founder. “But we’re still a fairly young organization and are dedicated to helping the farmer veterans out there.”

For as many veterans as FVC has helped, there are still more in need of support.

And the stakes are high, as Marvin Frink – who started Briarwood Cattle in North Carolina to cope with post-service PTSD – shows us. “I am just so thankful for [Michael O’Gorman] and the hard work he’s done for us. I can openly say it – [Michael] saved my life and I’m very thankful for him. He came to me when I was in a very bad, very dark place, and he pulled me out of it.”

More About Farmer Veteran Coalition (FVC)
Farmer Veteran Coalition (FVC) is the nation’s largest nonprofit organization assisting veterans and active duty members of the U.S. Armed Forces to embark on careers in agriculture. With the mission of mobilizing veterans to feed America, it provides education, resources and small grants to help veterans launch their own farming operation or find employment in related agricultural professions. Established in 2008, Farmer Veteran Coalition serves more than 20,000 veteran members from all 50 states and U.S. territories while developing a new generation of farmers and food leaders.  Its in-house programs include the Farmer Veteran Fellowship Fund small grant program, the nationally recognized Homegrown By Heroes label for veteran-grown products, and the national Stakeholders Conference. It leverages its network of nearly 15 state chapters to facilitate peer collaboration and mentorship. FVC has been successful in getting millions of dollars of USDA funds appropriated for farmer veteran and the groups that support them.  They have built an extended community of organizations that look to them for leadership and guidance as the pioneer in this military-to-agriculture movement.

Learn more at: www.farmvetco.org or follow along on Facebook at @FarmerVeteranCoalition, on Instagram at @FarmerVeteranCoalition and on Twitter at @FarmVetCo.  For more details on the Nov. 18-19 virtual conference or to register visit: http://conference.farmvetco.org.  



Zoetis Reports Higher Revenues, Earnings

Zoetis Inc. reported its financial results for the third quarter of 2020 and increased its guidance for full year 2020.

The company had a total revenue of $1.8 billion for the third quarter of 2020, an increase of 13% compared with the third quarter of 2019. Net income for the third quarter of 2020 was $479 million, or $1.00 per diluted share, both increasing 11% on a reported basis.

Adjusted net income1 for the third quarter of 2020 was $524 million, or $1.10 per diluted share, an increase of 15%, on a reported basis. Adjusted net income for the third quarter of 2020 excludes the net impact of $45 million for purchase accounting adjustments, acquisition-related costs and certain significant items.

On an operational basis, revenue for the third quarter of 2020 increased 15%, excluding the impact of foreign currency. Adjusted net income for the third quarter of 2020 increased 20% operationally, excluding the impact of foreign currency.



New vaccine for cattle protects against fetal calf loss from EBA – anatomy of a vaccine development

A new vaccine just approved by the USDA in September promises to turn the tide against Epizootic Bovine Abortion, also known as the foothill abortion disease, that has caused devastating losses in range cattle exceeding $10 million annually in California, Oregon and Nevada.

The vaccine, developed through extensive research at the University of Nevada, Reno and the University of California, Davis, was commercialized by Hygieia Biological Laboratories of Woodland, California, and is now available to the cattle industry. This license marks a pivotal advancement in decreasing those substantial calf losses and comes as the result of decades of work by generations of scientists and cattle producers.

“It was really neat to see the pieces come together over the years as a result of all the effort that was put into this project,” Mike Teglas, a partner in the project and a professor and veterinarian in the University of Nevada, Reno’s College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources, said. “I have a definite sense of satisfaction that I was able to play a role in the development of this vaccine.”

First described by U.C. Davis scientists in the 1950s in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, the disease, EBA, only affects pregnant cattle and can be responsible for losses of up to 100% of the year’s calf crop in susceptible herds.

In 1985, U.C. Davis Professor Jeffrey Stott joined the faculty at the Veterinary School and began working on the disease with current collaborator Myra Blanchard, also of U.C. Davis Veterinary School.

“As a member of our research team and a faculty member in an instruction and research university, there could be no greater feeling – maybe a Nobel Prize would sit higher on the shelf – than seeing the results of our efforts,” Stott said. “We are all expected to conduct both instruction and research, but to create something that will have, and is already having, a major positive impact on the cow/calf industry is what makes this accomplishment so much more meaningful and rewarding.”

A decade of vaccine trials were conducted to establish the safety and efficacy of the product, which is now available commercially to the cattle industry through livestock veterinarians. The USDA Center for Veterinary Biologics issued the conditional license for the vaccine after two years of trials of the Hygieia product.

"The vaccine has proven safe and phenomenally effective; the fervor for its widespread availability is palpable among cattle producers,” Stott said.

The decades of perseverance of the researchers on this project shows the value of land-grant universities to the communities they serve.

“It’s translational research such as this that we all strive to achieve, completing our land-grant loop of research, education and outreach with a solid solution to a real-world problem,” Bill Payne, dean of the University of Nevada, Reno’s College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources, said. “It’s not just research for research’s sake. Mike’s untiring work over the long-haul, and the work of his predecessors, on identifying the disease and building a vaccine is impressive work that makes us all proud. Especially impressive is the team’s work with the relatively small pharmaceutical company to commercially produce this after the big companies shunned it for years because of (in their view) a relatively small, niche market for this particular disease.”

Industry representatives are also excited about the new vaccine
“The licensing and availability of this vaccine is monumental for the beef cattle industry,” Mark Lacey, president of the California Cattlemen’s Association, said. “For generations producers have had to manage incredible losses from foothill abortion.

“From the University’s research, to the generous donations of cattlemen and the Livestock Memorial Research Fund, to the production and commercialization of the vaccine, it has been a long haul. I couldn’t be happier to say that we are finally here.”

Teglas has been leading the EBA research at the University of Nevada, Reno, since 2006, after leaving U.C. Davis where he had been studying the origins and causes of the disease as a graduate student. He continued the University’s long-time collaboration with lead researcher Jeffrey Stott and Myra Blanchard from the School of Veterinary Medicine at U.C. Davis. At that point Stott’s lab had utilized a molecular genetic technique to finally identify the pathogen that caused foothill abortion disease.

But earlier research on the cause of EBA had gone on for decades without success. Scientists were unable to identify a pathogen as the source of the disease and were unsure about how it was transmitted. In one old study, U.C. Davis researchers even housed pregnant cattle in pens hung 8 feet off of the ground in order to determine if flying insects versus those confined to the ground served as vectors for the disease.

“Eventually, researchers were able to pin transmission on the pajaroello tick, Ornithodoros coriaceus, a species of soft tick that is commonly found in the Sierra Nevada and coastal ranges of California,” Teglas, also an expert on tick-borne diseases, said. “The distribution of the disease mirrors the distribution of its tick vector and has now been identified in the mountainous regions of California, northern Nevada, southern Oregon and southern Idaho.”

In 1992, Stott and Blanchard had teamed up with University of Nevada, Reno Professors Mark Hall in the Center for Molecular Medicine and Don Hanks in the School of Veterinary Medicine to try to identify the agent causing the disease in an effort to develop a method to grow the pathogen in the lab.

In one experiment, using cattle at the University of Nevada, Reno’s 900-acre Main Station Field Laboratory at the east end of Reno, the team glued cloth hats – with a zipper sewn into the hats – onto the cattle; the zipper would be opened in order to pour 100 hungry pajaroello ticks into the hats to infect the cattle. But the researchers ability to recreate the disease in a consistent manner was still hindered by the lack of an identifiable pathogen in those fetuses lost to the disease.

A breakthrough came along when Stott’s lab used the molecular genetic technique to finally identify the EBA pathogen, a bacteria that was more closely related to slime molds than it was to other bacterial pathogens of animals.

“With this knowledge in hand, I was able to test ticks across their range, determine their infection status and assess whether the tick vectors were being moved around the West by human activities such as the shipping of cattle,” Teglas said.

Another important discovery was made in those first few years of his new career at the University of Nevada, Reno, one that created the foundation for the eventual development of a vaccine.

Stott and Blanchard found that they could infect mice that lacked a competent immune system with the bacteria and that tissues from these animals contained considerable amounts of viable pathogenic bacteria.

“This led to our ability to reliably infect large numbers of susceptible cattle for research purposes,” Teglas said. “We quickly discovered that cattle exposed to the bacteria in their first year would develop immunity to subsequent infections for another two years without additional exposure to the pathogen.”

The research team, once again using the cattle at the University’s Main Station Field Lab inReno, used the new bacterial inoculum to sensitize cattle to the bacteria when they were not pregnant to see if that could serve as a potential source of immunization against the disease.

“For the EBA vaccine studies we used the heifers, young females, that were born the previous year and were going to be pregnant for the first time – about 50 to 70 animals a year,” Teglas said. “The benefit of doing research at the Main Station was that we could keep animals for two or three years in a row and follow up on them over time.”

There are about 520 head of cattle (males and females) at the Main Station Field Lab in a given year that are available for use in research by faculty on campus.

“The Main Station was vital to our research efforts since we had access to a large group of susceptible cattle that could be manipulated and monitored much more closely than in a private cattle herd,” Teglas said. “We used the bacterial inoculum to create an attenuated vaccine product and began to test its ability to protect pregnant cows against developing EBA. The results were immediately impressive, with 100% of the vaccinated pregnant cattle producing live calves after being experimentally infected.”

The team began studies to test the efficacy and safety of the product following USDA guidelines. Stott met with representatives from some of the largest drug manufacturers to see if there was interest in commercialization of a vaccine, but the big companies considered it a regional disease and not widespread enough to make an investment.

The final steps necessary to fully approve the vaccine by the USDA were completed this summer, and now beef cattle producers across the country can order the product directly from the Hygieia, which made the vaccine a reality.

“Jeff and Myra need to get the credit for spearheading this research and keeping the faith even when we had to start all over again,” Teglas said. “It’s a fascinating disease and there are still lots of questions waiting to be answered. I look forward to continuing working with them on EBA into the future.

“In fact, we are working on a project now investigating the potential of in-utero vaccination/protection of the fetus with the EBA vaccine. If successful the work could have lots of implications for development of future vaccines aimed at producing a calf that is already born with protection against cattle pathogens, something that is unavailable to producers today.”

The team has ongoing foothill abortion research projects and are developing new ones.

“Research is what we love and what we do,” Stott said. “Our ongoing foothill abortion research projects, are directed at furthering our understanding of the disease, its geographic distribution and new disease management strategies that will incorporate the vaccine as an important component in our translational research, of making research useful for our constituents – the cattle industry.”