Land-grant faculty, staff earn honors at annual Ag Awards

By Mary Hightower
U of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Outstanding land-grant faculty and staff were honored Friday during the annual Agriculture Awards, held at the Don Tyson Center for Agricultural Sciences.

AG AWARDS — Amanda McWhirt, associate professor and extension specialist with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture,  spoke on behalf of the Expanding the Fresh-Market Blackberry Industry Team, which won the John W. White Outstanding Team Award. (U of A System Division of Ag photo.)

The event recognizes the achievements of those from the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, representing the extension, research and teaching missions of the nation’s land-grant system in Arkansas.

“These awards do more than recognize the excellence in our ranks. Since our winners are nominated by their colleagues, these awards are an acknowledgement of the esteem in which their peers hold them,” said Deacue Fields, vice president-agriculture for the University of Arkansas System. “Nothing could be more gratifying for our professionals and our organization.” 

The following were honored with John W. White Awards, which commemorate the first head of the Division of Agriculture.

• John W. White Outstanding Research Award – Kristen Gibson, professor of food safety and microbiology, who joined the Division of Agriculture in 2010 as a postdoctoral research associate in the Center for Food Safety.

• John W. White Outstanding Teaching Award – Nathan Kemper, an associate professor of community and rural economic development and the director of undergraduate and online programs in the department of agricultural economics and agribusiness.

• John W. White Outstanding Extension State Faculty Award – Laura Hendrix, professor, department of family and consumer sciences.

• John W. White Outstanding County Extension Educator Award – Brad McGinley, Grant County extension staff chair.

• John W. White Outstanding Team Award – Expanding the Fresh-Market Blackberry Industry Team: Aaron Cato, extension specialist-horticulture integrated pest management; Amanda McWhirt, extension specialist-horticulture crops, Jackie Lee, director of the Fruit Research Station, and Margaret Worthington, fruit breeder, all of the department of horticulture; and Renee Threlfall, associate professor, department of food science.

The following were honored with Outstanding Support Personnel Awards.

Program Area Awards

• Daniel McCarty – Rice breeding program associate based at the Rice Research and Extension Center.

• Julian Abram – Program technician in the biological and agricultural engineering department.

 Support Function Awards

• Dwain Ober – Farm foreman, Fruit Research Station.

• Karen DiCicco – Assistant director of information technology, Cooperative Extension Service.

Support Staff Awards 

• Genean Butler – Associate for administration for agriculture and natural resources.

• Tonya Foster – Administrative manager for the department of agricultural economics and agribusiness

EXTENSION — John Anderson, director of the Cooperative Extension Service and senior associate vice president-extension for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, speaks at the 2024 Agriculture Awards. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo by Mary Hightower)

John Anderson, head of the Cooperative Extension Service, said that “our Agriculture Awards give us an annual reminder of the exceptional work being done in the Division of Agriculture and in Bumpers College across all or our land-grant mission areas. 

“This year’s awardees are all highly deserving of recognition for the quality and the impact of their work. Our Extension winners – both individually and in their contribution to interdisciplinary teams – have clearly earned the respect of their colleagues,” he said. “Their work in linking the UA System directly to our stakeholders with practical, relevant, and impactful programming deserves to be recognized and celebrated. These awards give us an opportunity to do just that.”

“The faculty and staff we recognize this year are a testament to the level of achievement we aim for as an institution. They reflect our values and our mission to innovate and improve people’s lives,” said Jean-François Meullenet, director of the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station. “I am grateful for how these awardees set the standard for excellence with their impactful work.”

The following were honored with Bumpers College Awards:

• Outstanding Honors Thesis Mentor Award – Gisela Erf, an immunologist and holder of the Tyson Endowed Professorship in Avian Immunology in the department of poultry science and with the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science.

• Alumni Society Outstanding Advising – Stephanie Hubert, a senior instructor of apparel merchandising and product development in Bumpers College’s School of Human Environmental Sciences.

• Jack G. Justus Teaching – Christopher Estepp, associate professor in the department of agricultural education, communications and technology.

• Dean’s Award of Excellence for Professional Staff – Kristin Seals, associate director of facilities and special events with the Bumpers College dean’s office.

• Spitze Land Grant University Faculty Award for Excellence – Walter Bottje, professor in the department of poultry science.

BUMPERS COLLEGE — Jeff Edwards, dean of the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, speaks at the 2024 Agriculture Awards. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo by Mary Hightower)

Jeff Edwards, dean of Bumpers College, offered his “congratulations to everyone who is receiving an award. It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge members of the college faculty and staff who are being honored.

“We have the best faculty and staff on campus and these awards are a small way of recognizing all that they do,” Edwards said. “Their dedication to serving students, and others, stands out and I’m proud to have them representing Bumpers College as recipients of their respective awards.”

To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on X and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on X at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on X at @AgInArk. 

Researchers uncover what makes some chickens more water efficient than others

By John Lovett
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — In the first scientific report of its kind, researchers in Arkansas showed that chickens bred for water conservation continued to put on weight despite heat stress that would normally slow growth.

STUDY RESULTS — Sara Orlowski, an associate professor of poultry science, compared water intake and food conversion ratios in chickens bred for high, low and normal levels of water efficiency. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo)

Research by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station indicates the specially bred line of chickens developed by Sara Orlowski could save growers thousands of gallons of water and thousands of pounds of food each month without sacrificing poultry health. Orlowski is an associate professor of poultry science with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

As global population increases and usable water diminishes due to climate change patterns, scientists with the Division of Agriculture are looking for ways to raise the world’s most popular meat protein using fewer resources.

The study, which was part of a five-year project funded by a $9.95 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, showed a broiler chicken’s physiology could be significantly improved to convert food and water to body weight even with three weeks of heat stress.

Results from the study were published in Physiological Reports, the American Physiological Society’s scientific journal, as an article titled “Effect of heat stress on the hypothalamic expression profile of water homeostasis-associated genes in low- and high-water efficient chicken lines.” The grant was awarded through NIFA's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.

Sami Dridi, professor of poultry science specializing in avian endocrinology and molecular genetics, was responsible for conducting the experiment and the driving force in writing the paper.

Walter Bottje, professor of poultry science for the experiment station, is the project director for the USDA Sustainable Agriculture Systems multi-institutional grant led by the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science.

Now in its fifth generation of selection, the high water-efficient line has been measured to consume significantly less water than standard broiler lines in use today. From the time they were hatched to one month old, the high water-efficient line drank 1.3 pounds less water, and about 5.7 ounces less feed, which calculates to a 32-point improvement in water conversion and six-point improvement in feed conversion when compared to a random-bred control line.

While it may not seem like a huge difference, modern chicken houses hold on average 20,000 to as many as 50,000 birds. Although chickens consume more as they grow, the difference for that month of growing equates to 7,800 fewer gallons of water and 17,800 pounds less feed to grow 50,000 water-efficient chickens.

In some conditions, the high water-efficient chicken had food conversion ratios that were just as good or better, and their water conversion ratio was about 55 to 65 percent better, according to Dridi.

Bottje said these recent results from the ongoing research are promising, but the group aims to investigate other physiological characteristics of the high water-efficient line, such as meat quality and gut integrity.

Thirst control

POULTRY SCIENCE — Sami Dridi is professor of poultry science specializing in avian endocrinology and molecular genetics. (U of A System Division of Agriculture)

The hypothalamus is the part of the brain that controls thirst. One of the study’s findings was that the hypothalamus of water-efficient chickens differed from the other chickens when exposed to heat stress. The investigation revealed potential molecular signatures for water efficiency and heat tolerance in chickens.

The researchers devised a study that induced heat stress for groups of chickens by increasing the ambient temperature to mimic a summer season in Arkansas. The heat-stress cycle began when the birds were 29 days old. The environment was also kept between 30 and 40 percent relative humidity.

Dridi ran a parallel study comparing data on the divergent lines of chickens.

What they found was surprising.

“What the most interesting thing from that study, when it comes to live performance, is that the heat-stressed birds from the high water-efficient line consumed less water than the non-heat stressed birds from the low water-efficient line,” Orlowski said.

Water is critical to raising chickens. They can go several days without food, but only a few hours without water at high temperatures, Dridi said.

Dridi said high humidity, which would be over 70 percent for chickens, also induces similar heat stress because the chickens cool themselves by breathing. Dridi’s studies on poultry house sprinkler systems kept the humidity lower than the industry standard method and used significantly less water than evaporative cooling cells.

“With water sprinkling systems that can save up to 66 percent water usage in a poultry house, the water conservation of poultry could be improved by a magnitude of three- to four-fold by having chickens that consume less water and still retain growth,” Dridi said.

Project development

Dridi said the idea for water-efficient chickens came from looking at the differences in chicken lines bred as far back as the 1950s. Dridi and other researchers wanted to see how much genetic differences there were between jungle fowl and modern breeds.

Before they could breed water-efficient chickens, though, they had to reliably measure the amount of water chickens drank.

Orlowski was a Ph.D. student when her graduate research team developed a novel low-flow water monitoring system in collaboration with Siloam Springs-based companies Alternative Design and Cobb-Vantress Inc., a primary broiler breeder company. The tool was essential to accurately measure water intake for individual birds in real time.

“When we first started this project in 2018, we evaluated one of our broiler lines, a non-selected control population, and we characterized them for water intake,” Orlowski said. “And within that population there was a variability for water intake. From there, we were able to take our most water-efficient families and our least water-efficient families, establish our research populations and continue to select from there.”

A base population of chickens that were not selected for high or low water-efficiency was kept as a control group to compare changes in each generation, Orlowski noted.

Bottje and Dridi said the work done by Orlowski in selecting the divergent lines of chickens was the most important factor of this experiment. Orlowski said water efficiency in the high water-efficient line is continuing to improve with each succeeding generation. She ranks the water efficiency trait as “moderately heritable.”

“There’s no reason that it will not work for all poultry operations, including turkeys, quail and ducks,” Dridi said.

About the researchers

The lead author on the research article was Loujain Aloui of the Higher School of Agriculture of Mograne at the University of Carthage in Zaghouan, Tunisia, while on an internship with the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science and the Division of Agriculture.

Co-authors included Elizabeth S. Green, Travis Tabler, Kentu Lassiter, Bottje, Dridi and Orlowski with the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science at the Division of Agriculture and Kevin Thompson with the Center for Agricultural Data Analytics with the Division of Agriculture.

To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu.