Small steps Even a little exercise goes a long way toward preventing heart disease, says John Quindry, director of Auburn’s Cardioprotection Research Lab. Studies show that simply walking for 30 minutes three times a week helps prevent your ticker from damage.
C O L L E G E
S T R E E T
Alabama’s pine decline Future teachers Alabama boasts about
importance of presenta-
320 agriculture teach-
tion skills. Eventually
ers, and 40 percent of
the program will include
them are about to retire.
dual-credit agriculture
Two Auburn professors
courses for high school
are working to make
students, but the real
sure there’ll be enough
goal is to light a fire
new ones to help stu-
under teenagers for
dents get back to their
going to college and
roots.
majoring in agricultural
education.
When Brian Parr
joined Future Farmers
of America in 1987, it
a teacher shortage in
“We’re already in
changed his life. Now
several different areas,
the assistant professor
and agriculture is one of
of agriscience educa-
those,” Parr says. “This
tion is hoping he can
is kind of a recruiting ef-
do the same for others
fort to expose secondary
with a program dubbed
students to the career
“MATRIX for the Future:
of agriculture education
Premier Agriscience
and also to our College
Education Academy.”
of Education and Col-
Funded by the U.S. De-
lege of Agriculture.”
partment of Agriculture,
Parr and animal scienc-
program will do for high
es professor Don Mul-
schoolers what FFA did
vaney have developed
for him. “It gave me
agricultural and leader-
something to become a
ship seminars for high
part of and something to
school students across
belong to,” Parr recalls.
Alabama. The program
“It obviously changed
brings 30 students and
my life forever, because
their teachers to Auburn
here I am, 23 years
for a five-day seminar on
later, trying to bring
careers in agricultural
other kids into it for the
education, the technical
benefit it had for me.”
side of farming and the
—Grace Henderson
Remember when kudzu creep was a problem? Now there’s a new plant pest in the neighborhood: cogongrass, an Asian invader now spreading rapidly across Alabama and already ranking seventh on a list of the world’s worst weeds. It’s hard to kill and spreads like wildfire—it can even cause fires due to its combustibility. A team of Auburn scientists is looking for links between the increase in cogongrass and the decline of pine trees in the state—two biological phenomena that pose serious ecological and economic threats. Led by invasive-plant specialist Stephen Enloe, the researchers are trying to determine whether cogongrass is leading to “pine decline,” a syndrome jeopardizing the health and survivability of loblolly pine plantations statewide. Cogongrass has plagued southwestern Alabama for several decades but has spread rapidly since it hitchhiked around the state on vehicles and equipment whose owners assisted coastal residents after Hurricane Ivan in 2004. In the past six years, the weed has staked its claim
on 100,000 acres in 32 of Alabama’s 67 counties. Scientists also are looking at the impact of cogongrass on the longleaf pine, pine ecosystems and insect communities in pine forests. Forestry is Alabama’s top industry, and loblolly pines are a major player, accounting for 36 percent of the state’s 22.7 million acres of timberland. In recent decades, though, the health of many loblolly pine forests across the Deep South has deteriorated. “We know that cogongrass and the increased risk of intense fires it presents play havoc on a forest ecosystem’s natural vegetation, but no one has looked at whether there’s a cascading effect on the species and populations of insects,” Enloe says. “Our top goals are to find out how cogongrass infestations, as well as the herbicides and other management strategies being used to control the weed, alter insect diversity and abundance in those loblolly pine forests showing symptoms of pine decline.”
He hopes the MATRIX
a u a l u m . o r g Auburn Magazine
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