Mark Downing, from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, gave a presentation on modern agriculture. Students with an interest in agriculture may be involved with this subject in a number of ways. Precision agriculture uses global positioning systems to maintain records on crops, fertilizers, and crop protection. Students could create or use software to glean benefits fr!
om the information that can be gathered on weather, soil conditions, crop fertilization, and protection. They could be running experiments on ways to increase crop yield. Students could design or utilize equipment to do more to a crop like weed, seed, and maybe even fertilize on a single pass. Even attorneys are needed in the field of agriculture.
Precision agriculture should improve crop yield, provide information for better crop management, reduce the amount and cost of chemicals needed through better application, and reduce deleterious effects on the environment.
Tennessee is a national leader in no-till farming to reduce erosion and release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. See http://www.no--till.com for a description of no-till farming, and read about specific case studies. Tobacco, Tomatoes, and Cotton are Tennessee’s largest crops.
During the question and answer portion, Mark shared some information about his work in transportation. He had been involved in the Partnership of New Generation Vehicles (PNGV described in http://www.pngv.org/) where a prototype was created, but the passenger area was too small for a typical family and their luggage.
Now he is working on a FreedomCAR. In 2002, President Bush launched FreedomCAR, a partnership with automakers to advance high-technology research needed to produce practical, affordable hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that American consumers will want to buy and drive. The FreedomCAR and Fuel Initiative will develop, in parallel, technologies for hydrogen production and distribution infrastructure needed to power fuel cell vehicles and stationary fuel cell power sources. See http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenfuel/ for more information on FreedomCAR.
Special Thanks goes to Judy Driggans for providing this summary.
