Indiana AgrAbility participated in the Indiana Small Farms Conference at the Hendricks County Fairgrounds in Danville, Indiana.  As a partner in the Purdue New/Beginning Farmer grant with a focus on veterans, Indiana AgrAbility attended and participated in an all-day pre-conference workshop for 80-90 new and beginning farmers.  Among a panel of beginning farmers were two AgrAbility clients. Steve Swain, rural rehabilitation specialist for Indiana AgrAbility, also participated as an exhibitor in the conference tradeshow and attended various workshop sessions to learn information that would be helpful to AgrAbility clients.

Indiana AgrAbility rural rehabilitation specialist Steve Swain and Mark Bechman from USDA Rural Development jointly presented two programs for the IPickHere localization initiative.  The presentation was given at the Fort Branch Library and the Evansville VFW to over 30 individuals including many veterans who were farming or beginning to farm.  IPickHere is a localization initiative that focuses on aggregating goods produced within 100 miles of the market location to optimize the physical and financial well-being of the community.  AgrAbility was asked to participate by providing information and resources to individuals with physical and mental limitations and those who want to begin farming.

Dr. Abigail Engelberth was recently awarded the 2016 ABE Outstanding Mentor for Graduate Students. On April 8^th, the ABEGSA held a roundtable lunch to honor Dr. Engelberth’s achievement (left) and discuss her philosophy on mentoring. She shared her thoughts on several topics, including how she strives to be both a mentor and an advocate for her students.

Dr. Engelberth and her students who nominated her for the award

(Left to Right: Emma Brace, Samira Fatemi, Dr. Engelberth, Mahdieh Aghazadeh, Studie Redcorn)

Dr. Al Heber and the rest of the team that produced "Odor and Odorous Chemical Emissions from Animal Buildings: Part 3. Chemical Emissions" have received notice that their paper has been chosen to receive an ASABE Superior Paper Award at the 2016 ASABE Annual Meeting. Congratulations!

Andrew Robison, a graduate student with Dr. Andrea Vacca, received the prestigious NSF Grad Research Fellowship based on his "demonstrated potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the U.S. science and engineering enterprise." Congratulations, Andrew!

Samira Fatemi, a graduate student with Dr. Abby Engelberth, also received an Honorable Mention. Congratulations, Samira!

Achint Sanghi, a graduate student with Dr. Kingsly Ambrose, won the 2nd place cash award at the recently held Purdue Innovation To Design (I2D) Expo on March 1st for his presentation on "Modeling high capacity solar dryers for corn in Ghana.". Way to represent, Achint!

Kaliramesh Siliveru, Ph.D. student of Dr. Kingsly Ambrose won the texture technologies best presentation award for his paper ‘Effect of particle size on shear flow properties of wheat flour’ at the 2015 American Association of Cereal Chemists International (AACCI) meeting held at Minneapolis, MN. Kaliramesh is currently doing his Ph.D. at Kansas State University (advised by Dr. Ambrose) studying the effect of particle cohesion on wheat flour sifting.

Professor Gary Krutz is wrapping up his storied career in ABE this semester. His departure will leave some very large shoes (and rods) to fill. If you are interested in attending the retirement festivities on October 15, 2016, please contact Becky Peer for details.

Tentative Schedule:

10:00 am Tour of ABE Research and Purdue Buildings

Afternoon Homecoming Football Game vs. Iowa

5:00 pm Reception in the East/West Faculty Lounges, Purdue Memorial Union

6:00 pm Dinner

7:00 pm Retirement program (can you say "roast"?)

The awards for this year's competition were presented on Tuesday, March 22, at the Indiana Roof Ballroom. An impressive event in a spectacular venue only gave more impact to the exciting products this year's teams created. Top prize of $20,000 was awarded to Team SoyFoliate; Samuel Lewis, Steve Ferris, and Alison Switzer from the Purdue Doctor of Pharmacy program, and Ryan Pendergast, a student in ME will share the prize. SoyFoliate soap is naturally degradable. Exfoliating soy beads replace plastic microbeads that are being banned in the US.

The second-place team created Soy Spacing Technologies, a soy-based construction and glass spacing system. Ryan DeBusk, animal biosciences, and Taylor Gamble, agricultural business major, will share the $10,000 prize.

Third place went to SoyPods. These detergent pods are designed to appeal less to children (a well-known hazard) and leave no residue. Team members are Andrew Cameron, chemical engineering; Xuan Luo, ABE;  and Harshit Kapoor, civil engineering. They share a $1,500 prize.

The People's Choice prize went to Sparked by Soy, a soy-based fire starting product. Team members: Evan Anderson, ABE; Dylan Loweden, Environmental & Health Sciences, Sara Richert, Public Relations.

To see descriptions of each product and team, visit the competition page.

Related news release: Hand soap top entry in soybean innovation contest