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January 26, 2018 CapitalPress.com 17 Idaho Innovators ‘The things we do here are applicable worldwide’ What’s next study genes was just becom- ing available, and genomics could be used to measure how the body responds at the gene level, he said. “It’s going down a whole other level to see how life works,” he said. But getting a start-up pro- gram off the ground wasn’t easy. Growing an institute The research program Har- dy was trying to develop came under the university’s Aqua- culture Research Institute. A research institute operates outside the culture of colleges within the university, which each have a dean and their own faculty positions. It’s meant to facilitate interdisciplinary sci- ence programs and research efforts, and there are no posi- tions just sitting there, he said. He was unable to get fac- ulty positions for the program within the colleges, making it hard to hire top people. The fledgling research station was operating with post-doctor- al graduates and temporary positions. Undeterred, Hardy contacted USDA and proposed setting up an Agricultural Re- search Service fish program at the station. The response was “we’d love to do that if you can find the money,” he said. He found that money in 1999 through then-Sen. Larry Craig, who created an earmark for that funding in the federal budget and over time moved into base funding for USDA and four full-time research po- sitions at the station. The station’s work in pop- ulation genetics for Native American tribes, hoping to bring back salmon populations in the Columbia River, also created positions at the station. That work proved so useful the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission set up its own program in collaboration with the station in 2004. The university’s partner- ships with USDA-ARS and Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press Ron Hardy, director of the University of Idaho Aquaculture Research Institute, checks equipment in the laboratory at the Hagerman Fish Culture Experiment Station on Nov. 27. CRITFC expanded the station’s capacity and technology, partic- ularly in genomics, which has been its driving force. Genomics has a fundamen- tal capacity to allow research- ers to go in different directions, such as population genetics to better manage fisheries, en- hanced food fish production, selective breeding and sustain- able aquaculture, Hardy said. And those are exactly the things Hardy and the teams at the station have been doing for the past two decades. Hardy’s research has been focused on fish nutrition, in- cluding developing sustain- able feed sources for the global aquaculture industry. “We’re really known for that, and we’re really known for the trout selective-breeding program with USDA,” he said. Research at the facility has doubled the growth rate of trout, enhanced disease resis- tance and led to fish that can thrive on a vegetarian diet — all geared at sustainable aqua- culture. “The things we do here are applicable worldwide,” he said. Hardy’s goal is to integrate nutrition and genetic selection into a holistic program to ad- dress all components of fish health across the globe. He also wants to expand the uni- versity’s efforts into fisheries health management, and a new facility on the Moscow cam- pus for research into salmon and marine species is set to come online next year. The most rewarding part of his career is “making this happen out of nothing,” and he’s had a lot of support in that endeavor from the university, elected officials and industry, he said. “When you have that sup- port, you can do a lot,” he said. “To build a sustainable, smoothly running, respected research laboratory is just a dream come true,” he said. What he’s most proud of, however, is training graduate students and researchers from all over the world, he said. In addition to directing the university’s Aquaculture Re- search Institute since 2002, Hardy also works on salmon and steelhead hatchery and recovery issues in the Pacif- ic Northwest with state and federal agencies and Native American tribes. He has traveled exten- sively throughout the world to present lectures, consult and work on behalf of inter- national organizations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the European Commission. Just recently, he was rec- ognized for his contributions with a lifetime achievement award from the World Aqua- culture Society. As for the future, he’s committed to getting the new research facility at Moscow up and running and will prob- ably do a “soft” retirement un- til he’s sees that through. He’s also planning to put out a new edition of “Fish Nutrition” and fully retiring “someday.” This story was first pub- lished Dec. 4, 2017. Ryan Christensen brings high-tech prescriptions to his family’s farm By JOHN O’CONNELL Capital Press GRACE, Idaho — Ryan Christensen didn’t give up when his father balked at the cost of hiring consultants to install variable-rate technol- ogy on the family’s 3,000- acre wheat and potato farm. Instead, Christensen re- searched and set up his own method of precision-ap- plication — an approach to farming that uses GPS technology and field data to vary inputs based on field conditions. Christensen be- lieves his approach requires far less labor but achieves comparable yield and input improvements. It’s one of many exam- ples of how Christensen Farms has been transformed into a more productive, da- ta-driven and high-tech op- eration since the 32-year-old returned to the family busi- ness in 2006. “My philosophy is if data can be collected, I want it,” said Christensen, the fifth generation to farm the land his family homesteaded in the 1880s. He’s also incorpo- rated drones and a cut- ting-edge irrigation method in crop production — and he’s succeeded with new grounds-keeping techniques at the family’s golf course. While studying land- scape management at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, Christensen worked under professor Bryan Hopkins, jointly publishing research on turf grass nutrient management. Hopkins later helped Chris- tensen take on variable-rate Ryan Christensen Age: 32 Job: A partner in Christensen Farms with his father, Bart, and his brother, Kyle, 42. Innovation: Helped his farm implement variable-rate irrigation, fertilizer and seeding, using a zone-based prescription map he believes is simpler and more efficient to use than other systems. Education: Bachelor’s degree in landscape man- agement with a business management minor Hometown: Grace, Idaho Family: Wife, Andrea, and children Ava, 8, Lila, 5, Lin- coln, 3, and Claire, 3 months production, suggesting an approach involving maps with zones that possess common characteristics but may be in different parts of the field. Fewer zones Typically, fields are di- vided into grids of contig- uous 1.5-acre plots, which are all intensively soil sam- pled to devise variable-rate prescriptions. Christensen, who further honed his sys- tem by reading GPS map- ping instruction books, may use just a few zones with common conditions, getting by with about 60 soil samples on a 65-acre field compared to roughly 450 samples needed for the grid method. Christensen made his first zone maps in 2012, based on limited yield data, topographical Google Earth maps and his father’s in- sight about the productivi- ty of each field. He’s since included bare-soil drone imagery to assess soil qual- ity based on its color, as well as improved yield data tied to variable-rate fertilizer and seeding-rate maps. Drone spots stress He also flies a drone over winter wheat each spring to detect pockets of stressed crops and determine where replanting might be in or- der. Yields have become far more consistent. “We’ve been able to make very poor ground bet- ter and good ground a little better,” Christensen said. In 2015, Christensen also added a variable-rate water map to tweak one of his field prescriptions. That year, he became one of the first Idaho farmers to test variable-rate irrigation. Christensen explained that his family built a nine-hole golf course in 1995 on an un- productive rocky outcropping that bisected a pivot. With its $35,000 variable-rate irriga- tion system, Christensen said the family can now adjust each nozzle independently to pro- vide optimal water for the golf course, as well as the adjacent crops watered by the pivot. It’s variable He and Hopkins are en- tering the second year of a five-year study to assess the economics of variable-rate irrigation and determine the feasibility of installing addi- tional systems. Too often, Hopkins hears from growers who want to implement vari- able-rate fertilizer but miss the “low-hanging fruit” by failing to optimize their ir- rigation. Over-watering can push nutrients through the soil profile and hurt yields, he said. “When I first started talking about variable-rate fertilizer, people looked at me like I was nuts, and now it’s commonplace,” Hopkins said. “I think variable-rate irrigation will become com- monplace.” This story was first published on Jan. 29, 2017. IDInnov18-4/101 HARDY from Page 14 Variable rates boost crops IDInnov18-4/108