For the past few years, South Dakota State University associate professor Srinivas Janaswamy has demonstrated how agriculture byproducts, like avocado peels, switchgrass, spent coffee grounds and banana peels, can be turned into biodegradable films — plastic-like material that decomposes in the environment and may one day replace petroleum-based plastic as the dominant packaging material.
Watch how Janaswamy demonstrates how cellulose — material extracted from the byproducts — can be transformed into these plastic-like films.
In this statewide, National Science Foundation-backed project, researchers from South Dakota State University, Oglala Lakota College, South Dakota Mines and the University of South Dakota — along with industry partners at Brookings-based Houdek — will study biological nitrogen fixation and its applications in sustainable agriculture and industry. The end goal for the researchers is to genetically engineer nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria as a step toward developing nitrogen-fixing crops, eventually reducing the need for chemical fertilizers in cereal crops.
Rachel Short and Gazala Ameen, two assistant professors in South Dakota State University's College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, have each received one of the National Science Foundation's most prestigious grants for early career faculty to pursue biology research projects.
Short's project will focus on identifying and studying fossils from Wind Cave National Park to understand how animals have responded and will continue to respond to human presence and environmental change. Ameen's project will identify the plant defense response indicators to destructive fungal pathogens that pose a serious risk to global food security.
Adam Devlin, a recent master’s graduate in the South Dakota State University Department of Agronomy, Horticulture and Plant Science, worked on a collaborative project with faculty in the School of Design to bring awareness to the hardships of South Dakota farmers and the effects of soil composition in various subjects.
A team of South Dakota State University researchers — led by professor Wanlong Li — have received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture to modify the genetic code of wheat plants to make them more tolerant to heat stress.
Around 10% of the United States population experiences some level of food insecurity each year. Geb Bastian, an assistant professor in South Dakota State University's School of Health and Human Sciences, examined the details of food insecurity in the U.S. in a recent study.
