The McGregor Company: GMO Canola and Ryegrass Resistance
Contact: Steve Van Vleet, Research Agronomist: 509 595-5163, svanvleet@wsu.edu
Summary
Rye grass resistance has become a increasingly persistent problem on the Palouse. Innovative approaches in canola are showing some promise.
For this project, students will become familiar with field trials of GMO canola and explore the impacts of increased manganese and acidic soils on yield. Students will learn about promising canola varieties, use of fungicides at certain times to produce optimal yield and explore other approaches such as crop rotations to fight invasive rye grass.
This project will include research expertise from the McGregor Company, WSU and the Canola Association to explore and recommend best practices for fighting Rye Grass resistance.
This project asks a lot of different question. Below are some keywords and search statements that may help you answer these questions.
To learn more about developing keywords and search strings check out this link.
Example of Potential Search:
Note: The following keywords and search string are just a quick ideas, you may come up with better ones within your group.
Search #1
Title: ryegrass OR "rye grass"
AND
Title: resistan* OR herbicide* OR fungicide* OR insecticide* OR pesticide*
Here is what that search looks like in the WSU Libraries' catalog (link)
Search #2
Subject: Canola
AND
Title: GMO OR "genetically modified"
Here is what that search looks like in the WSU Libraries' catalog (link)
Search #3
Title: manganese
AND
Any Field: soil*
AND
Title: canola
Here is what that search looks like in the WSU Libraries' catalog (link)
Find Peer-Reviewed Research
Arguably the overall best STEM database.
Search It is the WSU library catalog. You can search among many different types of resources and order materials from other institutions if they are not immediately available through WSU.
A small, agriculture specific, database provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Library.
SciFinder Scholar
Heavy on the chemistry side of research. It works best with Internet Explorer. First time users MUST register. Powerful, if not always intuitive, search options.
If you are interested in seeing a full list of agricultural databases available at WSU check out this link.
If you want to see all of the databases available, across disciplines, check out this link.
There is a lot of data regarding growing canola and GMOs (and a moderate amount of research on ryegrass). Here are a few links to get you started:
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service will provide data for crops and regions. Here is a simple search for canola and GMO (link).
The Washington State Department of Agriculture also provides data regarding crops, acreage, etc. Here is a basic search for "ryegrass."
The Minnesota Canola Council (working with the UM Extension) has a decent research database. Here is a search for GMO.
The Canadian Canola Council (link) has a large research repository which may be helpful,
The U.S. Canola Association and their research projects involving WSU.
Part of your project will be understanding the historic context invasive species, ryegrass, etc.. Below are some resources that will assist.
The WSU/WSC Cooperative Extension Services will provide historic and contemporary resources. Many of these resources have been digitized but many others are only located within the Owen Science Library.
Note: You can find Extension (and other WSU) research a couple of different ways. Theoretically, there should be overlap between the following databases but in practice it is useful to search them all.
You can search the WSU Libraries' catalog and limit your results to Washington State University and/or Washington State University Cooperative Extension within the "Author" limiter. Here's a picture of how to do that.
Here is a search in the WSU Libraries Catalog for "rye grass" OR ryegrass with the Author limiter set to Washington State University and/or Washington State University Cooperative Extension.
Research Exchange is the institutional repository at WSU. It will have a lot of historic resources but also some contemporary research. Here is a "Title" search for ryegrass OR "rye grass" in Research Exchange.
The WSU Cooperative Extension Service (link) also provides a list of contemporary publications. It may also be useful to look at the University of Idaho's Extension publications (link).
For your project, you may need to examine corporate and industry profiles, trade publications, press releases, laws and court cases. etc.
Below are a few corporate and business databases to get you started.
Helpful Industry Resources
For more in-depth information regarding corporate research, take a look at the WSU Libraries Company Research Library Guide.
Newspaper and Trade Publications
For more info, see the WSU Libraries News and Newspaper Research Guide.
The WSU/WSC Cooperative Extension Services will provide historic and contemporary agricultural resources pertaining to Washington State. Many of these resources have been digitized but many others are only located within the Owen Science Library.
Note: You can find Extension (and other WSU) research a couple of different ways. Theoretically, there should be overlap between the following databases but in practice it is useful to search them all.
You can search the WSU Libraries' catalog and limit your results to Washington State University and/or Washington State University Cooperative Extension within the "Author" limiter. Here's a picture of how to do that.
Research Exchange is the institutional repository at WSU. It will have a lot of historic resources but also some contemporary research.
The WSU Cooperative Extension Service also provides a list of contemporary publications. It may also be useful to look at the University of Idaho's Extension publications.
Finally, you may want to look at the resources within archive.org and the HathiTrust repository.