LIFE-CTAHR

Issue 99 | January 14, 2013 | Archive News & Events Save That Thought! The 25th Annual CTAHR Student Research Symposium will take place on April 12–13. The Symposium, which serves as a multi-disciplinary forum for discussion and exchange of information, is open to graduate and undergraduate students conducting scholarly work under the supervision of faculty from CTAHR and UH-Hilo’s College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resource Management. Undergraduates from the College of Engineering will be participating again this year as well. A call for abstracts will be announced shortly, and a website with additional details on the Symposium will soon be up. The deadline for submitting abstracts will be announced with the call for abstracts, but it should be mid-March. All students are encouraged to participate, so please set aside these dates. For more information, you can email Traci Sylva at tsylva@hawaii.edu or Associate Dean Charles Kinoshita at kinoshitac@ctahr.hawaii.edu. Pride by Design A CTAHR fabric and shirt design contest is being sponsored by Innovators of Fashion Challenge. The challenge in question? Design a fabric and use it to create men’s and women’s Aloha shirt designs for CTAHR professional wear. The design should reflect or connect to Hawai‘i agriculture or natural landscapes, and the CTAHR wordmark and/or spirit mark, the petroglyph design, must be incorporated as well. Any CTAHR APDM student can submit fabric and shirt designs: 1. Create a poster board that illustrates the fabric and the shirt design (color fashion sketch and flat sketch). 2. Include the following information on the back of the poster board: name, major, UH email, phone number, and address. 3. Submit by March 1 to Andy Reilly, Miller Hall 208. APDM faculty will select the top designs, which will be featured on the CTAHR website for voting. The winning design will be announced by May 2013. Prizes: First place: $500 and consideration for production; second place: $300; third place: $100. Grants & Awards The Awards Banquet Is in Your Hands It’s that time again… What time? Time to nominate outstanding faculty and staff members who deserve recognition for their hard work, dedication, and inspiration! All award winners will be recognized at CTAHR’s 25th Annual Awards Banquet on Friday, May 3, at the Ala Moana Hotel, but your help is needed to identify just who those honorees will be.Nomination information is availablehere for the following awards: 2013 CTAHR Outstanding Alumnus/Alumna 2013 CTAHR Dean’s Award for Excellence in Extension 2013 CTAHR Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research 2013 CTAHR Dean’s Award for Outstanding Civil Service 2013 CTAHR Dean’s Award for Outstanding Service by an Administrative, Professional, and Technical Employee (last year’s awardee, Ruth Niino-Duponte, is pictured here with former Interim Dean Sylvia Yuen.) Please note that the recipient for CTAHR’s Excellence in Teaching Award was selected in January from among the applicants for the University’s 2013 Excellence in Teaching Award. The deadline for all five awards is Friday, Feb. 15. Send hard-copy nomination packets to Gilmore 119, or electronic files or questions to events@ctahr.hawaii.edu. Speedy Diagnosis Growers, aware that pests and diseases are major production risks and can easily wipe out a crop, often approach Team LIFE’s “Farm Doctors” for assistance. Rapid identification followed by implementation of appropriate measures is crucial for managing these problems and mitigating their risks, and a critical link in the process is the diagnosis provided by the Agricultural Diagnostic Service Center (ADSC). In a recent surprise event, Team LIFE’s Big Island members recognized Brian Bushe of the Komohana Research Extension Center for his outstanding contributions in support of LIFE. Several agents mentioned Brian’s accuracy and speed, to wit: “If I get the sample to Brian in the morning, I will typically be able to get back to the grower by that afternoon. That gives the grower a big advantage in controlling the pest.” As part of his award, Brian received $1,000 to support his work. Besides pest and disease diagnoses, the ADSC offers plant tissue, soil, and water analyses and administers CTAHR’s Seed Lab. Brian is pictured in the center, surrounded by Team LIFE members (left to right) Randy Hamasaki, Andrea Kawabata, Kelvin Sewake, Evann Goo, Stuart Nakamoto, Sharon Motomura, and Andrew Kawabata. New Funding Opportunities Newsletter Jan. 9 Did you make a New Year’s resolution to take your research to the next level? Some funding could help you do just that! And you might even get enough funds to hire a starving grad student whose New Year’s resolution was to get a job! All this can be yours—begin by checking out the latestCurrent Funding Opportunities newsletter from Sharee Pepper. Grants that may be of particular interest to CTAHR faculty include the following: USDA, NIFA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative: Sustainable Bioenergy, LOI (required) deadline January 28; application deadline Apr. 3 USDA, NIFA Children, Youth and Families at Risk Sustainable Community Projects (CYFAR), Feb. 20. Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) Education and Outreach Projects, May 15. USDA, NIFA, AFRI Foundational Program - Agriculture Economics and Rural Communities, May 22. Spotlight on Our Community Credit From the Credit Unions Michael Cheang’s Kids Savings project partners schools with credit unions and investors to provide children with seed money and support to start their own savings accounts, which Michael hopes will help combat the widespread financial illiteracy in our society. A recent event to honor participating elementary school teachers who created games to foster financial savvy among their third-graders was reported glowingly in the Hawaii Credit Union League’s newsletter. The story explained that these teachers were building on Michael’s project to instruct their students on the common core standards as well as dollars and cents. New Publications The “Doctor” Is in…Cyberspace TheAndroid version of “The Plant Doctor” app is now available, ready to function on more than 2,100 different Android devices! The app download and interactive diagnoses of plant health problems are free, as are the suggestions for pest management. The IOS version for iPhone and iPad is available at theiTunes store. During the past month the intrepid and indefatigable doctors have diagnosed problems from India, China, Iran, England, Canada, and several states in USA, including Hawai‘i. In Memoriam Mabel Inada Ito We are sorry to report the passing of CTAHR alumna Mabel Inada Ito, who served as an Extension agent in home economics in Hawai‘i after World War II and who endowed a scholarship fund for undergraduate students in Family and Consumer Sciences in 2004. Mabel passed away on Dec. 12, 2012, at the age of 94. According to her niece, Donna Kono, her funeral will be held at Kahului Union Church on Wednesday, Jan. 16, at 10:30 a.m. The obituary notice will appear on Jan. 15 in theMaui News. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Mabel’s UH CTAHR endowment. Those with any questions may contact Donna at dkono@shs.ucdavis.edu or at (530) 750-1948.