Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The immediate goal of the meeting was to discuss, strategize, and implement actions to address the deficiencies expressed by the SERA Review Committee. The long term goal of the participants is to achieve approved status of SERA041 for the 5 year period of 2010 through 2014. The discussion addressed the key comment by the Review Committee that the original proposal needed to develop specific, tangible, measureable objectives, procedures, and outcomes, particularly in research and Extension. David Morrison as administrative advisor indicated that in discussion with the Review Committee members, the original outcomes and impacts were too generic for the SERA Review Committee and more detail was required. Specific details include defining identified needs for including in the proposal and to define specific/tangible outputs. Discussion ensued indicating that the group has already defined many needs associated with research and extension in the southeast. Likewise, specific and tangible outputs are already occurring within and across states. Ultimately the issue regarding the proposal is to document with specificity what is and will occur for each of the objectives and define tangible outputs. Much discussion of the repackaging of the 3 objectives in the current proposal occurred. Ultimately, it was decided that the original Objective 1 would be split into 3 components (Objective 1a, 1b, and Objective 2). The original Objective 2 would be re-numbered to Objective 3. Finally, original Objective 3 would be incorporated into new Objective 1b and Objective 2. A provisional interpretation of those actions within the context of the original proposal is below. Objectives 1. Develop a Southern Extension/Research Activity for (1a) identifying and prioritizing beef/forages research and extension programming issues in the Southeast, (1b) develop cooperative extension and research programs across Southern state boundaries, (2) develop strategies for funding high-priority research and extension programs. 2. (3) Enhance relationships between the Land-Grant University missions of research and extension with beef cattle commodity groups through State Beef Cattle Associations and other beef cattle organizations. 3. This objective is incorporated into 1b and 2Achieve greater efficiency, productivity and impact by sharing informational, technological, and human resources for beef cattle and forages extension programming. Working groups were created to address revision of the objectives and identify specific-tangible outputs that would occur as a result of the SERA041 group associated with each objective. The working groups were assigned relative to the original proposal and will handle the revision of the objective. The groups are listed below. Objective 1 Jim Neel , UT (chair), Lisa Kriese-Anderson - AU, Guillermo Scaglia , LSU AgCenter, Jeff Lehmkuhler - UK. Objective 2 Matt Poore , NCSU (chair), Dave Lalman - OSU, Tom Troxel UA, Wayne Greene - AU. It was agreed that Objective 2 Enhancing relationships& necessitated an administrative individual as part of the committee to facilitate, therefore Wayne Greene was placed on the group. The final revised proposal will need to be received by the chair (Matt Hersom , UF) by approximately May 1, 2010 so that it can be distributed to select department heads for review before being uploaded for submission by June 1. Specific outputs and activities were discussed. These items would be associated with strengthening the proposal through identifiable and tangible outputs as listed below. Items are listed in no particular order. 1. The SERA041 group would function as the initiating entity for the Interdisciplinary Beef Cattle Symposium that would occur annually at the Southern Section ASAS meeting. 2. The SERA041 group would be used to initiate and explore research/extension funding opportunities. 3. Make an annual report at the NCBA Region 2 meeting. a. Update/Output report for that meeting. b. Request/Offer to participate in the program with a presentation of activity c. Tom Troxel and Dave Lalman are on the Producer Education Committee and could potentially forward that agenda. 4. Development of webinars. (This was mentioned last year but I am not aware of any multistate webinars from this group, or none were mentioned.) 5. Facilitate distance-education tie for other programs in states. 6. List specifically state partnership actionable items (these may already be occurring and would be a good place to start for the outcomes of objectives) 7. Create an annual report by synthesizing from states reporting the 3 top beef-forage program outputs. This report would be circulated internally and could be utilized for item 3. Discussion of re-instituting state reports at the annual SERA041 meeting. This activity had ceased during the past 2 years in which ongoing discussion of the SERA proposal occurred. Provisionally, 1/3 of the 13 states would report in any given year. Both significant research and extension activities would be discussed. Discussion regarding the use of native warm season grasses for dual biofuel-cattle production was initiated by John Waller (UT-Knoxville). The utilization of balage/haylage/round bale silage was inquired about. UF, UGA, LSUAC, UT, MTSU, and USDA-ARS El Reno were reported to have active efforts. Jeff Lehmkuhler (UK-Extension) was elected the new Secretary for the group. Compiled and submitted by Matt Hersom - UF