Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The meeting was called to order at 8:30 a.m. Glen Hembry agreed to chair the meeting in the absence of Paul Humes. Dr. Eric Young, the Executive Director of SAAESD, represented Dr. David Morrison as Administrative Advisor for this meeting and gave an update on SAAESD activities. Dr. Young is located in Raleigh, NC. The website is http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/saaesd. Directors are trying to facilitate grantsmanship by hosting grant writing workshops. Typically the pattern has been one east of the Mississippi River and one to the west. The attempt is to hold a workshop back-to-back with CSREES. The next scheduled workshop is in Dallas on October 17-18, 2006. Registration is usually about $100. A Southern Region Grantsmanship Workshop on CSREES Integrated Programs is scheduled for February 8-9, 2006 at Radisson Hotel, Cincinnati Airport. CSREES is very interested in having Extension faculty serve on review panels for the Integrated Programs. Although the workshops are valuable, the group expressed concern about success rates for NRI grants and the potential direction of Hatch funding. Also some research areas do not and will not have the opportunity to compete for NRI funding. The bottom line, there are many very good proposals that do not get funded. A grantsmanship workshop to serve Gulf Coast states will be held May 9-10, 2006 in Puerto Rico. Eric explained the resources available on the SAAESD website for multi-institutional collaboration: 1) scientist expertise, 2) outlying research stations, and 3) examples of existing MOAs for multi-institutional collaborations. The NIMMS webpage is much improved and provides good search functions that can be valuable to SAC-2. Dr. Young was complimentary of SAC-2 on their oversight of projects. Peter Burfening gave a CSREES report. As a result of portfolio reviews in the agency it has become apparent that we dont capture Extension effort very well. This will be keyed into CRIS in some way. CRIS will change the type of database in the future to improve usability and make it more readily searchable; CRIS will be moving to Oracle database. CRIS reports are taken very seriously so encourage faculty to do a good job of reporting research results, impact, and productivity. The main source of information for reports to Congress is from CRIS; Congress is mainly interested in the impacts of our programs. The Plan of Work will also be changing. There are a number of other competitive programs besides NRI that we should be aware of, e.g. Water Quality, SBIR, etc. Success rate for the SBIR is about 15% Phase I proposals. Project Reports: SDC 320 - Jerry Cherry is Administrative Advisor. This project is waiting for approval for peer review. Walter Bottje has agreed to be monitor. SDC 321 - Nancy Cox is Administrative Advisor. Switched from a Western to a Southern project. This project is waiting for approval for peer review. Sam Pardue has agreed to be monitor. SDC 308 - Jerry Cherry is Administrative Advisor. The project will be sent back to the committee for revision. No monitor was assigned at this time. SDC 311 (Don Connor - monitor) - The project has gone back to the committee for revision. The group is meeting in Atlanta to finalize revisions. This has been a very productive project in the past. The group is encouraged to write an impact statement. Recommended continued support. Passed. S-1000 (Bob Harmon - monitor) - Participants meet with the National Center for Manure and Waste Management. The 2005 meeting was held in conjunction with a symposium entitled State of the Science of Animal Manure and Waste Management. Review of accomplishments and impacts (28 listed) shows significant progress is being made. Research publication productivity is good with 36 peer-reviewed publications, 78 conference proceedings, and 34 book chapters and other publications. There is evidence of multi-state cooperation in the full annual report. Project terminates 09-06. Recommended continued support. Passed. S-1005 (Don Wagner - monitor) and S-1006 (Mike Lacy - monitor) - No report for S-1005. Need to touch base with Don Wagner on status of project and monitor. These two projects have met together to share information in the past. The groups met last winter but the 2005 meeting was interrupted by the hurricane. Rick Roeder is Administrative Advisor for both and there has been discussion of combining the projects. At the 2005 meeting of SAC-2, the question of having two separate projects was raised. The SAC-2 group suggested clarification from Mike Lacy on the future project plans. S-1008 (Bruce Jenny - monitor) - Report was submitted. This has been a long-standing, productive project. They are addressing objectives and maintain good interaction. The AA has complemented the committee on the work that has been accomplished to date. The project terminates in 2007 and the group has been reminded that they must begin a revision in 2006 for submission by mid-2007. Plans are to include economic analyses in the rewrite. Recommended continued support of the project and of revision and rewrite. Passed. S-1012 (Alan Mathew - monitor) - Strong group that interacts and meets jointly with NCCC-042. Have guest speakers and have continued in a cohesive manner. Stress standardization of data sets across stations. Generate multi-state surveys. Some concern was expressed that 2004 and 2005 reports could not be found in NIMMS; either no report posted or a problem in NIMMS. Further checking with one of the committee members (after the SAC-2 meeting) did result in discovery of the most recent reports in NIMMS. Would suggest separation of S-1012 accomplishments from those of NCCC-042. Recommended continued support. Passed. S-1013 (Terry Kiser - monitor) - Dr Kiser was unable to attend, but a report was submitted. The project met at the Central Mississippi Research and Extension Center, MSU in 2005. Performance of sub-tropical breeds and selection for parasite resistance are the objectives. The group is collecting germplasm for the creation of a DNA repository. They are using true common protocols. They also held a symposium at Southern ASAS. The group works well together. Recommended continued support. Passed. S-1023 - (David Morrison - monitor) - No report. Need to check on project. SCC 72 (Paul Humes - monitor) - No report. Need to check on project. SCC 75 (Glen Hembry - monitor) - About 20 particpants at the annual meeting with a mix of extension and research faculty who actively exchange information. The project has terminated as of 9-30-05 so no new monitor will be assigned. There are no plans to renew or to form a multi-state project. SERA 15 (Steve Nickerson - monitor) - About 13 Southern states are participating in the project, including researchers and extension specialists. The project is realized as the Southern Dairy Conference (SDC) each year with about 150 participants ranging from individuals working in the areas of production, marketing, manufacturing, academia, and government. The conference covers a wide variety of timely topics. Recommended continued support. Passed. General Business: Bob Harmon was elected chair of SAC-2 for 2007-2008 by acclamation. Mike Lacy was elected secretary for 2007-2008 by acclamation. Glen Hembry was recognized for his many contributions over the years. Proposed 2007 meeting is associated with NCBA meeting in Nashville, TN.