The long-established Conservation and Production Research Laboratory west of Amarillo has new leadership from some experienced hands.
The USDA Agricultural Research Service recently named 35-year veteran Andy Cole the director of the Bushland facility that is dedicated to finding ways to use resources more efficiently in agriculture to keep rural economies strong. David Brauer is the new research leader of the lab’s Soil and Water Management Unit.
The 75-year-old lab, which also hosts scientists from Texas AgriLife Research and visiting scientists from around the world, looks modest but has an annual budget of about $7 million.
“As lab director, I oversee the general administration of the lab, things that affect both research units like budgets and grants,” Cole said.
He also heads the Livestock Management Unit.
“The unit primarily looks at feedyards and dairies and their potential impact on the environment and mitigating their impact, primarily air emissions,” Cole said.
The unit’s scientists, which total about 14, have focused on ammonia and greenhouse gas releases and the impact of distiller’s grain, a by-product of making ethanol from corn or grain sorghum.
“It’s a fairly new ingredient,” Cole said. “We’re looking at how to use it best, from how to feed it to how the manure is
applied to the land and the emissions in between.”
The scientists also are working on keeping the phosphorus content of the manure in check.
Bauer, who also heads the Ogallala Program involving scientists from three universities and three government agencies, has been at the lab since 2008. His oversees $5.2 million of the lab’s $7 million budget, of which $3 million goes to the Ogallala Program. That effort is to find ways for the agriculture industry to better use the limited supply of water from the Ogallala Aquifer, which essentially doesn’t recharge.
His ARS unit, with about 30 scientists, is also focused on water.
“We’re looking at management practices and techniques to make agriculture more water smart, both rain-fed and irrigated,” he said.