10/22/08 WSU Research Grant Part 2

WSU Research Grant Part 2. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. WSU's Associate Dean and Director of Ag Research, Ralph Cavalieri is excited about a recent windfall. The USDA has awarded WSU some $3.3 million dollars for several specialty crop research projects. CAVALIERI: The nature of these projects is that they were multi-state in general. Many of the projects where were not the lead involved people from let's say Pennsylvania or California, Michigan and so forth so it's truly a partnership that has been put into play. The grants are just not about school programs but needed to involve the ag industry. CAVALIERI: Industry drove the need to get this money and so the applications had to demonstrate that the agriculture industry was deeply involved in crafting the project proposal and in the execution of it. So there's a lot of partnership in the industry and so once again the close connection between many of our faculty and the industries of Washington paid a dividend as we went forward on this. Finally Cavalieri says the grants needed to reach out to the industry and communities. CAVALIERI: There had to be a true outreach program. This wasn't going to be ivory tower research that just remained in a journal somewhere but in fact there had to be a translation and output so the producers would benefit from it. Tomorrow we take a look at how the students of WSU will be impacted by the grants. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.