150 Points of Pride

The Iowa State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has a proud and distinguished history. As part of Iowa State's sesquicentennial celebration, 150 points of pride related to the College - accomplishments, discoveries, contributions, highlights, famous and interesting people - will be posted here. These postings will coincide with 150 days of the 2007-2008 academic year, beginning Aug. 20, 2007 and ending May 2, 2008, with time off for the Thanksgiving, winter and spring breaks. Check back each Monday for five new items.

Charles Hall

Charles V. Hall, emeritus professor and former head of the Department of Horticulture (1974-90) has had an illustrious career creating watermelon varieties. Hall strived to create breeds of watermelon that were round in shape, while possessing attractive light/dark rind color, high quality edible characteristics and disease resistance. One of his widely known varieties of watermelon is the Crimson Sweet. According to Hall, the melon’s internal qualities are what make it so appealing. “It’s a sweeter melon with good texture and color,” he says. The smaller seeds of the Crimson Sweet also make it attractive to consumers while its ability to remain fresh during shipping appeals to producers. Currently, the Crimson Sweet variety is grown in more than 50 countries. Besides the Crimson Sweet, Hall also created the All Sweet, Super Sweet and Petite Sweet varieties of watermelon.

Fast Fact: Prior to the development of the Crimson Sweet, there were two primary varieties of round watermelon - The Black Diamond and Charleston Gray. The Black Diamond has virtually vanished from the melon market.

Nick Christians

Nick Christians

Nick Christians has been a member of the Department of Horticulture faculty since 1979. In 1996, Christians won an R&D 100 Award in a competition that honors the year’s top 100 products of technological significance. Christians is a turfgrass expert. While studying the effect of a fungal pathogen, Christians was growing the organism on corn meal in a lab and incorporating it into an experimental golf course green. Untreated corn meal was applied to adjacent areas. The fungal organism didn’t reduce grass stands as expected, but Christians noticed the untreated corn meal kept grass from establishing. He learned the protein from the corn was stopping root formation, and began experimenting with corn gluten meal (CGM), a by-product of the corn wet milling industry. He found CGM controls crabgrass and other weeds when applied before plants emerge. He also found CGM is a good source of slow-release nitrogen. The potential to use corn gluten meal as a natural “weed and feed” product for lawns became obvious, and Christians applied for a patent, receiving it in 1991. The patent was reissued in 1993 with broader claims that cover the use of corn gluten meal on field crops and home gardens. Two additional U.S. patents also were issued in 1993 on the technology, plus international patents in Canada and Australia have been obtained.

Fast fact: The first company to market the product dubbed it “A-Maizing Lawn.” Now at least 20 companies hold licenses to sell the product under a variety of names.

Study abroad program has wide appeal

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has a lot to boast about when it comes to opportunities available for students to travel and study abroad. There are several options for students to take advantage of within the study abroad program, including travel courses, exchanges and internship opportunities. Of the 355 students who graduated in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in May 2007, 86 had studied abroad in 23 countries on seven continents. The countries visited were Brazil, Germany, Peru, Uruguay, Mexico, Panama, France, The Netherlands, Denmark, Costa Rica, Argentina, Australia, China, South Korea, Ireland, Tanzania, Ghana, Spain, Honduras, Morocco, Ukraine, Uganda, Scotland and Antarctica. Of those 86 students in the May 2007 graduating class, 15 went on more than one program. Four of those participated in three programs, all on different continents.

Fast Fact: The photo featured here is the winner of the 6th Agriculture Study Abroad Photo Contest in the cultural content division. The photo was taken by a student studying in Uganda in summer 2007. The photo contest is sponsored by the Study Abroad office and featured photos are posted on their Website and in Curtiss Hall.

Agriculture Journalism

William Ogilvie

Journalism at Iowa State began in the Stockyards Inn at Chicago where a group of cattlemen had gathered during the International Live Stock exposition of 1904. John Clay, the head of a prominent livestock commission firm, complained that few journalists were competent to write about agricultural matters. Clay’s comments were overheard by Charles F. Curtiss, agriculture dean at Iowa State College. Curtiss said Iowa State would be willing to provide instruction in agricultural writing if the means could be found and Clay agreed to finance the project on an annual basis. One year later, in the fall of 1905, he and 14 agricultural leaders and editors came to Ames to inaugurate the class. The one-credit agricultural journalism class was offered once a week. William H. Ogilvie, editor for the Agriculture Experiment Station, was the instructor. About 30 agricultural students elected to take the class the first year. By 1911 eight classes were offered to about 200 students. In the fall of that year, at the request of a number of women in home economics, female students were admitted to journalism classes set up for the study of home economics reporting. In 1920 a four-year curriculum in agricultural journalism was offered. The department was officially recognized in 1925 as the Department of Technical Journalism in the College of Agriculture, offering majors in agricultural and home economics journalism. A master’s program in technical journalism was first offered in 1947.

Fast fact: The Iowa State Daily got its start more than 117 years ago. First named the Iowa Agricultural College Student, the student-run newspaper was launched Aug. 7, 1890.

Don Muhm

Don Muhm

Perhaps one of the best-known graduates of the agricultural journalism program at Iowa State was Don Muhm. Muhm was born on a tenant farm near Kanawha. A high school English teacher encouraged him to write, which took him to Iowa State, where he graduated in 1952. While at Iowa State, he worked as a campus correspondent for several news organizations and on the Iowa State Daily staff. Muhm spent two years in the Army before working 39 years at daily newspapers, including time at the Marshalltown Times-Republican and five years as farm editor of the Omaha World-Herald before going to work for the Des Moines Register and Tribune. He was given Iowa State’s James W. Schwartz Distinguished Service to Journalism award in 1982 and named a distinguished graduate of Iowa State’s College of Agriculture in 1992. When he retired in 1993, a scholarship was established in his name at ISU’s Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication and the Register named him its “Farm Leader of the Year.” Muhm died in September 2007 at the age of 78.

Fast fact: Muhm estimated he wrote more than 1,700 columns for the Des Moines Register. He also wrote 10 books.

*Some historic photographs courtesy of the University Archives.

150 Points of Pride Archives