Recent California Chapter Activities
Carl Old

Since the national governing council met in July the California ARPAS chapter held the annual “Bang for Your Buck” trap shoot fundraiser. More than 120 participants met at the Kingsburg Gun Club for an afternoon of trap shooting and a steak dinner. This year more than $12,000 was raised to sponsor scholarships and fund research. 

The annual continuing education conference was held in late October at Harris Ranch, Coalinga. During the two day meeting talks were presented on fetal programming and control of embryonic growth (Joel Caton), pre-ruminant growth and impact on production (Jud Heinrichs), growth and development in meat animals (Brad Johnson) and mathematical modeling of growth (Ermias Kebreab). Special thanks to Kirk Klasing, UC Davis, for stepping in at the last minute for Bill Rumpler and presenting a talk on the interaction between nutrients and immunity in farm animals. Due to the government slowdown on October, Bill was unable to present his scheduled talk.

Graduate student scholarships were awarded to Jill Soderstrom ( UC Davis) who received the Kutches Scholarship; Nadia Swanepoel ( UC Davis) and Nicole Einfalt (Cal Poly, SLO) were recipients of the Memorial Scholarship. Undergraduate scholarships were awarded to Hannah Daley (Chico State) and Colton Negus (Cal Poly, SLO).

Tim Riordan, Marit Arana (California ARPAS liaisons with CDFA) and the research committee, headed by Jim Oltjen, in cooperation with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and the Almond Hullers and Processors Association are evaluating new methods for the determination of almond hull quality. Jim’s group is also looking for samples of pure stand alfalfa hay that have measured ME; these samples are needed for further work on the NIR equations for estimating ME content of pure stand alfalfa hay.