Biodiesel Cold-Weather Testing

A partnership between Purdue Univesity, the Indiana Soybean Alliance, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Alaska Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station resulted in an interesting cold-weather test of Permaflo (TM) Biodiesel.

Permaflo is a specially formulated to improve the cold-weather properties of biodiesel.  A cold-flow fractionation process is used to separate the saturated and unsaturated oil molecules from each other.  The unsaturated molecules, which are used for Permaflo, have a lower cloud point temperature (i.e., temperature at which the diesel gels/crystallizes).  Permaflo has a cloud point temperature as low as -67°F.  For more information about Permaflo, see the FAQ from the Indiana Soybean Alliance.

The cold-weather test, which took place in Alaska, had two components: transportation and stationary power generation.  Two vehicles running Permaflo were driven from Anchorage to Fairbanks, which is over 300 miles.  Then one vehicle was driven to the Arctic Circle, which is an additional 200 miles, where the group camped overnight using a generator running Permaflo.  During the test, updates and photos were posted on the Indiana Soybean Alliance website.

2007 Census of Agriculture

Today the 2007 Census of Agriculture data was made available from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.  From the census website, “The Census of Agriculture, taken every five years, is a complete count of U.S. farms and ranches and the people who operate them. The Census looks at land use and ownership, operator characteristics, production practices, income and expenditures, and many other areas.”  The website provides other basic information about the 2007 census.

Data from the three previous censuses are also available online: 2002 | 1997 | 1992
Historical censuses (i.e., 1840-1950) are available in pdf format.

Full text in CAB Abstracts

CAB Abstracts is a leading database for the applied life sciences, including agriculture; environmental sciences; and human health, food and nutrition.

As of January 1, 2009, CAB Abstracts includes all full text content that was previously available only with a separate subscription. As a result, over 30,000 journal articles, reports and conference papers are now available full text (in pdf format) to ISU faculty, staff and students. Please note that CAB Abstracts includes over 5 million records, so only a small percentage of these will be available full text. Nevertheless, the full text content is often not available electronically elsewhere, because CABI focuses on hard to find research.

Lists of the full text journals and conferences (as of October 2008).

ISU’s current subscription to CAB Abstracts is limited to one simultaneous user. If you have trouble accessing the database because of this, please let me know so that I can consider increasing the number of users allowed.

Where Does Thanksgiving Dinner Come from?

Here’s a fun example of using geographic information systems (GIS) to map agricultural data – Thanksgiving Maps, Posters, and Geospatial Data.

Linda Zellmer, the Government Information and Data Services Librarian at Western Illinois University, used GIS to map where traditional Thanksgiving foods (e.g., green beans, potato, pumpkin, turkey) are produced in the United States.  Using 1997 and 2002 Census of Agriculture data, she has created two sets of maps, and when the 2007 Census of Agriculture data becomes available next year, she plans to create a new set of maps.

The most recent poster uses 2002 Census data.