{"id":1360,"date":"2022-09-26T19:38:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T19:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/?p=1360"},"modified":"2025-11-12T17:28:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T17:28:05","slug":"graduate-students-and-grants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/2022\/09\/26\/graduate-students-and-grants\/","title":{"rendered":"Native Texas Perennial Bunchgrass for Bioenergy Feedstock and Ruminant Nutrition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Animal Science graduate student Ms. Olivia Lasater (major professor Dr. Barry Lambert) received a prestigious USDA-NIFA Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) graduate research grant of $14,443 to support her thesis work titled, <em>&#8220;Native Texas Perennial Bunchgrass for Bioenergy Feedstock and Ruminant Nutrition.&#8221;<\/em> Her research compliments a $342,033 US Department of Transportation SUN grant involving Tarleton professors Drs. Stuart Weiss and Edward Osei along with Tarleton graduate Mr. Randy Bow at Texas Native Seeds (TAMU Kingsville Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute) and Dr. Jim&nbsp;Muir&nbsp;at Texas A&amp;M AgriLife Research and the Wildlife and Natural Resource Department. Five partner institutions in Texas, Missouri and Louisiana involve four COANR graduates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the Southern SARE website, \u201cthe main objective of the Graduate Student Grants is to prepare the next generation of scientists in researching sustainable solutions to the challenges farmers and ranchers face each day, and to prepare young professionals to work together with other scientists, educators, and farmers to test sustainable ag theories in real-world, on-farm situations.\u201d Every year graduate students from across the southern USA, including PhD candidates at Land Grant Universities, compete for these funds to support their graduate research. Applicants must write the grant themselves, as Ms. Lasater did in one of the COANR graduate writing courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ms. Lasater\u2019s thesis research involves collecting data from Native Texas Seeds research plots in 5 Texas ecoregions. These data will indicate if species hold promise for forage, conservation, wildlife and bioenergy feedstock. These multiple uses will be important in ensuring that Texas ranches are environmentally and economically sustainable as they diversify their use of native Texas bunchgrasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Written and Submitted by Dr. Jim Muir<\/em>, Texas A&amp;M AgriLife<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/228\/2022\/09\/IMG_1617-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Person measuring grass with a tape measure in a field.\" class=\"wp-image-1361\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/228\/2022\/09\/IMG_1617-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/228\/2022\/09\/IMG_1617-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/228\/2022\/09\/IMG_1617-300x400.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/228\/2022\/09\/IMG_1617-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/228\/2022\/09\/IMG_1617-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/228\/2022\/09\/IMG_1617-1568x2091.jpg 1568w, https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/228\/2022\/09\/IMG_1617-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption>Graduate student Olivia Lasater conducting field work for her Thesis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Animal Science graduate student Ms. Olivia Lasater (major professor Dr. Barry Lambert) received a prestigious USDA-NIFA Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) graduate research grant of $14,443 to support &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":702,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,19,40],"tags":[30,31,34,32,33],"class_list":["post-1360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grant","category-in-the-news","category-research","tag-animal-science","tag-graduate-student","tag-masters-degree","tag-thesis","tag-usda"],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"keegan","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/author\/keegan-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/228\/2021\/12\/Campus-Scenes_Fall-2021_9279-300x200.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/category\/grant\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Grant<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/category\/in-the-news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">In the News<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/category\/research\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Research<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Grant<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">In the News<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Research<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/category\/research\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Animal Science<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/category\/research\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Graduate Student<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/category\/research\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Masters Degree<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/category\/research\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Thesis<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/category\/research\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">USDA<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Animal Science<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Graduate Student<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Masters Degree<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Thesis<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">USDA<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 4 years ago","modified":"Updated 5 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 26, 2022","modified":"Updated on November 12, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 26, 2022 7:38 pm","modified":"Updated on November 12, 2025 5:28 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"Tarleton State University ring sculpture on campus.","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3718,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions\/3718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/coanr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}