A microbiome is a collection of microorganisms — including bacteria, fungi and other microbes — found in a particular environment or area, said John Gustafson, AMP program co-director. Gustafson is also the biochemistry and molecular biology department head and a professor.
“Right now, fundamentally, it’s a new science, microbiome science, and we’re all learning it as we go,” Gustafson said.
Students are coming to college with less science experience, resulting in a lack of STEM understanding overall, said Christopher Eck, AMP co-director and agricultural education associate professor.
STEM, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics, refers to the interconnected academic disciplines and career fields available among them, Eck said.
AMP was originally created with the intent to bridge the communication gap between scientific research and community understanding, Gustafson said. The program provides students with a valuable opportunity to learn about agricultural microbiome sciences at an early stage in their development, he said.
Gustafson and Eck received a USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Agricultural Non-Formal Education grant, providing funding for the project through August 2027.
The project began with just the co-founders but soon grew to a collaboration among multiple programs, Gustafson said.
“We got some fantastic people from multiple departments within the Ferguson College of Agriculture and Extension,” Gustafson said. “You have to when you consider the number of disciplines that are represented under the Agriculture Microbiome Program.”
Microbiome research is important because it can be used to help everyone be more purposeful in what they do in agricultural production, Eck said. This research can help producers make informed decisions on fertilizer application, pesticide application, feed additives, feedstuffs and more as work progresses in cultivating each microbiome, he added.
Source : okstate.edu