Transportation and Marketing

Specialty Crop Multi-State Program

Fiscal Year 2021 Description of Funded Projects

Number of Grants Awarded: 14

Amount of Funds Awarded: $9,988,944.00

For more information, please visit the grant program's website: 

https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/grants/scmp

NOTE: The below project descriptions were provided by the grant recipients.

California

Recipient: California Department of Food and Agriculture

Project Type: Research

Award Amount: $915,263.00

Enhancement of specialty crop seed germination, seedling vigor, and pest management using 

cold plasma technology 

Low and inconsistent seed germination and seedling vigor are major bottlenecks in the production of 

many specialty crops, including greenhouse ornamental and vegetable plugs (seedlings). Production 

practices promoting seed germination and seedling vigor are of particular importance to organic 

producers, who have higher disease and pest pressures and considerably fewer options available in 

terms of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Recent scientific studies show that cold plasma treatments 

can significantly increase seed germination percentage, elicit earlier germination and therefore reduced 

production costs, and significantly increase seedling vigor due to better growth and suppression of seed 

pathogens. The California Department of Food and Agriculture, in collaboration with four institutions in 

four states (University of California Davis (principal investigator), University of Minnesota, University of 

Maryland, and Cornell University (NY)), plan to demonstrate and disseminate solutions to enhance 

seedling plug productions and pest and disease management through optimized cold plasma treatments 

of specialty crops seeds. Systems to perform cold plasma treatments of large samples of seeds are 

commercially available and cost-effective, so outcomes from this project can be readily adopted by 

specialty crop producers. In this project, integration of optical sensing is proposed as a highly innovative 

approach to real-time and cost-effective quality control of cold plasma treatments. To maximize project 

impact, a stakeholder advisory board is included and consulted throughout the project period. Due to 

the broad relevance of seed germination and seedling vigor, project outcomes have direct relevance to 

producers for a wide range of annual specialty crops. 
Recipient: California Department of Food and Agriculture

Project Type: Research

Award Amount: $878,971.00

Climate ready Vines for the Western United States 

Traditionally, trees have been used to shade and cool buildings. However, they can take many years to 

grow to a size that is effective in providing these services. Few vine species have been studied for their 

ability to mitigate solar loads onto buildings thereby reducing the surface temperatures of walls. Vines 

on trellises have the potential to render similar cooling effects and can be cultivated at a much faster 

rate than trees. However, a rigorous evaluation that compares the performance of a large number of 

vines taxa has not been conducted. This project seeks to demonstrate the growth rates and water needs 

of different vines and the impact of these variables on the ability to reduce temperature around 

structures in the various climates across the Western US. This is a multi-state collaborative research 

effort to evaluate and monitor potential energy saving, water use, ecological, and horticultural 

characteristics of vine plants across different climates and latitudes. Participating institutions with five 

study sites located in Arizona, California (2 sites), Utah, and Washington will capitalize on an existing 

network of multi-state research infrastructure. Based on standardized experimental protocols, the 

project will generate data, knowledge, and information needed to develop a robust database of vine 

plants suitable for different climates. This will inform best management practices and the assessment of 

the associated ecosystem services to achieve multi-functional vine selection and management across 

the western states.

Recipient: California Department of Food and Agriculture

Project Type: Research

Award Amount: $871,052.00

2022 Investigate Remediation of Smoke Impacted Grape Juice and Wine through the 

Development of Unique Phenol Glycosidases and Resins for Volatile Phenol Removal 

Grapes are the highest value crop in the United States and there are more than one million acres of 

grape-bearing land, 96% of which is located on the West Coast. The grape and wine industry have an 

economic impact of > $140 billion. In recent years the grape growing regions on the West Coast have 

experienced catastrophic wildfires. Climate experts agree that wildfires will occur with greater 

frequency and intensity. Persistent exposure to smoke can compromise the quality and value of wine 

grapes and adversely affect wines. The 2020 wildfires alone resulted in an estimated $3.5 billion loss in 

revenue. Currently there are no effective remedial actions available to the industry for smoke impacted 

grape juice and wine resulting in devastating losses when wildfires occur. This project proposes the 

development of a novel treatment option in grape juice and wine that will selectively remove the smoke 

impact compounds without impacting the overall quality of wine. Designer enzymes in combination with 

optimized resins will be employed and treatment guidelines based on juice and wine matrix specifics will 

be developed in partnership with grape and wine entities in California, Oregon, and Washington State.
Recipient: California Department of Food and Agriculture

Project Type: Research

Award Amount: $795,194.00

Understanding and Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Spinach 

Spinach, a highly nutritious leafy green vegetable produced largely in California, Arizona, and Texas, is 

valued at over $500 million. Nitrogen fertilization, necessary for high yield and desirable leaf quality, 

poses environmental concerns, especially to ground and surface water quality. Current nitrogen rates 

are as high as 225 kg/ha for baby spinach. Increasingly stringent nitrogen management regulations 

require growers to carefully manage their nitrogen applications. Growing spinach with lower nitrogen 

fertilization would be desirable as long as production can be maintained, and quality is adequate. Our 

project addresses this issue by incorporating spinach germplasm that remains dark green under lower N 

fertilization rates into breeding populations and to use genomic and phenomic tools to predict yield and 

accelerate selection programs, resulting in faster genetic gain. Further, we will identify the biochemical, 

physiological, and genetic reasons that some plants that can produce and remain darker green at lower 

nitrogen fertilization rates. New germplasm and tools (for example drone-mounted imaging tools) 

better suited to lower fertilization management will be developed, benefitting growers and consumers, 

as well as limiting pollution.

Recipient: California Department of Food and Agriculture

Project Type: Research

Award Amount: $554,663.00

Optimization of Habitat to Support Pollinators and Reduce Pests: Removing Barriers to Habitat 

Adoption in Highbush Blueberry 

Highbush blueberry requires pollination typically achieved through managed honeybees and/or wild bee 

populations. Uncertain honeybees supply and health concerns after blueberry contracts, combined with 

honeybees not being optimal pollinators of blueberries, make support of wild pollinators essential to 

future production and competitiveness of U.S. blueberry crop. It is well-established that habitat near 

blueberry crops increases wild pollinators, pollination, and crop production, which can increase 

revenues by $15,000/ha. Yet, a major impediment to the uptake of habitat measures by blueberry 

growers is the perceived risk of increased pest pressure in crops resulting from habitat inadvertently 

increasing pests of concern such as spotted wing drosophila. To address this issue and increase 

optimization and uptake of habitat, we will conduct a review of non-blueberry plants that support key 

pests in blueberry using literature and stakeholder interviews, conduct novel research to further inform 

key pest alternate host plants in five primary blueberry growing states, create a web-based tool to 

identify ideal pollinator supporting plants and plants to avoid or eliminate in pollinator-supporting 

habitat near blueberry, conduct an assessment of barriers, and provide extension to growers on 

pollinator habitat value, alternate host plants, habitat optimization, and cost-share and recognition 

programs. This comprehensive program will help growers create and manage habitat that they are 

confident is increasing their production without creating pest problems, resulting in greater crop yield, 

and more sustainable and competitive U.S. blueberry production.
Georgia 

Recipient: University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc.

Project Type: Research 

Award Amount: $725,248.00

Being a good neighbor, managing adjacent land use risks associated with bioaerosols from cattle 

and poultry operations to fresh produce 

Recent foodborne illness outbreaks in produce have been associated with risk of bioaerosol 

contamination from food animal production on adjacent land. However, there is a lack of data with 

respect to 1) quantifying populations of foodborne pathogens in bioaerosols; 2) modeling the potential 

for spread to nearby areas; and 3) determining if there are genetic predeterminants for pathogens 

spread by this mechanism. Without this information, we lack the foundational knowledge that is a 

prerequisite in advising produce growers regarding risks associated with adjacent animal production as 

well as investigating potential mitigation strategies, if warranted. Our multidisciplinary team of 

researchers and Extension specialists from the University of Georgia, University of Florida, and Auburn 

University will address these questions. In this project, we will target poultry, dairy, and beef cattle 

operations and sample for Shigatoxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC; dairy, beef) as well as Salmonella 

(poultry, dairy, beef) in bioaerosols during the typical production window for fresh produce. Through 

this approach we will quantify populations of pathogens by particle size, stratified by location from the 

animal operation, and model these findings along with weather conditions and topography. 

Bioinformatics will provide detailed insight regarding genetic similarity among isolates and other drivers 

that may play a role in fitness or virulence. Lastly, outputs from this work will be shared with producers 

and other Extension colleagues to disseminate science-based knowledge of hazards associated with the 

interface of animals and fruit and vegetable production. 

Iowa

Recipient: The University of Iowa

Project Type: Research 

Award Amount: $461,000.00

Southeast Potato Initiative to Improve Marketability and Resilience to Environmental Stress 

Through Breeding, Modeling and Economics 

Scientists from the University of Iowa and Montana State University propose to investigate a series of 

new fertilizer additives that will improve the performance of sweet corn, seed potatoes, and radishes to 

heat and drought stress to ensure their harvest yields. These fertilizer additives will be investigated in 

greenhouses and in farm fields to identify the additives that can double the survival of crops to heat and 

drought stress while maintaining, or possibly improving, their harvest yields. Heat and drought stress are 

responsible for lowering harvest yields, and they are increasing in frequency due to changes in climate. 

This proposal will identify inexpensive fertilizer additives that can greatly increase the survival of 

specialty crops to these environmental stressors. Importantly, these fertilizer additives have also been 

shown to increase harvest yields in prior work in greenhouses and in season-long field trials of other 

crops. Because these fertilizer additives are inexpensive and only small amounts will be needed to 

protect crops from heat and drought stress, they can be commercialized upon completion of this grant. 

To translate this work to commercial applications, field trials will be completed each year of this 
proposal to investigate the effects of optimized additives on seed potatoes and sweet corn. In addition, 

an agriculture start-up company that was launched in 2018 can commercialize these fertilizer additives. 

This project will benefit farmers who grow sweet corn, potatoes, and radishes by ensuring strong 

harvest yields even in weather-challenging years. 

Massachusetts

Recipient: Boston Area Gleaners, Inc.

Project Type: Marketing and Promotion

Award Amount: $666,300.00

Boston Food Hub: Connecting New England growers to consumers in Boston through streamlined 

food system logistics 

Boston, a city of over four million people, presents tremendous wholesale opportunities for local and 

regional growers. This project is designed to increase access to the Boston market for agricultural 

producers in the six New England states, and to reduce distribution costs through logistical efficiencies. 

Boston Food Hub (BFH), a program of Boston Area Gleaners, has relationships with dozens of area 

growers, most of whom are in Massachusetts and, increasingly, has relationships with a range of 

customers in eastern Massachusetts. With the right infrastructure and partners, Boston Food Hub can 

serve as a central distribution nexus for all of the growers in New England. This project will transform 

the capabilities of food hubs in the region, and their potential for selling regional products by bringing 

together producers, distributors, food hubs, local food enterprises and customers into a single network. 

This network will increase the volume of regional produce reaching consumers in eastern Massachusetts 

and will connect the dots of food businesses across New England. 

Mississippi

Recipient: Mississippi State University

Project Type: Crop Specific

Award Amount: $750,000.00

Advancing Optical Technologies for Enhanced Quality Evaluation, Grading 

and Sorting of Sweetpotatoes 

Sweet potato production is a key component of agricultural industries in Mississippi, North Carolina, and 

Louisiana. Grading and sorting of sweet potato storage roots for quality is performed manually, which is 

labor intensive, costly, and subject to human evaluation error. Internal quality influencing consumer 

acceptance, such as texture, flavor, and hidden defects, is usually not evaluated in current practice. Nondestructive, automated detection of both external and internal quality would allow the sweet potato 

industry to reduce labor costs while delivering superior, consistent products to the marketplace, 

enhancing consumer satisfaction and profitability of the commodity. Mississippi State University, in 

collaboration with North Carolina State University, Louisiana State University and University of Illinois 

Urbana-Champaign, aims to advance non-destructive optical technologies for enhanced quality 

evaluation, grading and sorting of sweet potatoes. Specifically, this project will: 1) develop computer 

algorithms for quantification and classification of appearance quality of sweet potatoes using machine 

vision technology; 2) evaluate hyperspectral and interactance imaging for detecting internal quality, 
including firmness, soluble solids, dry matter, and internal defects of sweet potatoes; and 3) develop 

and evaluate an automated sweet potato grading and sorting machine prototype. The research team 

will disseminate project results via peer-reviewed articles, conference presentations, social media, and 

outreach events. 

South Carolina

Recipient: South Carolina Department of Agriculture

Project Type: Research 

Award Amount: $615,466.00

Optimization of Nutritional Programs for Stone Fruit in the Southeastern U.S. 

This Project will develop and provide holistic fertilization guidelines to the stone tree fruit industry with 

accurate, timely, efficient, and effective crop nutrient information to maximize orchard growth, 

productivity, and fruit quality, while maintaining natural resources and improving long-term sustainability 

and profitability of fruit farms. This project is aligned with a key priority of the USDA Science Blueprint: 

“the reduction of environmental impacts and optimization of sustainability of agricultural systems.” Our 

research will focus on understanding the influence of orchard-specific characteristics on tree nutrient 

dynamics. This Project will i) assess the validity of established sufficiency levels and leaf analysis as tools 

to decide if annual applications of fertilizers are needed; ii) determine orchard nutrient restitution needs 

based on yield, rootstock, and ripening time; iii) build a model for planning fertilization needs; and iv) 

translate findings into management recommendations, sharing them with growers and extension agents 

at production meetings and through outreach publications. The outcomes of this project will allow stone 

fruit producers to better understand the effects of using nutrients dynamics information to mitigate 

losses caused by overfertilization, reduce the impact of nutrients in the environment, choose appropriate 

fertilization practices, and make management decisions to increase profitability. The results of this 

research will be communicated to the southeastern tree fruit growers to allow for the effective use of 

fertilizers for stone tree fruit production. The ultimate goal of the project is to provide guidelines for 

fertilizer management in stone fruit tree in the Southeast U.S.

Texas

Recipient: Texas Department of Agriculture

Project Type: Research and Marketing & Promoting

Award Amount: $713,572.00

Mitigating Drought Stresses with Plant Biostimulants for Sustainable Production of Onion and 

Watermelon 

Climate change and global warming exacerbate the negative impact of drought on crop production. Plant 

biostimulants (BPs) may provide a novel, promising, and sustainable approach to enhance plant growth 

and crop yield under stressed and non-stressed conditions. This project aims to test the effects of BPs in 

mitigating drought stress in two specialty crops, onion and watermelon, at test sites in Texas and Utah. 

We will determine the efficacy of BP products based on fungi, bacteria, humic substance, and seaweed 

extracts on onion and watermelon production in controlled environments and field conditions. We will 
integrate these results to further verify their efficacy at commercial farm level. We expect to identify the 

most efficient BP products and the most responsive onion and watermelon cultivars based on their 

increased yield and quality. We expect to identify the most efficient BP products and the most responsive 

varieties of onion and watermelon for increased yield and quality. Outreach and education activities to 

disseminate project results and promote specialty crop production will occur through hosting field days 

and conferences to demonstrate and disseminate research results in Texas and Utah. Project deliverables 

include presentations at field days and conferences, fact sheets, videos, and scientific publications. All 

these deliverables will be posted on university and industrial websites. Beneficiaries of this specialty crop 

project are onion and watermelon growers and the BP industry. The long-term impact is increased yield 

and quality of onion and watermelon with reduced input of water and fertilizers. 

Recipient: Texas Department of Agriculture

Project Type: Research and Crop Specific

Award Amount: $748,040.00

Enhancing the Production, Establishment, and Marketability Success of Zoysiagrass Sod 

Zoysiagrass is a warm-season perennial turfgrass known to produce high quality with lower inputs of 

water, nutrients, and pesticides as compared to other warm-season turfgrasses in the Southeast and 

Southwest. However, its use is not as widespread as some other turfgrasses due to slower 

establishment, poor extreme temperature tolerance, and susceptibility to certain biotic and abiotic 

stresses in commercially available cultivars. Breeding efforts over the past decade have resulted in the 

development of interspecific hybrids with superior stress tolerance and appearance, which represent an 

important step in improving the environmental sustainability of managed turf. However, information is 

lacking on how to best grow-in and manage new hybrids (soon to become commercially available) at the 

FARM (sod producers) and LAWN (consumers including homeowners, installers, golf-course 

superintendents and sports field managers). This knowledge gap leaves producers and consumers to 

determine best management practices based on limited experiences and not research, likely creating 

hesitation in the adoption of economically and environmentally sustainable zoysiagrasses. A project 

team of researchers from three land-grant institutions propose to increase adoption and use of 

zoysiagrass by examining ways to 1) optimize FARM production practices to increase revenue, 2) 

optimize LAWN management practices to ensure long-term success of established sod, 3) understand 

market barriers to successful adoption of new cultivars, and 4) offer research-based recommendations 

for the management of new zoysiagrass.

Washington 

Recipient: Washington State Department of Agriculture

Project Type: Research and Crop Specific

Award Amount: $559,788.00
Hanu Pappu WSU: Fast Tracking Resistant Potato Cultivar Development for Mitigating Powdery 

Scab and Mop top virus Pest Complex 

This project aims to developing safe, effective, and economical pest and disease management solutions 

for potato growers; and the project involves conducting research in plant breeding, genetics, and 

genomics to improve crop characteristics with focus on disease resistance; and addressing post-harvest 

disease issues during storage. Outcomes include disease resistant varieties that will require less chemical 

usage there by reducing the environmental impacts. The proposed SCMP project involves a collaborative 

effort to address a disease complex that affects potato which is grown commercially in several distinct 

and widely dispersed geographic areas of the country.

Recipient: Washington State Department of Agriculture

Project Type: Research

Award Amount: $734,387.00

Beat the Heat - Mitigating Heat Damage in Caneberry 

Pacific Northwest growers lead in national production of Caneberry (raspberry and blackberry), which is 

an integral crop to rural farming communities within the region. Despite the scale and significance of 

this crop, Caneberry growers are under threat from extremes in heat due to climate change. During the 

2021 heat dome, growers in the region lost on average 30-40% of their crop, and some growers 

experienced total crop loss. The industry is unprepared to deal with extremes in heat, which are 

projected to become more frequent in the future, and need data-driven ways to effectively and 

economically “beat the heat.” This collaborative proposal among Washington State University, Oregon 

State University, and USDA-ARS addresses this need through three research- and outreach-oriented 

objectives: 1) Evaluate the impacts and cost-benefits of heat mitigation technologies across several 

cultivars and promising selections of raspberry and blackberry; 2) Examine the physiological and genetic 

mechanisms that contribute to heat tolerance across cultivars and advanced selections of raspberry and 

blackberry; and 3) Effectively disseminate project information to growers and the supporting agricultural 

research, crop consulting, and Extension community. Completion of this project will provide both short-, 

medium- and long-term benefits that will contribute to the resiliency of the caneberry industry. Benefits 

include information on cost-effective technologies to avoid or reduce the impacts of extreme heat, 

knowledge of physiological and genetic mechanisms that contribute to heat tolerance to inform 

breeding programs in trait selection for adaptation to heat, and the long-term release of cultivars better 

adapted to heat.