Note from the Editor

Note from the Editor header image
Thoughts from editor Andy Duncan.

Why would seven professors who retired years ago keep on working? Venture to the final feature and you’ll find out.

The seven are examples. Lots of OSU Agricultural Experiment Station researchers and Extension Service faculty remain passionate about their work and make contributions to Oregon after their official "retirement."

I hope you enjoy Theresa Novak’s light-hearted article about retirees.

Also in this issue, you’ll learn about the economic and environmental footprint of Oregon’s "quiet giant," the hay and forage industry; about OSU work with the state’s innovative wine industry; and about OSU scientists whose cancer research took them from trout tanks in Corvallis to the Yangtze River delta in eastern China.

Finally, we look at an area that straddles northern California and southern Oregon. You’ve probably seen stories in the media about the "water crisis" that involves farmers, Native Americans, members of the sport and commercial fishing industries and pretty much everyone else in the Klamath Basin.

OSU and the University of California are trying to assemble a report about issues linked to water allocation policies in a huge federal irrigation project there—even while human understanding of the basin as an interconnected economic, ecological and social system continues to evolve.

The university effort has been a crash course in what can happen when game scientists from many disciplines work side by side, and with the public, on a politically charged, mega-sustainability issue.

Do you suppose the participants in that effort are learning lessons that might come in handy in other parts of Oregon and California?