Tom Shanower Center Director USDA-ARS-NPA Grain Marketing & Production Research Center 1515 College Avenue, Room 269 Manhattan KS 66502 (785) 776-2701

The Grain Marketing and Production Research Center's mission is to solve problems relating to the conservation, production, harvesting, storage, marketing, and utilization of grain. Research emphasizes maximizing nutritional value, consumer acceptance, and end-use performance while conserving resources and maintaining overall quality during handling, conditioning, and storage. Major research concerns wheat, sorghum, and corn; other investigations include rice, barley, oats, soybeans, and triticale.

Located in Manhattan, Kansas, the Center is administered by the Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture. A focal point for grain marketing research, the Center is located in the heart of the Great Plains, which includes 13 states that produce more than two-thirds of all U.S. wheat, corn, and soybeans. Research is conducted in cooperation with Kansas State University, and an extramural program is conducted in cooperation with several universities, industries, and scientific institutes.

Operating from a 60,000 square foot facility and the nation's only research grain elevator (50,000 bushel capacity), the Center is composed of five research units. The Biological Research Unit develops new methods for controlling insect pests in grain and food products. The Engineering Research Unit provides new tools for measuring grain quality and for segregating grain based on these different quality attributes. The Grain Quality and Structure Research Unit is determining the relationships between the chemical content of different types of grain and the end-use quality needs for various products that are made from them. The Plant Science and Entomology Research Unit is investigating the ability of insect pests and diseases to attack the wheat plant at the genetic level and they are producing wheat germplasms that provide resistance to these diseases and pests. The Wind Erosion Research Unit is developing methods for controlling wind erosion of the soil along with an expert software system that can be used to determine the effectiveness of various erosion control systems.