
Laser Illuminates Livestock Menus on the RangeBy Don Comis August
7, 1998Roaming the range with a laser aimed at livestock droppings could allow
instant analysis of a cow or sheep's diet. An animal with peculiar tastes for
a weed could be a potential sire of generations of "designer mowers." That's Dean M. Anderson's vision. He's an
Agricultural Research Service animal
researcher at the 193,000-acre Jornada
Experimental Range near Las Cruces, New Mexico. The vision came from a test
in a darkened physics lab at New Mexico State
University when laser bursts were fired at a sheep pellet mounted on a pin. The laser excited the pellet's electrons, generating a telltale pattern of
light wavelengths on the screen of a computer connected to the laser. Linking
this image to chemicals found in plants reveals an animal's diet. Then,
researchers might better advise ranchers on how to match grazing animals to
their lands. For example, if sheep crave a certain weed that goats won't eat,
it would make sense to recommend sheep on land with that plant. Anderson has teamed up with scientists at
Sandia National Laboratoryin Albuquerque to test the technique with xenon lamps and other alternatives to
laser light that are more readily available and less destructive. They have analyzed more than 100 samples of plants and manure and found
light fingerprints of many plants including alfalfa. The
U.S. Bureau of Land Management plans to help
fund the research this year. The technique has possible applications for monitoring the diets of wildlife
as well. An article on the light experiments appears in the August issue of ARS' Agricultural
Research magazine. The article also is on the World Wide Web at: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/aug98/shot0898.htm Scientific Contacts: Dean M. Anderson, Jornada Experimental Range,
Las Cruces, New Mexico, phone (505) 646-5190, fax (505) 646-5889,
[email protected]. U.S. Department of Agriculture | |