Texas Panhandle Research Articles

XIT: A Story of Land, Cattle, and Capital in Texas and Montana by Michael M. Miller

Reviewed by: XIT: A Story of Land, Cattle, and Capital in Texas and Montana by Michael M. Miller Renée M. Laegreid XIT: A Story of Land, Cattle, and Capital in Texas and Montana. By Michael M. Miller. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2020. Pp. 268. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index). The XIT ranch in the Texas Panhandle holds an indelible place in the history of post-Civil War cattle ranches, both in fact and in lore. Despite its relatively short existence (1882–1912), cities, museums, and businesses in Texas still celebrate the cowboy and cattle drive legacy of the XIT. Miller’s goal in XIT: A Story of Land, Cattle, and Capital in Texas and Montana is to move beyond this romanticized view of the ranch and show “the true story of how the backup plan for a group of Chicago land developers, with support of an international cartel of investors, grew into a cattle ranch that sprawled from Texas to Montana” (1). He does so by constructing a corporate [End Page 211] history of the ranch, clearly situating its origins, operations, and, ultimately, its demise within the context of Gilded Age industrial capitalism and the rise of what he terms imperial ranches. The chapters move chronologically, with Miller’s narrative constructed and driven by corporate correspondence, documents, letters, and ledgers; each chapter clearly and consistently connects the ranch’s history to corporate interests and decision-making processes. Miller begins by introducing the origins of the ranch, a three-million-acre land grant in the Texas Panhandle set aside by the legislature, from which proceeds from its land sales would finance the state’s new capitol building in Austin. A group of Chicago businessmen known as the Syndicate agreed to market and manage sales. But construction costs ballooned, and land sales failed to materialize. Miller traces the morass of Texas tax policies, political players, and controversies over building materials that pressured the Syndicate to increase profits. By 1885 they abandoned their original plan to sell the land and decided instead to use it to raise cattle. The timing was fortuitous; their entrance into the cattle business occurred alongside the rise of powerful organized lobbying groups and organizations—the first Cattle Convention and The Bureau of Animal Industry (a sub-agency of the Department of Agriculture) both emerged in 1884. Syndicate members used their extensive national and international business networks, as well as ensuring that its men held political influence at national and local levels, to protect their interests. While 1885 was not a great year to start ranching, with overstocked ranges, falling prices, and extreme weather that led to the “big cattle die-off” of 1886–87, Miller shows how modern management strategies allowed the XIT to overcome these challenges and emerge more competitive by developing efficient land, cattle, and crop management strategies. In 1890, the XIT expanded into Montana’s “Big Open,” the last of the “free” livestock ranges located between the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, as part of a business strategy to exploit shifts in transportation, production, and consumer demand. The Montana plan lasted until 1898 when it inexplicably suspended operations. It reopened in 1902, then shut down permanently in 1912, as did all XIT operations, when the Texas real estate market shifted and the Syndicate returned to its original and now profitable mission of selling the land grant’s three million acres to small ranchers, farmers, and speculators. Michael M. Miller provides a meticulously researched and intensely focused study on the men and business strategies behind the mythic XIT ranch. Although one would hope that by now readers who enjoy western history understand that the post-Civil War cattle business was, indeed, an industry, Miller not only reinforces that point, but also shows how the XIT dominated this era of imperial ranches with near hegemonic power, [End Page 212] utilizing their network of financial and political forces to help shape agricultural enterprises in Texas and the West into the twenty-first century. Renée M. Laegreid University of Wyoming Copyright © 2021 The Texas State Historical Association

Temporal and Spatial Variability of Methane Emissions from Texas Open-Lot Beef Cattle Feedyard Pens

HighlightsOpen-lot beef cattle feedyards are a source of greenhouse gas emissions.Pen surface methane emissions were quantified during the cool and warm seasons.Methane was generated in the lower anaerobic layers of the manure pack.Methane emissions decreased after rainfall due to methane oxidation or blocking of pore space.Pen surface methane emissions accounted for <1% of overall feedyard GHG as CO2eq.Abstract. Texas is one of the top beef-producing states, where annually more than five million beef cattle are finished in large feedyards on earthen-surfaced pens. Manure deposited on open-lot pen surfaces can contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as methane (CH4). Two week-long sampling campaigns were conducted in April (cool season) and August (warm season) to quantify CH4 emissions from the feedyard pen surface. Emissions were monitored before and after 12.7 mm simulated rainfall events. Temporal and spatial variabilities in emissions were quantified using automated recirculating flux chambers, a multiplexer system, and a real-time CH4 analyzer. During the cool season, mean CH4 flux was 1.09 (SD ±2.39) and 0.12 (±0.25) g animal-1 d-1 before and after rainfall, respectively. During the warm season, mean CH4 flux was 0.65 (±1.01) and 0.26 (±0.44) g animal-1 d-1 before and after rainfall, respectively. This suggested that CH4 was produced in the lower, anaerobic layer of the manure pack and CH4 emissions were inhibited following rainfall, most likely due to microbial oxidation of CH4 in the upper layers through methanotrophy or from slowing of diffusion by blocking the manure pore space. The overall mean pen surface CH4 flux was 0.53 g animal-1 d-1. This flux accounted for a small percentage (<1%) of the overall estimated feedyard GHG emissions expressed as CO2eq. Thus, efforts to mitigate GHG from open-lot beef cattle feedyards in the Texas Panhandle should focus on sources with higher percentages of overall GHG, such as enteric methane, pen surface nitrous oxide, and nitrous oxide from fertilized cropland. Keywords: Beef cattle, Flux chamber, Greenhouse gas, Manure, Methane, Rainfall.

Georgia O'Keeffe's Wartime Texas Letters by Amy Von Lintel

Reviewed by: Georgia O'Keeffe's Wartime Texas Letters by Amy Von Lintel Linda M. Grasso Georgia O'Keeffe's Wartime Texas Letters. By Amy Von Lintel. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2020. Pp. 248. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) At two different times in the 1910s, when Georgia O'Keeffe was in her twenties, she taught in Amarillo and Canyon, Texas, before becoming a professional artist. The personal and artistic importance of O'Keeffe's time in the Texas Panhandle was first explored by art historian Sharyn R. Udall in a 1988 exhibition and accompanying catalogue, O'Keeffe and Texas (Abrams). In Georgia O'Keeffe's Wartime Texas Letters, Amy Von Lintel once again brings attention to O'Keeffe's Texas years by assembling, editing, and contextualizing a well-curated sampling over more than two hundred letters that O'Keeffe wrote during her time there. Von Lintel's focus on the effects of World War I on O'Keeffe's sensibility is the book's most distinctive feature. Von Lintel's book is an intense immersion in a brief yet formative period in O'Keeffe's life and career, and it reveals how O'Keeffe used letters to sustain relationships, rehearse ideas, make meaning of emotions, chronicle experiences, and create shifting identities. As Von Lintel astutely observes, O'Keeffe was a "verbal creator" who painted "with words as well as with brushes" (2). This artistry, accompanied by nineteen beautifully reproduced color illustrations of O'Keeffe's Texas paintings, as well as the relevant work of other artists and artifacts, is on full display in this collection. Unlike Sarah Greenough's massive tome, My Faraway One (Yale University Press, 2011), which contains correspondence between O'Keeffe and photographer Alfred Stieglitz spanning three decades, Von Lintel's volume features only the letters O'Keeffe wrote while she was in Texas from August 1916 to June 1918. This editorial decision privileges O'Keeffe's syntax, consciousness, and poetic talent and highlights the significance of the region on O'Keeffe's imagination. Italicizing references to the war, identifying O'Keeffe's neighbors, colleagues, suitors, and friends, and providing international and national context about modernism, war, and local practices, the book transports readers into the era and enables us to hear O'Keeffe's voice, which is at times exuberant, angry, reflective, vulnerable, and sardonic. As interpreter and guide, Von Lintel's framing introductory chapter offers new ways to think about O'Keeffe's Texas paintings, linking them, for example, to European modernism and interpreting their images, color, and content through the lens of wartime referents. She also provides concise, insightful summaries of the letters in the conclusion of each of the book's six chapters. However, while Von Lintel helpfully parses O'Keeffe's ambivalent responses to the Great War, noting how she vacillates among a number of reactions, including skepticism, criticism, and despair, the author [End Page 356] misses opportunities to examine O'Keeffe's racial attitudes with the same depth, especially as they were expressed in the American West. For instance, Von Lintel suggests that O'Keeffe's use of the phrase "war path" is evidence that "the war gave her new metaphors for productivity" (9). But surely this idiom, as well as O'Keeffe's employment of the metaphor of scalping to express impatient anger (57, 126), references not World War I but rather the U.S. conquest of Indigenous peoples, which O'Keeffe knew well from boys' stories about the Wild West that were part of her upbringing. And while including only O'Keeffe's letters enables a narrative charged with adventure, romance, risk, and passion, the one-sided correspondence also, ironically, severs O'Keeffe from context by eliminating consideration of how her responses may have been influenced by the people with whom she was corresponding. Most of the letters Von Lintel includes, for example, are to Stieglitz, who subsequently became O'Keeffe's husband and life-long artistic champion. Nevertheless, Georgia O'Keeffe's Wartime Texas Letters is a welcome addition to studies that historicize the artist and make O'Keeffe's letters readily available. Linda M. Grasso City University of New York Copyright © 2021 The Texas...

High and Mighty

High and Mighty Kathleen Blackburn (bio) Dad liked to run as full dark thinned to morning in West Texas, cotton fields rolling out to the rim of a lilac horizon to touch the final seconds of night. The Texas panhandle escarpment is called the Llano Estacado, the staked plain, a name speaking to the endless flatness that can blind a person to his terrain. The earliest colonizers drove palos into the ground to mark the way from present-day Santa Fe to San Antonio. Otherwise, one might wander in oblivion. On the morning of Dad's CT scan results, I'm sure he stepped into the nautical twilight certain that his path was clear. But the landscape is a semi-arid savannah, a fleeting place. The southwestern plains are a playa wetland, meaning the region's water is a chimera. Sometimes real. Archeologists have discovered Paleo-Indian artifacts in excavated playas on the Llano, linking human and playa origins together. Indigenous peoples in the Paleocene roamed the panhandle along a path of ephemeral lakes. Later, Zuni shepherds followed the same glistening trail in wet seasons before the rain retreated and surface lakes vanished below the earth's surface to quench the aquifer. But to the outsider's eye, water in this place was always invisible. When imperialist Francisco Vásquez de Coronado climbed the northwestern edge of the Llano, the land spread so evenly before him, he couldn't see the shimmering wet surfaces of over twenty-thousand shallow basins carved by wind and filled with rain. Playas emerged like apparitions. When the conquistadors happened upon one, it took them by surprise. A mirage materialized into a well in the sand. Lagunas redondas! Pores for the largest aquifer in the world. But the essence of a playa is its impermanence. When they found no gold, Coronado and his men declared the land forsaken and forced their Apache captives to take them east along an ancient shepherd's path that began in what is now Lubbock. ________ These days, it is for the runner to discover terrain by foot. Dad's pace was slow at first. He had a high step, soft fall. Many mornings, I rode my bike next to him. We usually took a route that shot straight up a northbound street toward a church with a white steeple that grew like a blade from the edge of a field of cotton, marking the one-mile point. The West Texas heat didn't batter in the early hours, but the wind could be relentless. One morning, dust-filled gusts pummeled Dad and me. With each pedal downward, I lifted my body in a climb. My thighs burned. Dirt mixed in my mouth and muddied my throat. Dad moved against the wind like it wasn't there. Did he sense in those gales the mesa's formation of water and man? He made opposing the wind appear easy. When at last he glanced over his shoulder to find me trailing, he turned back. "I'll push you," he said. He took hold of my seat, and the bike jolted aright. "Pedal hard, Kate!" he cheered. "Pedal!" Over the years, there were many mornings where we contested wind, Dad's stamina like a virtue. One time, the gusts were too much for me. The church steeple grew taller, but it was still at least half [End Page 58] a mile off. Dad slowed to a stop. I climbed down from my bike and Dad stood with his hands on his hips. He surveyed the highway, the church ahead. He looked at the sky and the field alongside us, as if to scan wind. His first assignment in the Air Force was weather reconnaissance over the Pacific. As a right hand to the captain on commercial flights, he checked the dials for air pressure and airstream speeds. Watching him calculate the wind and distance, I witnessed him pilot. "You'll be okay if you wait a few minutes while I finish the run," he said, muddling question and statement. "I'll turn back at the church." He told me to take my bike a few yards into the cotton field and watched...

Distribution, Density, and Land Cover Associations of Wintering Golden Eagles in the Southern Great Plains

In addition to its resident Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos), the Southern Great Plains of North America receives an influx of migrant Golden Eagles each winter. However, little current or quantitative information is available regarding eagle presence or the species' land cover associations across the region. During the winters of 2014/2015 and 2015/2016, we surveyed Golden Eagles along 51 approximately 55-km-long road survey transects within a 136,800-km2 area of the Southern Great Plains of eastern New Mexico and the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma. Our goal was to estimate the winter density of Golden Eagles in the region and to evaluate their land cover associations. Detections were low, with an estimated regional winter density of 0.31 eagles per 100 km2. We found that Golden Eagles were detected in rangeland cover types in greater proportion, and in agricultural and other land cover types in lesser proportion, to their availability. Our results provide regulatory agencies with data that may facilitate better-informed decision making for eagle conservation in the region.

PSXI-25 The effect of plant tannins on methane and nitrous oxide emissions from dairy manure under laboratory conditions

Abstract Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG; methane, CH4; nitrous oxide, N2O) from dairy cattle manure contribute to global climate change. The aim of this study was to assess the associative effects of three different levels [0, 4 and 8% wet weight (WW) basis] of condensed tannins (CT; quebracho tannins) and hydrolysable tannins (HT; chestnut tannins) on CH4 and N2O emissions. The dairy manure consisted of a 50:50 volume mixture of fresh feces and dry manure scraped from the surface of an open-lot dairy in the Texas panhandle. Control (0% tannin), 4%, and 8% of CT or HT (w/w) were added to each bucket and homogenized with a hand mixer for 5 min. Aliquots of 220 g (WW) manure, with or without tannins, were placed into 1 L fermentation bottles (n = 3, total of 18 bottles) and incubated at 39o C for 14 days. A second set of 18 fermenters were set up in the same manner for sample collection at 0, 2, 3, 6, and 9 h to discern changes in pH and redox status. There were no differences in redox values with the addition of either tannin type to in vitro fermenters. However, application of CT to dairy manure reduced (P < 0.05-0.01) cumulative CH4 emissions by 68 to 63% at the concentrations of 4 and 8% WW, respectively, compared with the non-tannin control group. Both CT and HT decreased cumulative N2O emissions (P < 0.02). Examination of the emission kinetics revealed a tradeoff (interchange or pollution swapping) between CH4 and N2O emissions when tannins were applied to manure. These results suggested that the inclusion of 4% CT (WW) is a promising technique for reducing CH4 and N2O emissions from excreted dairy manure. Further study is warranted to investigate the effects of feeding CT and HT on manure-derived GHG in dairy systems.

159 Effect of ionophore, implant, and beta-adrenergic agonists on key indicators of sustainable beef production

Abstract Net protein contribution (NPC) of the beef value chain has been evaluated and it has been demonstrated that the beef value chain positively contributes to NPC; however, the specific role of growth-enhancing technologies has not be evaluated. To compare effects of technology on NPC baseline, performance data from 8 commercial feedlots located in the Texas panhandle (n = 6) and Kansas (n = 2) were used to create 8 scenarios: 1) no technology (NT), 2) ionophore (ION), 3) implant (IMP), 4) beta-agonist (B), 5) ionophore and implant (ION+IMP), 6) ionophore and beta-agonist (ION+B), 7) implant and beta-agonist (IMP+B), and 8) ionophore, implant and beta-agonist (I+I+B). An IMP×B interaction was observed for human-edible protein conversion efficiency (HePCE) and NPC (P ≤ 0.03). Implants and beta-agonists increased HePCE and NPC compared to NT (P < 0.01), and IMP+B was greater than combined effects of IMP and B. Ionophore scenarios had greater HePCE and NPC compared to NT (P < 0.01). Interactions for ION×IMP and IMP×B were observed for NPC of beef value chain (P < 0.03), but an ION×B interaction was not observed (P = 0.07). All technology scenarios were lower than NT for NPC (3.21 vs 3.74, respectively; P < 0.01) because HePCE for the beef value chain was reduced when cattle were fed longer in the technology scenarios. Interactions for ION×IMP, IMP×B, and ION×B were observed for enteric CH4 production feedlot cattle (P ≤ 0.03), and a three-way interaction was observed for enteric CH4 production of the beef value chain (P < 0.01). All technologies reduced enteric CH4 produced per kg of HePg compared to NT (P < 0.01). Net protein contribution should be balanced with other indicators of sustainability for a representative understanding of technology impacts on sustainable beef production.

Racial Disparities in Malignant Primary Brain Tumor Survival in Texas From 1995 to 2013.

Background: Differences among the top five races in Texas will be explored to determine if racial, geographic, and healthcare disparities exist in patients undergoing treatment for a primary malignant brain tumor.Methods: Data were obtained from the Texas Cancer Registry from 1995 to 2013. SAS 9.3 (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC) and SEER*Stat 8.3.2 (National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD) software were used to analyze death from malignant brain tumors and cause-specific survival. Survival rates were compared using Kaplan-Meier curves and Log-Rank tests. Hazard ratios were estimated using the Cox proportional hazards regression model.Results: Median survival was highest among Asians at 92 months (95% CI: 72, 142) and least among Whites at 20 months (95% CI: 19, 21). Patients living in the Upper Gulf Coast region of Texas had the longest survival time at 31 months (95% CI 29-35%), while those patients in the Texas Panhandle had the shortest survival time at 18 months (95% CI 14-23%). Patients with a poverty index of 0-5% had the highest median survival time of 32 months (95% CI 29-35%), as compared to patients with a poverty index of 10-20% who had a median survival of 22 months (95% CI 21-24%).Conclusions: Ethnic minorities and higher socioeconomic class demonstrated survival advantage. White males had the worst survival of those with primary malignant brain tumors. Other significant factors affecting a patient’s survival rate included geographic location, poverty index, sex, and age, thus suggesting a potential genetic and environmental influence.

Correlation of Ambient Temperature With Feedlot Cattle Morbidity and Mortality in the Texas Panhandle.

Anecdotal data would suggest that weather patterns influence beef cattle health in feedyards, and cattle producers often associate the seasonality of some illnesses with changes in environmental temperatures. However, to our knowledge, there is little information from large-scale feeding operations and precision weather stations that establishes a link or lack thereof between weather patterns and cattle health. Additionally, we are unaware of any studies correlating other weather parameters with animal health data. Therefore, the objective of this study was to test for associations between monthly temperature variation and animal morbidity/mortality in feedlots in the Texas Panhandle. Weather data was collected from a Texas Tech University Mesonet weather station in close proximity to 19 beef cattle feedyards in the Texas Panhandle. Additionally, near real-time morbidity and mortality data was collected from those yards from 2015 to 2018. These data document a seasonal pattern relative to cattle morbidity and mortality with most health events occurring from November to January. This pattern is differentiated when comparing morbidity and mortality by listed causation (e.g., respiratory, digestive, other), and the majority of deaths over the entire time course were attributed to respiratory disease. Most cattle morbidity was documented in the winter months, most of which were classified as respiratory disorders. Additionally, an increase in health events was observed as the population of the feedyard increased. However, the overall effects of ambient temperature on cattle health were minimal and the two may not be causally linked. The initial overview of the relationships documented in this manuscript may warrant further stratification and exploration.

Analyzing potential water conservation strategies in the Texas Panhandle

Water is a vital resource for agricultural crop production in the Texas Panhandle. This semi-arid region relies almost solely on the Ogallala Aquifer as the primary source of water. Agricultural production dominates water use in the area and is projected to account for 92% of total water use by 2020. Since agriculture is such an essential sector of the regional economy, prolonging irrigation capability through improvements in crop production methods is warranted. The area of concern and evaluation in this study consists of Texas’ northernmost 21 counties where groundwater withdrawal rates continue to exceed the aquifer’s recharge rate, resulting in less available irrigation resources. Within the region, seven counties in the Panhandle Water Planning Area of Texas are projected to incur water shortages in the 2020–2070 planning horizon. A regional analysis evaluating several agricultural water conservation strategies and combinations to address the decline of water use in the region is presented. The analysis examines potential water savings and implementation costs associated with the alternative strategies to provide useful information to stakeholders such as producers, groundwater conservation districts, and regional water planning groups.

First Report of High Plains Wheat Mosaic Emaravirus Infecting Foxtail Barley and Wheat in Canada

HomePlant DiseaseVol. 104, No. 12First Report of High Plains Wheat Mosaic Emaravirus Infecting Foxtail Barley and Wheat in Canada PreviousNext DISEASE NOTES OPENOpen Access licenseFirst Report of High Plains Wheat Mosaic Emaravirus Infecting Foxtail Barley and Wheat in CanadaI. Abdullahi, H. Bennypaul, J. Phelan, R. Aboukhaddour, and M. W. HardingI. AbdullahiCentre for Plant Health, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, North Saanich, BC, V8L 1H3, CanadaSearch for more papers by this author, H. Bennypaul†Corresponding author: H. Bennypaul; E-mail Address: Harvinder.bennypaul@canada.cahttp://orcid.org/0000-0002-3569-7376Centre for Plant Health, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, North Saanich, BC, V8L 1H3, CanadaSearch for more papers by this author, J. PhelanCentre for Plant Health, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, North Saanich, BC, V8L 1H3, CanadaSearch for more papers by this author, R. AboukhaddourAgriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lethbridge, AB, T1J 4B1, CanadaSearch for more papers by this author, and M. W. Hardinghttp://orcid.org/0000-0002-9322-1894Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, Crop Diversification Centre South, Brooks, AB, T1R 1E6, CanadaSearch for more papers by this author AffiliationsAuthors and Affiliations I. Abdullahi1 H. Bennypaul1 † J. Phelan1 R. Aboukhaddour2 M. W. Harding3 1Centre for Plant Health, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, North Saanich, BC, V8L 1H3, Canada 2Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lethbridge, AB, T1J 4B1, Canada 3Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, Crop Diversification Centre South, Brooks, AB, T1R 1E6, Canada Published Online:20 Oct 2020https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-04-20-0872-PDNAboutSectionsView articlePDFSupplemental ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailWechat View articleHigh Plains wheat mosaic virus (HPWMoV) is a monocistronic octapartite single-stranded negative-sense RNA virus in the genus Emaravirus, family Fimoviridae (ICTV 2018). It infects a number of cereal crops including wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), maize (Zea mays L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), and some weeds (Seifers et al. 1998). HPWMoV is transmitted by the wheat curl mite Aceria tosichella Keifer (Seifers et al. 2009). It can coinfect wheat with some cereal viruses including wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV) (Burrows et al. 2009). A field survey in southern Alberta, Canada, in late June 2017, evaluated 34 and 37 plants of wheat and grassy weed species, respectively, for the presence of cereal viruses. The sampled wheat plants showed yellow flecks and streaks, with some heavily chlorotic leaves showing necrotic patches along margins. Leaves with extreme symptoms were completely scorched and/or desiccated. Grassy weed species were collected nearby symptomatic wheat but did not show any typical symptoms. The incidence of symptoms varied among the sampled wheat fields, ranging from trace levels to 75% infected. RT-PCR was performed using primers WMoV-F (Byamukama et al. 2016) and WMoV-RR targeting the RNA 3B region of HPWMoV, after total nucleic acid extraction using an in-house procedure (SOP L036-02(a): KingFisher ml total nucleic acid extraction procedure, Sidney Laboratory, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, North Saanich, BC). All primer sequences, their location in the genome, and amplicon sizes are given in the supplementary table. Four wheat plants (one plant of cultivar AAC Elevate and three plants of unknown cultivar) and one foxtail barley plant (Hordeum jubatum L.) from Lethbridge County tested positive for HPWMoV. One wheat plant (cv. Glenn) from the Medicine Hat area also tested positive for HPWMoV. Results were confirmed by two independent RT-PCRs with primers targeting the RNA-6 segment (WmoV-F1 and WmoV-R1) and RNA-2 segment (WmoV-F2 and WmoV-R2), respectively. BLASTn analysis of a representative of each of the two fragments, which have been submitted to NCBI under accession numbers MT124696 and MT124697, showed that they share more than 99% sequence identity with respective RNA sequences of some HPWMoV isolates from the United States (KT988861, KJ939624, KJ939629, and KT988866). All but one of the HPWMoV-infected wheat plants were also positive for WSMV. WSMV infection was confirmed using DAS-ELISA (Agdia, U.S.A.) and RT-PCR with primers targeting the WSMV coat protein (WSMV-CP2 and WSMV-CP4, Dwyer et al. 2007). Next-generation sequencing analysis of one RT-PCR positive sample yielded 10,012,849 clean reads. The dsRNA extraction method, library preparation, sequencing, and bioinformatics analyses were done according to the method of Rott et al. (2017). The obtained clean reads were searched for viral sequences using Virtool software (https://www.virtool.ca), revealing 31 HPWMoV-specific contigs. Sixteen contigs, ranging in length from 252 to 1,728 bp, covered 72.92% of the HPWMoV KS7 isolate genome (KT988860 to KT988868) and shared 95 to 100% identity with it. This virus could be present in, or spread to, other parts of the Canadian prairies where coinfections with other wheat curl mite-transmissible viruses could occur. Coinfections of WSMV and HPWMoV have been reported to correlate with increased symptom severity (Burrows et al. 2009). WSMV infections have led to wheat yield losses of 7 to 18% in the Texas panhandle and in the North American prairies, including Alberta, Canada (Hadi et al. 2011). The appearance of HPWMoV in Canada is concerning because coinfections with WSMV could increase severity and yield loss.The author(s) declare no conflict of interest.

Effective Pronghorn Translocation Methodology: A Long‐Term Summary

ABSTRACTPronghorn (Antilocapra americana) populations in North America were once estimated at nearly 30 million. However, unrestricted harvest of pronghorn was one of the major factors that led to 25,000 individuals by 1924. Through rigorous management, pronghorn populations rebounded to an estimated 1 million individuals by 1984. Within Texas, USA, by the late 1980s, the pronghorn population had recovered to a new estimated historic high of 17,226 individuals through restoration efforts. However, by 2010, the Texas Trans‐Pecos population declined to approximately 4,700 individuals, and declined even further to only 2,751 in 2012. A main contribution to successful recovery has been large‐scale translocations. Since the early 1920s, >30,000 pronghorn have been translocated in 17 states. As one large restoration project in Texas, translocation of pronghorn from the Texas Panhandle to Marfa and Marathon grasslands in the Trans‐Pecos region occurred in January–February 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2017. However, within the available literature on pronghorn translocations, it was difficult to find a scientific paper that provides sufficient detail to guide the translocation process. Our intent is to summarize the effective methodology behind 5 years of pronghorn translocations, inform others to make evidence‐based recommendations and justifiable‐decisions when selecting translocation methodology, and provide insight regarding design and application of our translocation methodology. Based on our translocation experience, we recommend using halperidol as a sedative given to pronghorn at the site of capture and keeping handling times to ≤4 minutes as well as maintaining pronghorn body temperatures below 40° C during processing. Flunixin meglumine should be used when body temperatures exceed 40° C. In addition, we also recommend utilizing larger, more spacious livestock trailers to transport captured pronghorn versus transport boxes or smaller, more enclosed trailers. We also recommend releasing a minimum of 50–100 individuals/release site to minimize stress from group separation and improve long‐term population sustainability. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

School Funding Inequalities in the Texas Panhandle Related to the Racial, Socio-economic, and Linguistic Composition of School Districts

School Funding Inequalities in the Texas Panhandle Related to the Racial, Socio-economic, and Linguistic Composition of School Districts

Detection of the Amphibian Pathogens Chytrid Fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) and Ranavirus in West Texas, USA, Using Environmental DNA.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) methods provide novel options for the detection of pathogens. The amphibian pathogens Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) and Ranavirus have been relatively understudied in Texas, US, so we applied eDNA assays for the surveillance of these pathogens in the upper Brazos River basin near the Texas panhandle. We collected water samples from five urban playa lakes and one reservoir in and around Lubbock, Texas. Quantitative PCR detected both Bd and Ranavirus at one playa lake, representing novel detection of both pathogens in the region. Based on these results, we recommend increased monitoring for the pathogens and symptoms of amphibian disease throughout the region.

Digital cultural heritage and rural landscapes: preserving the histories of landscape conservation in the United States

This paper addresses how a digital heritage project can impact the research and interpretation of a large-scale rural cultural landscape in the United States. Due to the size and scope of rural landscapes, large-scale documentation methods are critical to advancing landscape conservation and preservation initiatives. Using an in-progress online project to document a 1935 US federally sponsored program, the Prairie States Forestry Project (PSFP), the authors show how diverse visual and textual data can be spatialised to construct a map reading of landscape change over time. To date, the PSFP is one of the largest afforestation projects in the history of the United States; the United States Forest Service and thousands of landowners undertook a series of cooperative planting agreements to plant over 200 million trees over seven years in approximately 33,000 shelterbelts from the panhandle of Texas to the North Dakota border. Due to a lack of coordinated monitoring, shelterbelt location and status was unknown, and the original archival material remained unpreserved. In the case of the Prairie States Forestry Project, the process for digitising and disseminating previously inaccessible primary source documents is an act of preservation that creates opportunities for future large-scale landscape conservation projects. The application of the archival mapping method and resulting PSFP datasets can be incorporated by individuals working on heritage documentation such as Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) reports, National Register nominations, or Cultural Landscape Reports for the National Parks Service. The dataset could also be used by private groups such as cooperative conservation land managers.

One‐way mesoscale‐microscale coupling for simulating a wind farm in North Texas: Assessment against SCADA and LiDAR data

AbstractOne‐way nested mesoscale to microscale simulations of an onshore wind farm have been performed nesting the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and our in‐house high‐resolution large‐eddy simulation code (UTD‐WF). Each simulation contains five nested WRF domains, with the largest domain spanning the north Texas Panhandle region with a 4 km resolution, while the highest resolution (50 m) nest simulates microscale wind fluctuations and turbine wakes within a single wind farm. The finest WRF domain in turn drives the UTD‐WF LES higher‐resolution domain for a subset of six turbines at a resolution of ∼5 m. The wind speed, direction, and boundary layer profiles from WRF are compared against measurements obtained with a met‐tower and a scanning Doppler wind LiDAR located within the wind farm. Additionally, power production obtained from WRF and UTD‐WF are assessed against supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system data. Numerical results agree well with the experimental measurements of the wind speed, direction, and power production of the turbines. UTD‐WF high‐resolution domain improves significantly the agreement of the turbulence intensity at the turbines location compared with that of WRF. Velocity spectra have been computed to assess how the nesting allows resolving a wide range of scales at a reasonable computational cost. A domain sensitivity analysis has been performed. Velocity spectra indicate that placing the inlet too close to the first row of turbines results in an unrealistic peak of energy at the rotational frequency of the turbines. Spectra of the power production of a single turbine and of the cumulative power of the array have been compared with analytical models.

Coast-to-Coast Empire: Manifest Destiny and the New Mexico Borderlands by William S. Kiser

Reviewed by: Coast-to-Coast Empire: Manifest Destiny and the New Mexico Borderlands by William S. Kiser Jerry Thompson Coast-to-Coast Empire: Manifest Destiny and the New Mexico Borderlands. William S. Kiser. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018. ISBN 978-0-8061-6026-9. 288 pp., cloth, $32.95. William S. Kiser, assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University–San Antonio, is emerging as one of the leading scholars on the nineteenth century history of the American Southwest, particularly New Mexico. Fresh on the heels of his thought-provoking and widely acclaimed Borderlands of Slavery: The Struggle over Captivity and Peonage in the American Southwest, Kiser now gives us an equally significant volume on Manifest Destiny in the New Mexico Borderlands. Using a wide array of impressive primary sources, he has produced a compelling volume that is informative and amounts to a first-rate analysis of a crucial period in the era of American expansionism. Although New Mexico was frequently marginalized in the national consciousness and seen as a distant backwater populated by backward peoples, Kiser points out that the territory played "an important role in the sweeping nineteenth-century transformation of American capitalism and democracy" (284). Kiser has a superb understanding of Gen. Henry Hopkins Sibley's New Mexico Campaign and the Confederate's ill-fated attempt to seize the territory in 1861–62 that led to the bloodletting at Valverde and Glorieta. Unlike previous accounts that portray General Sibley and his zealous Texas farm boys as having a real chance [End Page 328] of seizing not only New Mexico but also Colorado's silver mines and even California's gold fields and its warm weather ports, Kiser concludes that the Rebels, laying Sibley's inept leadership aside, had little hope of success from the outset. He is correct. The entire Confederate adventure in New Mexico was little more than suicidal, a badly flawed example of Sibley's and Jefferson Davis's grandiose ideas of a Confederate Manifest Destiny in the Southwest. Had Col. Edward Richard Sprigg Canby's regulars and New Mexico Volunteers been unable to expel the Texans, the Pikes Peakers, as the Texans called the men from Colorado, along with Gen. James Henry Carleton's California Column, who were arriving on the Rio Grande in large numbers, would certainly have done so. In fact, a company of Pikes Peakers had fought at Valverde in February 1862, and a larger force of Coloradoans turned the Rebels back at Glorieta Pass five weeks later. During the brutal and genocidal campaign against the Navajos in the winter of 1864, Carson's New Mexico Volunteers, Kiser writes, flushed "the Indians from the impregnable" Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto (172). Although Carson did indeed deal the Navajos a devastating blow, even destroying their hogans, slaughtering thousands of sheep, and razing 4,150 peach trees, as Kiser aptly points out, many Navajo never capitulated and remained behind in the vast recesses of the twisting sandrock canyons. These Diné escaped the Long Walk and the despicable and deadly concentration camps of the Bosque Redondo, where they were subjected to disease, starvation, and exposure, in what amounted to one of the most disgraceful social experiments in American history. Kiser is also spot-on in his discussion of Carleton's attempt to suppress the Kiowa and Comanche in the Texas Panhandle in 1864. In the largest battle between the US Army and Native Americans in the history of Texas, Col. Kit Carson came close to losing his entire expedition of 335 California cavalrymen and New Mexico Volunteers, alongside 75 Jicarilla Apache and Ute auxiliaries, at Adobe Walls on November 25, 1864, but for two small mountain howitzers. In fact, Adobe Walls came very close to being an early version of Little Big Horn, although Carson never admitted it. In one place, when discussing Gen. Stephen Watts Kearney's conquest of New Mexico and preparations by Governor Manuel Armijo to defend Santa Fe, Kiser refers to Apache Pass when he probably means Apache Canyon (46–47). When detailing the fighting between Texas Confederates and Colorado Pikes Peakers in the same general area in March 1862, he again refers to Apache Pass...

Billy and Olive Dixon: The Plainsman and His Lady by Bill O’Neal

Reviewed by: Billy and Olive Dixon: The Plainsman and His Lady by Bill O’Neal Chuck Parsons Billy and Olive Dixon: The Plainsman and His Lady. By Bill O’Neal. (Fort Worth: Eakin Press, 2019. Pp. 259. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) The names of Billy and Olive Dixon are household words in the Texas Panhandle, just as they should be. At the Battle of Adobe Walls in 1874 Dixon made a remarkable shot with his Sharps “Big Fifty” rifle, shooting a Comanche nearly three-quarters of a mile away. Dixon later claimed it was a “scratch shot” made with a borrowed Sharps, not with his regular weapon. Certainly an element of luck played into it, but two months later Dixon and other hunters were trapped in a buffalo wallow, surrounded by Comanche, again fighting for their lives. Dixon’s actions in this latter engagement earned him the Medal of Honor. The book is written from reliable sources. Dixon himself composed his autobiography; Olive Dixon wrote many articles and other materials that provided additional information about him and his contemporaries. In addition, John L. McCarty wrote a biography of Olive entitled Adobe Walls Bride (Naylor, 1955). Much of the other material O’Neal used is housed in the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, a valuable resource for any historian dealing with Texas and the American Southwest. A lesser historian would have found these materials sufficient, but O’Neal, a modern historianus herbidus (202), visited the ground where his subjects walked. He not only spent a day at Adobe Walls battleground but also visited most of the museums in the Panhandle counties, and he also created many of the illustrations in Billy and Olive Dixon. Billy Dixon himself may have felt most comfortable on the buffalo range. That he ever married is probably due to Olive King’s influence, because Billy was shy when meeting a woman. He would have remained a [End Page 473] bachelor if not for the “adventurous young schoolmarm” (1) who had left Virginia to visit her cowboy brother in the Panhandle. She fell in love with the land, and when her brother’s sod house became crowded due to her newborn nephew, she contemplated returning to Virginia. Fortunately for history she obtained a teaching position in a school south of the Canadian River. Billy Dixon lived five miles away and the two met in late 1893 through one of Olive’s friends. They were married in late 1894; he was forty-five, she was twenty-one. O’Neal’s dual biography is the first solid work on Dixon in more than fifty years. It is as much a biography of the buffalo hunter as a study of how two people lived on one of the last North American frontiers. As Billy Dixon started to suffer from his years outdoors in severe weather, the couple began to work on his autobiography. After his death in 1913, she continued the work and eventually had manuscripts all over the house. Olive Dixon collected interviews with old-timers and provided much valuable material to the fledgling museum in Canyon, today the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum. Readers will appreciate not only Billy and Olive Dixon as a fine love story, but also as background for the founding and growth of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, which continues to offer assistance to historians. Chuck Parsons Luling, Texas Copyright © 2020 The Texas State Historical Association

Appalachian Movements

Appalachian Movements Phillip J. Obermiller (bio) and Thomas E. Wagner (bio) Movement, n. 1) the act or process of moving or a change of place or position; 2) a series of organized activities working toward an objective or an organized effort to promote or attain an end1 The economic refugees who moved from Appalachian coalfields and farms during the Great Migration brought their heritages with them. Their foodways, religious practices, music, speech patterns, and family networks made them an identifiable group, not in their own eyes—all this came naturally to them—but to long-term residents in the migrants’ urban destinations.2 Today Appalachia remains the source of beliefs and behaviors that some revere and others revile. Already uncomfortable with urban ethnic and racial changes occurring during the twentieth century, established majorities used [End Page 67] prevailing stereotypes of white Southerners to discriminate against Appalachian migrants in the areas of education, health care, housing, public services, and civic life.3 In many cases Appalachians insulated themselves from this prejudice by coalescing in labor unions, churches, neighborhoods, and their extended families. They also formed groups that celebrated their heritage, engaged in self-help, promoted social service delivery to those in need, founded community schools, affirmed their collective Appalachian identity and, in a few instances, served as the basis for resistance and advocacy. Consequently, Appalachian migration and the organizing efforts of those migrants have become an essential component of the regional narrative for scholars and activists alike. While there is no general agreement among scholars on whether there is an Appalachian movement equivalent to the labor movement, the women’s movement, or the movement for civil rights, rural and urban Appalachians have established independent social movement organizations (SMOs).4 Elements of an Appalachian movement emerged in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, an era of organizing among both rural and urban Appalachians. The Appalachian People’s Service Organization (APSO) was founded by the Episcopal Church in 1965, along with the ecumenical Commission on Religion in Appalachia (CORA).5 These church-sponsored organizations were service oriented and at the same time concerned with uplifting the image of [End Page 68] Appalachians. In the 1970s and 1980s Appalachians formed social movement organizations including Tennessee’s Save Our Cumberland Mountains (1972), Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (1981), and Kentucky’s Community Farm Alliance (1985), to name a few.6 These latter groups were involved in issues on education, formulating and promoting new governmental policies, the environment, and promoting structural change.7 This essay describes the causes of Appalachian migration, the patterns of out–, return, and shuttle migration, along with the outcomes of these large population shifts. Similar to immigrant groups, some of these internal migrants established organizations celebrating and promoting their mountain backgrounds. After briefly discussing seven such organizations, the essay focuses on a social movement organization deliberately founded not only to provide services and celebrate Appalachian traditions, but to advocate for social change that would positively affect Appalachian migrants and their families: the Urban Appalachian Council and its successor, the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition.8 The essay closes with a brief look at what the post-coal future may hold for Appalachian migration and migrant organizations, as well as key questions about regional migration that remain in need of scholarly attention. Appalachian Migration Outmigration from the Appalachian Mountains has been ongoing since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Some early migrants [End Page 69] left the region looking for farming opportunities in the Ozarks and the Texas panhandle while others were attracted to logging work in Wisconsin, Washington, and Oregon. Others were recruited as “lint-heads,” becoming textile workers in the mill towns of the Piedmont.9 During the twentieth century some mountaineers became migrant farm workers, harvesting corn and wheat across the Midwest or onion and tomato crops in Ohio and Indiana. Still others relocated to large metropolitan areas, taking advantage of the growing number of blue-collar jobs in cities outside of the region.10 Studies conducted during the 1920s and 1930s identified high birth rates as an underlying cause of poverty in the mountains and recommended policies favoring migration to alleviate the problem.11 Road-building programs of the New Deal...

Comparison of Lysimeter-Derived Crop Coefficients for Legacy and Modern Drought-Tolerant Maize Hybrids in the Texas High Plains

HighlightsDaily maximum crop coefficient (Kc) values were similar for legacy hybrids and a modern drought-tolerant (DT) hybrid.Later planting dates for a DT hybrid resulted in average season lengths ~25 days shorter than those of legacy hybrids.Results illustrated the effects of environment, planting date, interannual variation in temperature, and the importance of climate-specific Kc functions.DT hybrids may be more effective at reproductive growth during periods of heat stress in semi-arid environments, although additional data are needed to support this conclusion.Abstract. Corn (Zea mays L.) is a major irrigated crop grown in the Southern High Plains including the Texas Panhandle. Irrigation from the Ogallala Aquifer is required to sustain profitable corn production in the region by supplementing inadequate and erratic rainfall. Effective irrigation scheduling works to extend limited groundwater resources by avoiding water losses associated with runoff and/or percolation below the root zone. The use of crop coefficient (Kc) and reference evapotranspiration (ETo) values to estimate daily crop water use (ETc) remains an effective scheduling tool that can complement other irrigation scheduling approaches. Both Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO-56) piecewise and curvilinear Kc values for corn are found in the literature. However, advances in corn genetics have led to questions about the applicability of Kc values developed using legacy corn hybrids to irrigation of modern drought-tolerant (DT) hybrids. Lysimeter-derived Kc values for legacy corn hybrids grown in large weighing lysimeter fields at the USDA-ARS Conservation and Production Research Laboratory at Bushland, Texas, were compared with those derived from a modern DT corn hybrid recently grown in the same fields. Results indicated that although midseason daily Kc values were similar for all hybrids, average season length was ~25 days shorter for the modern DT hybrid, characterized by a shortened initial growth period followed by more rapid increase of Kc during the development period. However, plots of Kc over thermal time illustrated that the differences in season length were likely attributable to later planting dates associated with the DT corn hybrids. Average seasonal water use was 730 and 811 mm for the legacy and modern DT hybrids, respectively (three years each), with corresponding average yields of 1.2 and 1.4 kg ha-1. Results suggest that published Kc and Kcb values developed with legacy corn hybrids remain largely applicable to modern DT corn hybrids when used with accurate estimates of effective canopy-based growth stages and climate-specific Kc functions. Keywords: Crop coefficients, Drought-tolerant, Evapotranspiration, Maize, Weighing lysimeters.