Tallapoosa Counties Research Articles

Food environment index and preterm birth rate in the counties of the United States.

To determine the relationship between Food Environment Index (FEI) and Preterm Birth (PTB) rate at the county level of the United States of America (USA) (primary), while evaluating the interaction of multiple factors within a framework of sociodemographic, maternal health, maternal behavioral, and environmental factors. This is a population-based retrospective cohort ecological study from 2015-2018. The study compares the characteristics of the population of the counties of the USA. All counties with complete data on their PTB rate and the independent variables were included in the study. Independent variables with greater than 20% missing data were excluded from the study. Purposive sampling technique was applied. A total of 2983/3142 counties were included in the study. The median PTB rate of all counties was 9.90%. The highest PTB rate (23.3%) was in Tallapoosa County, Alabama and the lowest (3.4%) in San Juan County, Washington State. After adjusting for variables, PTB rate had a significant association with FEI (coefficient of correlation - 0.36, p < 0.01, 95% CI - 0.19 to - 0.04). Increase in the rate of unemployment, African American race, adult smoking, obesity, uninsured rate, sexually transmitted diseases (STD), high school education and air pollution was associated with an increase in PTB rate, while an increase in FEI and alcohol abuse rates was associated with a decrease in PTB rate. FEI can predict the PTB rate in USA counties after adjusting for sociodemographic, health, behavioral and environmental factors. Future studies are needed to confirm these associations and consider them when making policies to reduce PTBs.

Noteworthy Collections: New County Records for Solanum pseudocapsicum (Solanaceae) in Alabama

Three recent collections of Solanum pseudocapsicum represent the first documentation of this species from Alabama in 27 years, and apparently represent the only extant populations. The habitat of these collections appears to be different from that previously documented in Alabama, although it is not unusual range-wide. Solanum pseudocapsicum was last collected from Alabama in 1993 from Houston County, but searches of that location failed to relocate it. Previously it had been collected from Tallapoosa County (1877), Morgan County (1891), Lee County (1896), and Coosa County (1900), all in upland or ruderal habitats. In 2020 a small population of four plants was discovered on a floodplain near the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers and a second larger population of approximately 28 plants was located 10 km to the SW on the floodplain of the Alabama River, both in Elmore County. A third population of several dozen plants was discovered on the floodplain of the Tallapoosa River in Montgomery County.

The Life and Legacy of Ned Cobb in Conversation

The Life and Legacy of Ned Cobb in Conversation Elijah Gaddis (bio) Introduction Ned cobb passed away in november 1973 after a life whose contours spanned nearly the full spectrum of southern history. He was born to a family of freedpeople two decades after Emancipation. His early years were spent during the establishment of the Jim Crow regime in Alabama. And, in his adulthood, Mr. Cobb played an important role in some of the earliest of the multi-generational struggles against Jim Crow and for human and civil rights for African American people in the South. By the kind of cosmic coincidence that marked so much of Ned Cobb's life, a group of family members, scholars, and community folk gathered almost exactly forty-six years to the day of his death to commemorate and discuss his remarkable life. The conversation here was the centerpiece of a symposium held at the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities at Auburn University on November 5, 2019. Among those convened were Theodore ("Ted") and Dale Rosengarten. Dale wrote one of the earliest studies of Mr. Cobb and the Sharecropper's Union (SCU), the radical organization that he belonged to in the 1930s.1 Ted molded Mr. Cobb's life story into one of the classic works of Southern Studies, the National [End Page 295] Book Award-winning All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw.2 As they relay in the interview transcribed here, the Rosengartens first came to Tallapoosa County out of an interest in the SCU. Cobb was an early participant in the union, and his armed stand against the seizure of a neighbor's property was marked as one of the signal accomplishments of the movement.3 The force of Cobb's life story soon overwhelmed those original intentions. All God's Dangers became a story about the fabric of everyday life for Mr. Cobb. Because of this, it is perhaps the best documentary evidence that we have of the experiences and thoughts of a Black sharecropper, both in Alabama and in the broader South. Likewise, the legacy of his life is measured not just in the important historical events that he participated in, but perhaps most profoundly through the lives of his many descendants. For this event we welcomed at least four generations of the Cobb family to the front rows of a packed room. Three of them joined us on the stage—his granddaughter, Dr. Shirley Dean Ray, and his great-granddaughters, Dr. Ileeia Cobb and Mrs. Sandra Gaffney. Each offered reflections on the man they knew as grandfather, great grandfather, or simply as the subject of family stories. Together, the participants added complexity to the story of a person and a time period that does not often figure prominently in our perceptions of southern history. Ned Cobb's life tells us about the pains of the post-Reconstruction South as the gains of freedom were clawed [End Page 296] Click for larger view View full resolution Dr. Elijah Gaddis leads a conversation on the life and legacy of Ned Cobb. Pictured here are (from left to right): Dr. Gaddis, Dr. Dale Rosengarten, Dr. Shirley Dean Ray, Dr. Ileeia Cobb, and Dr. Ted Rosengarten. Photo courtesy Maiben Beard, Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities, Auburn University. back. It tells us about the early organization of the "Long Civil Rights Movement," when socialist organizers and sharecroppers stood up and demanded their rights by the thousands, first in Alabama, and then, later in the 1930s, throughout the South.4 The story of Ned Cobb's life seems to proceed in almost mythical fashion. He reads like a folktale, a phenomenally articulate, heroic figure whose voice [End Page 297] calls from the depths of an often unrecorded past. In the dept of his recollections, and the beauty of his storytelling, he is a historian's dream. But, as the transcript of our conversation here shows, his story is all the more remarkable for his humanity. From the voices of people who knew him and admired him, who lived and worked with him, this conversation offers a deeper look into both Ned Cobb and the...

First Report of Impatiens Downy Mildew Caused by Plasmopara obducens in Alabama.

During spring 2012, potted impatiens (Impatiens walleriana Hook.f.) plants with symptoms of a foliar disease were found in several commercial greenhouses in Mobile County, Alabama. Symptomatic leaves were chlorotic with no distinct lesions, and quickly wilted and abscised from erect green stems. In summer 2012 and 2013, numerous landscape impatiens plants with similar symptoms were observed in a large area from Mobile County north to Lee County, Alabama. A downy mildew was observed on the lower surfaces of symptomatic and abscised leaves from all locations. It consisted of hyaline, monopodial sporangiophores and ovoid, hyaline sporangia. Sporangiophores, which emerged from stomata, consisted of apical branches arranged at right angles to the supporting branches; they measured 69 to 90 μm long with individual branches measuring 7 to 14 μm long. Sporangia were borne on the tips of sporangiophore branches and measured 10 to 16.5 × 17 to 22.5 μm. No oospores were observed. In 2013, symptomatic plants were obtained from two separate locations in Alabama (Mobile and Tallapoosa counties). Total genomic DNA was extracted directly from symptomatic plant tissue and the large ribosomal subunit DNA was amplified by PCR using primers NL-1 and NL-4 (1). From both isolates, amplicons of 600 and 775 bp were obtained. DNA from each amplicon of both isolates was purified, sequenced, and the sequences were deposited in GenBank (Accession Nos. KF956518 to 21). The sequences of the 600-bp amplicons were 99% similar to that of I. walleriana (JX142135); the sequences of the 775-bp amplicons were 99% similar to Plasmopara obducens isolates from Florida (JX217746), Ohio (JX142134), Serbia (HQ246451), and the United Kingdom (AY587558). In pathogenicity tests, 10 potted impatiens plants, I. walleriana'Super Elfin,' were inoculated with a sporangial suspension (1 × 105 sporangia/ml washed from infected leaves) from the Mobile County isolate, by spraying until runoff. Controls were inoculated with sterile water. Plants were incubated in a moist chamber at 21°C for 48 h and then maintained in a greenhouse at 22 to 25°C until symptom development. All inoculated plants developed symptoms of downy mildew within 10 days. Microscopic examination of the symptomatic tissue revealed sporangiophores and sporangia similar to those observed in naturally infected plants. Control plants showed no symptoms. To our knowledge, this is the first report of downy mildew caused by P. obducens on impatiens in Alabama. This disease has been reported to have a significant economic impact for growers throughout the United States (2,3). Impatiens downy mildew is likely to be a recurring problem in Alabama.

First Report of Corynespora cassiicola-Incited Target Spot on Cotton in Alabama.

Target spot symptoms were first observed on dryland and irrigated cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) statewide in Alabama in 2011. Leaf spots first appeared in the lower canopy and spread upward through the canopy toward the shoot tips. Individual leaf spots were roughly circular, formed concentric rings of alternating light and dark brown bands, and were up to 10 mm in diameter. Leaves with multiple lesions senesced prematurely. In 2012, target spot symptoms were observed as early as 68 days after planting in Tallapoosa County, Alabama. The possible combination of early disease onset and frequent showers/irrigation triggered rapid premature defoliation in some fields in excess of 75% in susceptible cultivars (Phytogen 499). Estimated yield losses in select cultivars (Deltapine 1050 and Phytogen 499) exceeded 336 kg/ha seed cotton. In 2012, symptomatic leaves were obtained from two separate locations in Alabama (Baldwin and Tallapoosa counties). The fungus was isolated from lesions by single spores plated on antibiotic V8 agar (1) and incubated at 21°C for 2 weeks under 12-h light cycles. Conidiophores arising from the gray, flocculose colonies were simple, erect, cylindrical, brown or olivaceous, unbranched, with two to seven septa. Conidia were borne singly, ranging from subhyaline to olivaceous, obclavate to cylindrical, straight to slightly curved, contained 4 to 15 pseudosepta, and were 50 to 209 μm long and 7 to 15 μm wide. These characteristics were consistent with the original description of Corynespora cassiicola on cotton (2). The internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) of two isolates, one representing each location, was amplified using primers 2234c and 3126t targeting a 550-bp region of the ITS1, 5.8S rRNA gene, and ITS2 (3). Sequences revealed 99% similarity to C. cassiicola in NCBI (Accession Nos. AY238606 and JQ717069). In greenhouse pathogenicity tests, 10 cotton seedlings (Phytogen 499) were inoculated by spraying a fungal suspension (2 × 104 spores/ml) of each of the two isolates prepared from 2-week-old cultures until runoff. Controls were inoculated with sterile water. Cotton seedlings were incubated in a moist chamber at 21°C for 72 h. All plants inoculated with the fungus developed leaf spot symptoms in 6 days. The fungus was reisolated from five inoculated plants. DNA was extracted from each isolate, amplified using primer pair 2234c/3126t, and sequenced. Sequences (550-bp) from all isolates shared 99% similarity to other C. cassiicola sequences in GenBank (Accession Nos. AY238606 and JQ717069). Nucleotide sequence data reported are available in GenBank under Accession Nos. KC544017 to 23. This pathogen has been reported previously to be economically important on a number of other hosts. To our knowledge, this is the first report of C. cassiicola on cotton in Alabama. Given the increasing prevalence of this disease in Alabama, its confirmation is a significant step toward developing management recommendations for growers.

Status of the stippled studfish Fundulus bifax, a killifish endemic to the Tallapoosa River basin, USA

The stippled studfish Fundulus bifax, which is endemic to the Tallapoosa River sys- tem of Alabama and Georgia, USA, has been considered at risk due to habitat degradation. Req- uisite habitat for this species is clean water over clean sand in small or large streams. F. bifax is apparently extirpated in Georgia, and appears increasingly uncommon in Alabama. This has resulted in a global ranking of N2N3, imperiled/vulnerable, from NatureServe. In 2008, 24 Tal- lapoosa River drainage sites in Alabama were visited in an effort to document the current status of this species. Many of these were locations where the fish has been collected since 1980, as docu- mented in the University of Alabama Ichthyology Collection. At least 1 individual was found in each of 6 different creek systems in Coosa, Elmore, Randolph, and Tallapoosa Counties. This is a contraction of what has been considered this species' range, and appears to be the result of habitat degradation. To examine genetic variation between existing populations, and between 2 closely related species, 852 bases of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene of 10 individuals were com- pared through neighbor-joining and Bayesian tree building, and through calculating genetic dis- tance, D. Both analyses showed existing populations of F. bifax to be monophyletic, with low genetic variation between them. Neither of its putative closest relatives, F. catenatus and F. stel- lifer, was found to be more closely related to F. bifax. The future of the species is in doubt, with 6 disjunct populations being vulnerable to further habitat degradation and diminished gene flow.

The Vascular Flora of the Coon Creek Forever Wild Tract, Tallapoosa County, Alabama

The Coon Creek Forever Wild Tract (CCFWT) is an area of approximately 130 ha that was purchased by the State of Alabama Forever Wild Program on February 1, 1995. The CCFWT lies 45 km west of Auburn, AL with the main tributary, Coon Creek, dissecting the tract and eventually emptying into the Tallapoosa River. The site is managed by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources with an emphasis on recreational use, habitat management, and rare species protection. A floristic study of this area was conducted from March 2006 through May 2007. A total of 503 species from 319 genera and 114 families were collected, with 195 species being county records. Asteraceae was the largest family with 74 species. Poaceae, Cyperaceae, and Fabaceae were the next largest families with 45, 31, and 31 species, respectively. Carex was the largest genus represented with 15 taxa.

Lower-Order Urbanization and Territorial Monopoly in the Southern Furnishing Trade

Sometime during World War I,Ned Cobb, an African American sharecropper better known to us by his pseudonym Nate Shaw, journeyed from the Tallapoosa County, Alabama, farm where he was sharecropping to Opelika, a small market town about 12 miles away, to buy cotton seed hulls for his mules,meal for his family, and shoes for his children. At Mr. Sadler’s general store, Cobb had a chilling encounter with one Henry Chase, a crippled white store clerk. Chase, resentful that Cobb had been served by one of the store's white female clerks, tried to provoke a fight with Cobb and then accused Cobb of threatening him with a pistol. Cobb wisely refused to be goaded, but he was arrested anyway when Chase brought his complaint to the sheriff. Cobb only escaped trouble with the law and more trouble with Chase and his gang because of the intercession of influential white merchants who knew Cobb from earlier business in town (Rosengarten 1974: 162–72).

Statistical Determination of Mean Strike and Dip: Example from Basal Tuscaloosa, Eastern Alabama: ABSTRACT

An unconformity may be a very complicated surface. A few strike and dip measurements are not adequate to define such a surface, and simple solution of the three-point problem commonly does not improve the definition. However, the use of trend surface analysis permits (a) determination of the best fit plane which represents the strike and dip for the region studied; and (b) evaluation of local departures from that plane, in terms of paleotopography. This procedure has been demonstrated in a study of the basal contact of the Tuscaloosa Group with an underlying variably weathered complex, which was sampled at 17 localities in Macon and Tallapoosa Counties (Notasulga Quadrangle), Alabama. At each locality the elevation and nature of the basal Tuscaloosa contact was recorded along with lithologic observations. A trend surface analysis was used to generate a first order regression plane. This plane represents mean strike and dip of the unconformity; it strikes N81°W and dips 0.61°SW. This result is highly significant F2,14 = 190.5; N = 17) and accounts for 96% of the variance in elevation (R2 = 0.965). First order residuals plotted against map location reveal little regional trend. However, mapping of basal Tuscaloosa grain-size data onto the residuals reveals a preponderance of coarse material at localities with negative residuals. This indicates the expected preferences for coarse (gravel) deposition in paleotopographic lows. Mapping the weathered state of the underlying gneiss onto the residuals reveals no pattern, suggesting that much of the alteration of this unit postdated the unconformity. These results, although on a simple data set, illustrate the utility of the technique to stratigraphic problems involving mean strike and dip. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1470------------

New Records for Anzia ornata from Alabama

Collections of Anzia ornata (Zahlbr.) Asah. are reported from Winston, Shelby, and Tallapoosa Counties, Alabama. For many years Anzia colpodes (Ach.) Stizenb. was the only member of that genus known from North America. In 1961 Culberson announced the collection of a second Anzia, A. oranta (Zahlbr.) Asah., on this continent. This species is readily distinguished from A. colpodes by the presence of granular marginal soredia easily visible with a hand lens. Culberson's collection was from Duplin County, North Carolina. During 1962 and 1968, three additional records of the occurrence of Anzia ornata have been made in Alabama: 1. On March 17, 1962, and again on February 20, 1968, the author with Dr. Aino Henssen collected A. ornata in Winston County in the Cumberland Plateau Region of Alabama (Johnston 1930). Specimens were taken from the bark of Oxydendron arboream and Quercus montana in a 1 Dept. of Biology, Howard College, Birmingham 9, Alabama. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.128 on Tue, 06 Sep 2016 05:48:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1963] MCCULLOUGH: ANZIA ORNATA 237 ravine, two miles west of the Sipsey River Picnic Area in the Bankhead National Forest (McCullough 583, 1202, 1213). 2. On February 21, 1963, Dr. Aino Henssen with the author collected A. ornata in Shelby County in the Valley and Ridge Province of Alabama (Johnston 1930). The specimen was taken from bark of oak at Falling Rock, a waterfall and ravine area about five miles north of Montevallo (Henssen 15152a). 3. On December 28, 1962 the author collected A. ornata in Tallapoosa County in the piedmont upland of Alabama (Johnston 1930). The specimen was taken from the bark of Carya sp. along Elkahatchee Creek about four miles south of Alexander City (McCullough 1066). While the species was not abundant in any of the three areas, adequate specimens could easily be obtained.

Tallapoosa county program for removing first grade retardation

Tallapoosa county program for removing first grade retardation