Tim's Take 40 | Farming Meets Science: Lessons from Plant Physiologist Dr. Dale Blevins

From a Missouri dairy farm to collaborating with NASA scientists, Dr. Dale Blevins has spent his life uncovering what makes plants “tick.” In this episode of Tim’s Take, he shares stories of farm roots, scientific breakthroughs, and the passion that connects them. If you’ve ever wondered how curiosity can grow into discoveries that feed the world, this conversation will inspire you. Subscribe for more stories where farming meets science.

Part One YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/TJmrLLX4x1I

Part Two YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/yfCorK3Hqy0

 

Visit https://moaes.missouri.edu/ to learn more.

#mizzou #FarmingAndScience #PlantScience #AgInspiration #FarmRoots #ScienceStories

The Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station (MOAES) extends CAFNR research to nearly 14,000 acres across the state to meet regional research and demonstration needs of agricultural producers and natural resource managers. MOAES has a storied history of major impacts in advancing science in agriculture, food and natural resources — locally, nationally and globally. These CAFNR laboratories provide research faculty with a wide variety of real-world conditions to test and develop strategies for agricultural production based on the geographical and climatic differences of our diverse state.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
[♫]

(00:07):
(Tim Reinbott) Well, welcome today to Tim's Take! And today we have a very special guest,
Dr. Dale Blevins. He's a plant physiologist, plant nutritionist, and I can't believe he's been
retired for 14 years! But Dale, I worked for you for 14 years. (Dale Blevins) Oh, yeah. (Tim) So,
so that's kind of a... kind of a milestone. And um... it took me until I was age 35 to be able to

(00:30):
call you by your first name because I've respected you so much. [laughter] And finally he told me,
"Call me Dale." (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) So, uh... I'll probably call him by his first name,
but that's not out of disrespect. That's just, I feel so comfortable around
him. (Dale) Sure. (Tim) So, Dale, you were very lucky in that you got... you were raised in Ozark,

(00:51):
Missouri on a farm. (Dale) Yes. (Tim) And then you got to come back to Missouri to serve. (Dale) I
feel really, really lucky about that because I... I sort of traveled around to get educated,
and... and like a lot of people, uh... my first real job was at the University of Maryland in the
botany department, and I was there for three and a half years. And... and it was really important

(01:15):
for my career because at Maryland, uh... as soon as I got there, you know, I was one mile
from Beltsville, USDA. They had like a hundred physiologists there. (Tim) Oh, wow. (Dale) And,
uh... they said, "Okay, you're going to be the Secretary-Treasurer, and then the Vice President,

(01:35):
and the President of the Washington section of the American Society of Plant Physiology." (Tim) Oh,
wow! (Dale) So they had a plan for me because I was the new guy at Maryland. But... so,
and it turns out, that's the biggest section of the Plant Physiology Society ward. So,
I got to meet all of these pretty famous people in plant physiology. And it... and it... and then,

(02:01):
um... like the Smithsonian closed their radiation biology pla... uh, group there in Washington DC,
and they went to NASA... some of them, the younger ones, and... and, um... they... they
really helped me. And some of them went to USDA Competitive Grants when it started, so that really
helped. (Tim) Sure. (Dale) So, I knew a lot of people, and it really helped my career early on,

(02:26):
I think. (Tim) That's so important, isn't it, to... to get that. And before we get going too
far, what is plant physiology? Because a lot of people don't know that term. (Dale) Okay. Well,
it... oh, there was a little book from a guy from Stanford, and I got it a long time ago,
and it says, "Plant physiology is the physics and chemistry of how plants make a living." (Tim) Oh,

(02:47):
wow! Yeah. Yeah. (Dale) So it's like what plants do to... to grow and make a living. It really is.
That's how you can say it simply that way. (Tim) And you know, Bill Spollen, one of our colleagues,
he's always said, "What makes plants tick?" (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. (Tim) You know,
all of that. (Dale) It's kind of understanding plants, and... (Tim) Yeah! (Dale) I mean,

(03:07):
even though I grew up on a farm, a lot of times, you know, in... in our lab, we uh... we ground
up plants... (Tim) Right! (Dale) ...a lot. (Tim) Yes. Yes. (Dale) You kind of look what's inside
and what makes them tick. (Tim) That's right. That's right. And... and you mentioned growing
up on the farm, but you were also part of that Sputnik generation. You... You always came back to
that. (Dale) I'm glad you mentioned that because that had a big influence on my life cuz at that

(03:32):
time, Southwest Missouri was second to, uh... Wisconsin in... in dairy. (Tim) Oh, wow. And
you're a dairy farmer. (Dale) And we... I grew up on a dairy farm. And all the farms around,
even though they... some people just milked three or four cows, but everybody had a dairy
even no matter how small. And uh... but, and my neighbor had 200 Golden Guernseys. You know they

(04:00):
had a big farm, but he... he was a... there was a kid there just a year older than me.
Neither one of us took vo-ag because Sputnik came, and we were both good students and, you know,
you will go to college. (Tim) Right. (Dale) It was just different at that time. (Tim) It...

(04:21):
it was. The science... the sciences because you mentioned plant physiology, physics and chemistry
that becomes so important. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) And you actually majored in chemistry,
didn't you? (Dale) I... I was a chemistry major as a BS degree which... which I think
was really important because the plant physiology is the physics and chemistry of how plants make a
living. (Tim) Right! (Dale) We already talked about that! (Tim) And how many times we would

(04:45):
stare at the periodic table to try to figure out what... what we were seeing! (Dale) Exactly! And
I still do that. Yeah. (Tim) You know, first thing I did when I took over Sanborn Field was
buy a periodic table to put on the wall. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) Because that's what we're
really talking about. (Dale) I still use it all the time. (Tim) Right! (Dale) Yeah. (Tim) Because

(05:07):
it's amazing! You can... you can see why plants are reacting or... or what just by
that. (Dale) And you... you see potassium over there on the left, and you see rubidium under it,
which is good isotope for potassium because there's not a good potassium isotope. (Tim) Right!
But they compete, too. (Dale) Yeah, they compete. Yeah. (Tim) Yeah, so you can look at that. So,
there's so much! (Dale) A lot of kids take lithium tablets because they're... they have

(05:31):
potassium activated enzymes that are out of... out of control, so you give them lithium, and
that slows them down. (Tim) Oh, wow! Yeah! Because you can... you can solve a lot of... you can solve
a lot of issues that way. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) So when you came to Mizzou then after three
and a half years at, um... at Maryland, you had... you had... you had a great group starting by that

(05:52):
time, aren't... didn't you? (Dale) Oh, well, number one, a friend of mine, Doug Randall,
was already here in bio... plant biochemistry, and he was thinking about forming a plant group, and
now we call the IPG, and we've had like over 40 years of having the IPG, which has like 55 plant

(06:12):
people in it, you know, plant physiologists. (Tim) From all... all walks. (Dale) All... all kinds of
plant, uh... biotechnologists and stuff. (Tim) And it's funny on that, now you see the students are
coming back and being featured speakers. (Dale) Oh, yeah! (Tim) That we had last time. (Dale) Oh,
yeah. Yeah! Oh, yeah. Exactly. (Tim) But here you worked on ureides. That was like you were really

(06:33):
getting up on soybean nodulation and ureides. (Dale) So when I came, I... I wanted to, uh...
when I came to Missouri in '78, uh... I wanted to work on, uh... on soybeans, and um... we were
just learning about ureide... nitrogen. And I'd worked with Harold Evans who was a famous guy to

(06:54):
work with, and he was working on nit... nitrogen fixation, so I had an interest in that. And then
about that time, uh... Tetsuo Matsumoto in Japan had discovered that soybean nodules are different
than what we'd learned in all the textbooks about what... what's transported from the nodule after
they... they fix nitrogen. The form of nitrogen is not... not amides, but it's urei... something called

(07:22):
ureides, which we didn't even know what... what it was. But ureides are real simple. It's like a,
uh... sandwich with, uh... urea being the bread and acetate being the meat inside. So that's all
a ureide is. But it's four carbons and four nitrogens. So soybeans are very efficient at

(07:43):
getting that fixed nitrogen up to the leaves and up to the developing pods. (Tim) So that's
really interesting. So red clover is going to be different, isn't it? It's going... it's going
to have a different... (Dale) Red clover, yeah. There's cool season legumes, and they... they put,
uh... asparagine up... upstairs. And ureides are warm season legumes, and they put ureides

(08:05):
upstairs, and they're more efficient. They're more efficient at translocation. (Tim) And...
and that really helps explain some things because in... in... in my career so far, I've noticed that
soybeans are great N fixers compared to our... some of our cool season. (Dale) Absolutely.
Yeah. (Tim) And uh... now with our soybean yields getting pushed so high, they can't keep

(08:29):
up. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) So we kind of have to rethink all this now. (Dale) Yeah. Hopefully,
there'll be more interest in nitrogen fixation. There's never been quite,
in my view, never been quite enough attention, uh... sustained in nitrogen fixation to keep
it going. (Tim) We took it for... took it for granted that... that it's there. (Dale) Yeah.

(08:50):
Yeah. (Tim) But I think now when we're expect more out of that, we're going to have to revisit that,
aren't we? (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) And maybe a lot of the research that you all did,
that's something to build on... on a... on... on a different way because the basic research is what
is a framework for these future discoveries. (Dale) Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I think we have
Gary Stacey's lab now at Mizzou, and he's a big nitrogen fixer and has been his whole career,

(09:17):
but he's about the only one left that we have there. (Tim) I've talked to some of the, uh...
other physiologists and breeders and wondering have we... have we unintentionally selected
for high N2 fixation for soybeans, you know, for higher yields. (Dale) Uhhuh. (Tim) Because that...
that becomes a limiting factor. (Dale) Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah! (Tim) You know, that we just...

(09:39):
maybe they repartition more down there to... to the... to the nodules or something. (Dale) Yeah,
it... it is an expensive process for... for the plant, but uh... it takes a lot of sucrose
going down there to feed it... (Tim) Right. (Dale) ...for energy. Yeah. (Tim) But because
you all had ones where you knocked that gene out, and so it didn't fix nitrogen...

(10:01):
(Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) ...and yields were a little higher. (Dale) Yeah. (Tim) If you fed them
enough nitrogen. (Dale) If you fed them artificial nitrogen. (Tim) But really... (Dale) Fertilizer
nitrogen. (Tim) But really, uh... in today when we're trying to reduce our... our petroleum input,
because it takes a lot of petroleum to make synthetic nitrogen, (Dale) Yeah! (Tim) ...we
want that... that biological fixed nitrogen. (Dale) Exactly. But there... it's not a giveaway

(10:25):
really because it's expensive for the plant to do it too, so... (Tim) But it's going to have
to be sunlight. (Dale) Yeah, sunlight. It's got sunlight. (Tim) Right. Right. So there's give and
take. (Dale) Solar power. (Tim) So understanding these principles, and that's one of the things
that you always taught, getting the mechanism down. If you can get the mechanism figured out,
then you can go from there. (Dale) Then you can tweak it. (Tim) That's right. Because you

(10:47):
always... you always preach that, mechanisms. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) Getting them... and
you all pretty well got that figured out with the... with the urei... the ureides and... and
such. (Dale) Right. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) Hi. Dale mentioned the work that he did with ureides. Well,
soybeans and other legumes, as you know, have a symbiotic relationship with bacteria. And what we

(11:12):
have done is that we have a oversized nodule grown here. They're usually quite a bit smaller than that
compared to, uh... to the roots. And they'll have many of those. But what we have is that we have,
um... N2 nitrogen, that's just free nitrogen, that diffuse from the atmosphere into the soil, and the

(11:34):
plant can't use that. But, these certain bacteria can that... that are in soybeans' case are called
rhizobacteria, and they infect the root. And as a result, the root will grow this nodule,
or this mass, around it. So inside then, we have the bacteria, and it can take this atmospheric

(11:58):
nitrogen that the plant can't use, but it can, it can reduce it into a form the plant can use,
and in soybeans, we call those ureides. Now in other legumes like clovers and alfalfa,
it's a slightly different compound, and asparagine is what it... it is. But these

(12:21):
ureides then are a form of nitrogen. They're... they're carbon and nitrogen put together that can
be transported then by the... by the plant up into the leaves. So then we see it start transporting
up to the plant. It can go into the leaves. It can go into the developing pods. But this is a...
this is how soybeans get their nitrogen from that symbiotic relationship between the soil bacteria,

(12:49):
the bradyrhizobium and... and the plant. Now this is a carbon, uh... sink for the plant,
and some of the data that we found was that when we had super nodulation where we had, you know, 10
times more nodules on the plants than we normally have, we actually reduce yield because it took

(13:09):
so much carbon from the plant to help feed the bacteria. But this is what we're working on for
the last 40 years trying to can... trying to get can other crops like corn or wheat actually have a
relationship like this. And so far, our scientists have not gotten that far because there's a complex
gene interaction between the bacteria and the plant that has to be overcome, and also all of

(13:33):
these different pathways. So, Dale worked on this a lot with other scientists here at MU about how
ureide metabolism is important. It has nickel as a big, um... co-factor in... into... in...
in... into all of this, so... so it's just not a very straightforward process. It's very complex,

(13:55):
but it really gave us an understanding of how we can improve the nitrogen content of our soybeans.
Now, something else that you and Doug and others that were in, I... I got to thinking, I'd hate to
start naming names. I might forget somebody, like Dave Emerich and Joe Polacco, you had quite a few
folks working on this. (Dale) Oh! Oh, yeah! Yeah. We... we had a real group, uh... as a group effort

(14:20):
at first. (Tim) Right! (Dale) Then we... then we, for a while we had, and you were in on this,
we... we had Roy Morris, and we didn't have any hormone people. Then we got Tom and Gretchen from
Minnesota and Roy Morris from Oregon State, and suddenly we had auxin people and cytokinin
people. (Tim) To put all this together. (Dale) And they all came together. Yeah. (Tim) Right!

(14:42):
Right. And, but one... one thing that you all really led the way in for the rest of
the college/university was getting competitive grants. (Dale) Oh, yeah! (Tim) Federal... because
people didn't know how to do that! (Dale) Yeah! Yeah. Yeah, that... that... that's where my,
uh... experience at Maryland came in cuz, uh... I sort of... well, when I was teaching, you know,

(15:03):
we... we used to have, uh... uh... have kids write papers or, uh... and then I, I... I got
to thinking right off the bat that, uh... they shouldn't be necessarily writing paper. They
should be learning how to write grant proposals. So I required grant proposals in my classes,
in my graduate classes. (Tim) I remember doing one of those! That's hard! (Dale) Because it's... it's

(15:28):
tough, but writing grants is tough, but... but like when I started my career, I'd never writ... I
didn't know much about grant proposals, you know. (Tim) Really?! (Dale) So writing, yeah. I guess
because I'd worked with Harold Evans, I... I got a grant one... about the first year at Maryland,
so that really helped my career get started. (Tim) Sure! (Dale) And... and I thought, well,

(15:49):
my grad students in my classes ought to start doing that. (Tim) Because if they're going to
succeed in their career, they're going to have to be able to write grant proposals. (Dale) Yeah.
Yeah. (Tim) And... and that... (Dale) It's a fact of life. (Tim) It is! (Dale) Science. (Tim) And...
and... and your students came out knowing how to do that. Whether they were your direct students
or your indirect students. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) Ones you taught in class knew how to do

(16:13):
that. And I still remember mine... (Dale) Yeah. (Tim) ...from that class. And some of it was...
eeeh. I can say it wasn't the best idea, but others I thought was pretty, you know,
it was pretty good. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) You know, you mentioned um... cytokinins. You know,
we did some studies with Roy Morris and cytokinins (Dale) IVs. (Tim) Yeah! And... and I ran across

(16:33):
some of that data the other day, and I was looking at it. I thought, you know, we were so far ahead
of everybody that we couldn't get this published because it... because we were, we were really
way ahead of everybody else. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) So that's... so that's always neat.
But let's talk about your teaching because... and we'll go back to research here in just a

(16:54):
little bit, but you mentioned teaching. (Dale) Yes. (Tim) You taught a very different way. You
talked about the grant proposals, but you taught your graduate, uh... classes a little differently,
didn't you? (Dale) Well, yeah, I tried. I, uh... I learned early on that it seems like a lot of

(17:14):
professors on gla... graduate classes, they were... they were having students give talks, so they
weren't really teaching much. (Tim) Yeah. (Dale) In... in my opinion. But, so my idea was to,
uh... have students read... learn how to read papers and... and really critically. And so,

(17:41):
oh! I got... I sort of got in trouble with one of my grad students at the time because,
uh... I was collecting, there was this, uh... one guy at a university that we all know about. But
I... I thought he was dry labbing his research. (Tim) Ohhhh. (Dale) Bad. So I kept... I still have

(18:02):
the file of the papers he pushed. He was working on ureides. So I knew about ureides. And I knew
how hard it was. But he was publishing. In other words, his wife was a biochemist, and she died. So
at first, he was probably okay, but then he... he just kept publishing. (Tim) Well, I know exactly
who we are now. (Dale) Yeah! Yeah. But anyway, uh... I kind of... I would have students learn

(18:29):
how to read papers and try to teach them how to read papers, how to break them down, and then,
um... they would get pretty good at it, and then I would throw one of his papers in,
and they... they would get so critical of it, you know. (Tim) That's good! (Dale) In fact, it was
funny! But, uh... (Tim) But early on, they wouldn't have been critical. (Dale) Yeah,
they wouldn't have been critical. (Tim) They would say, "Oh, this is great!" (Dale) Yeah. Yeah.

(18:51):
Yeah. (Tim) You know, they won't ask me to review papers anymore. (Dale) Really? (Tim) I'm pretty
critical. [laughter] (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) You know, it's got to be done
right! (Dale) Oh, it's got to. Yeah. It... and it's a hard job, you know, so... (Tim) To do it
right. I mean, you can rubber stamp something, but you really... if you really want to dig down
into there... (Dale) But it... but it's important because, you know, when you publish your journals,

(19:15):
you know, two or... two or three people around the world have to review those. So it's good... good
if they've had some experience, you know... (Tim) Right! (Dale) ...doing that kind of
stuff. (Tim) Critiquing them so they know how to do it better! And I think as you've taught more,
as you taught a lot of folks, I'm thinking like Jeff Volenec and... with the Purdue and others,

(19:36):
they carried that way of teaching to the... to their students. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) And
that's really a... a very popular way of teaching still today. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) Graduate
school, you know, type classes that, you know, you... you... you review papers. You learn from
those papers, and... and then discuss it. Now, one time though, teaching class actually got into

(19:57):
a... switched your career as far as to a whole different, um... section on... on... on... on
boron. Just... because you were doing the... (Dale) Oh, yeah! (Tim) ...your... your mineral
nutrition class, and the... well, I'll let you tell it. One of my favorite stories! (Dale) Well,
this... this is a, uh... this is kind of my career. So, when I, uh... went to Maryland,

(20:23):
uh... a famous... pretty famous plant nutritionist there who had written a book, he retired,
so he got to pick me out of the line, out of the 50 applicants or something. And, um... he... he
was working on boron. So when I left Oregon State, Harold Evans (he was so highly respected), he said,

(20:47):
"Now, if I were you, I would not work on boron until you get tenure." Because at that time,
we didn't know anything about boron. But, so I probably broke, uh... Hugh Gal's heart when I went
to Maryland, and I... I... I didn't work on boron. I worked... started working on nitrogen and stuff.

(21:08):
So um... anyway. Boron is a hard subject because it's... we know it's required, but we don't know
much about why... (Tim) Right. (Dale) ...it is. And there, at that time in my early... in my
career, there's like 20 hypotheses, and it was so confusing I sort of quit... I just... I would just

(21:30):
tell students, "Boron's required. We don't really know why." And that's all. I didn't have a lecture
on it. (Tim) Right. But one time, you were... you had... you were writing the nutrient deficiency
symptoms of, let's see... toxicity of aluminum. (Dale) Oh! Oh, oh, oh! (Tim) You just finished
that. (Dale) I see that story! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) And then you started on boron. What did you

(21:53):
notice? (Dale) Yeah! Then I... then I noticed there... there were similarities there. So,
uh... and... and actually, that's what I've been thinking about lately. I'm... I'm... I'm getting
ready to write a, uh... opinion paper on boron and... See, I... I think boron, it is needed for,

(22:14):
we know, in the sugar, in the pectin parts of cell walls. Other than that, we still don't know too
much about it. But, I think the big deal is, we have this toxic aluminum and acid soils all around
the world, and manganese in some soils, or both are... are very available in acidic soils. And so,

(22:40):
I think boron attacks those two elements and keeps them under control. That's not a real classical
requirement for plants, but it sure helps plants grow in these acid soils with high aluminum or
high manganese. (Tim) And you showed that. (Dale) I've showed it. (Tim) Right. (Dale) I've shown it,

(23:01):
but I've... I don't think enough people know about that, or we don't have enough information on that.
So that's why I'm writing this opinion paper... (Tim) Yeah! (Dale) ...to, and I think I'm going
to be attacked around the world. (Tim) Well, I actually was given a talk one time, probably
to... to an international audience, and I pulled out that... that classic, uh... photograph that...

(23:23):
that you have, that shows how the alfalfa roots grew through the high aluminum soil... (Dale) Oh,
yeah! (Tim) ...with... when you added boron. (Dale) Yeah. (Tim) And they hadn't seen that
before. (Dale) No, I don't... (Tim) That is... (Dale) Yeah. And you know, and we have a couple
of papers on that, but I... it's hardly cited. (Tim) Yeah! (Dale) Yeah. (Tim) Cuz... cuz what
you saw in your class, aluminum toxicity and boron deficiency are very similar. (Dale) Very similar!

(23:48):
Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) So there's this relationship, and that really set the stage. And again, it's
one of those things, the research is there. It may not be, uh... accepted today, but down the road,
it could be a huge factor. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) As a... because one of the things
you made us do, like when we write a paper, and we cite a... cite a citation, you don't go to the...

(24:12):
that person that may have cited that... a previous paper. You go all the way back to that original
paper. (Dale) Exactly. (Tim) Sometimes it's not... it's... it's misinterpreted too. (Dale) Exactly.
And yeah, I don't see enough of that now when I read papers that going back to the
original dis... discovery. (Tim) Right! Because that's... that's really important. (Dale) Yeah!

(24:33):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) It's... because you're taking somebody else's opinion on it, but you
need to go down back to the person that really did that. (Dale) Especially as you get older,
you appreciate that. (Tim) Yeah. [laughter] Well, we found out that a lot of people,
a lot of Germans in the 1930s, they did a lot of work! (Dale) Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah. (Tim) They had

(24:53):
some wonderful plant physiology work. (Dale) Oh, yeah. (Tim) That you you could cite them,
and they did it. (Dale) You know, uh... one of my, uh... favorite original discoveries,
which came off... right off the farm, was how deeply rooted plants in a drought can

(25:14):
bring up water for little shallow rooted plant companions. (Tim) Yeah! (Dale) I thought that
was such a wonderful, brilliant original idea. So Steve Corak came over from Maryland to work here,
and uh... and we were talking about that problem. He decided to do it, and he had the audacity to go

(25:35):
to the library that very night, and he found that in... in 1930 in... in, uh... where was it? New...
it was in New Mexico, I think, that this guy had written an ag experiment station bulletin showing

(25:57):
that very thing. (Tim) Oh. (Dale) And... and he... he wrote two experiment... he wrote two ag
experiment stations showing deeply rooted plants can bring up water. But we still went ahead and
done... he hadn't published it. I think he was an Extension guy, so he had it published in a referee
journal article. So, so we did it, and um... (Tim) Yeah, and you did a little bit more... more of a

(26:22):
enclosed environment in the greenhouse. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. We did a really big study. Yeah.
Yeah. (Tim) Yeah, where you could really... to make sure that was it. I remember that. And then
then you followed that up with Jeff Habben's nutrient transfer. (Dale) Yeah, like potassium
can transfer from deeply rooted plants to shallow rooted plants, so... (Tim) Yeah! (Dale) We... but
there... there again, we had to use rubidium-86 for potassium. (Tim) That was one of my first

(26:45):
jobs with you was to take that experiment down. I mean, it was done. (Dale) Oh, yeah! (Tim) I
think... I think we redid it and just get the final. And so, that was really neat. I learned
a lot about that. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) But yeah, because uh... and now, you think about now,
all we talk about a lot is having a lot of diversity out there... (Dale) Yeah. (Tim) ...in our,

(27:06):
in our... in our pastures and whatever. (Dale) Exactly. (Tim) Doing the same thing! That's why
we have it. (Dale) So, can I tell you the story about how I got onto that, uh... deeply rooted
plants bring it? (Tim) Yeah! (Dale) Because like, uh... when I was really young and in,
uh... well, way before you were born, like in... what year was it? '52 to '56 there was a drought,

(27:33):
and I was on the farm, and everything was brown. Our lawn... we were raking grasshoppers up and
burning them. It was so dry, you know. So we were driving around, but we had alfalfa fields,
and uh... as alfalfa fields got older, we would sprinkle orchard grass in there to fill out the
holes, and so we had alfalfa/orchard grass. So, and then in pastures, we had all orchard grasses

(27:59):
before fescue got popular. So that fes... uh, orchard grass fields were all brown,
but the orchard grass growing with alfalfa was green. And that's where I got the idea
that alfalfa is deeply rooted noted. It's one of the most deeply rooted plants that we grow,

(28:23):
but so, it... it must have been bringing up water for its companion orchard grass. So that's where
that experiment came from. All those years passed before.... (Tim) Wow. (Dale) ...uh, Steve Corak
did the experiment. (Tim) But observations on the farm. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) And that's another
thing you always... even though you may be doing lab-type equip... studies, you still need to get

(28:45):
out and look. (Dale) Oh, yeah! (Tim) Observe what's going on out there. You can... you can
learn a lot. (Dale) Yeah, exactly. (Tim) Like this morning, we were doing bulk densities out in the
field in... in a different rotations and length of rotations, and you can learn a lot just
getting out there... (Dale) Oh, yeah. (Tim) ...in those fields and... and... and learning so much.

(29:06):
(Tim Reinbott) So, you know, you worked on the basic mineral nutrition, like with boron
and others, but you also worked with potassium and many other nutrients. (Dr. Dale Blevins) Oh,
yeah. (Tim) Phosphorus. (Dale) Actually, uh... when I started my PhD, uh... I got... I got a
couple of papers, one from Israel and one from the Netherlands. And um... the one from the guy from

(29:32):
the Netherlands wrote like a 100 pages. (Tim) Oh, wow. (Dale) And then the... the group from,
uh... Israel wrote about three pages. But they had a... they had a graph. They had a drawing in
there of... of the, uh... hypothesis of... of plant... what plants send up the xylem,

(29:54):
and then what plants send down the phloem. And I noticed that potassium was going both ways. And
it's a... it's a single plus charge. It's a small element, and it... it doesn't stick anywhere,
but it's a positive charge. It's really important in plants going up the xylem from the roots to the

(30:19):
shoots, and then back down again with the sugars and organic acids in.. in the phloem, and it... it
kind of makes a cycle in plants. So I... I learned that it's really important to build a model,
or a diagram, which has all your thoughts in it. And so that's what really directed my PhD program

(30:44):
when I got my PhD, my research, and then I... I've kind of used... I like drawing models and trying
to figure things out that way. (Tim) And how they all interact together. (Dale) Yeah. And then you
can do design experiments to test that, you know. (Tim) Right. And didn't you find that high protein
crops need a lot of potassium because of that? (Dale) Oh, yeah! Yeah! Yeah. I have a chapter in a

(31:09):
book, "Potassium and Agriculture", and it's about potassium and protein. And... and yeah, you can,
uh... look at dicots like soybean, and... and they're very high potassium and high protein,
and then you can do grasses separate. Separately, they have less protein,

(31:31):
less potassium requirement. You can kind of... it really goes together. (Tim) Yeah. (Dale) And
the reason is, uh... there's... there's 20 amino acids in... in most protein, 20 different ones,
and two of them have negative charges. And so, uh... they need to be neutralized by

(31:54):
potassium. So, they have two potassium sticking on there. So you can actually do some calculations,
which I've done, I did in that chapter and, um... it all comes out in the... in the wash,
plus and minus. (Tim) Wow. (Dale) But it's... but even at Oregon State in biochemistry, we had
to go there and, uh... because I was working on potassium activation of enzymes, and they

(32:18):
had a whole room designed for finding out where potassium was cuz as a soluble little plus charge,
it's so hard to find out where it is, you know. It's very difficult. (Tim) Hi. Dale Blevins in his

(32:39):
interview stated that high protein crops need more potassium, and it's related to nitrate transport.
So, here we have a corn plant, and we have nitrate and potassium out in the soil solution. Well, they
have no problem getting into the root system. The issue is, how does the nitrate get from the roots

(32:59):
up into the upper portions of the shoot of... of the plant? Well, potassium and nitrate can travel
up the xylem together, and... and when they do travel and get to the destination, the nitrate
disassociates itself with the potassium, and now it's free to be converted into amino acids,
into proteins in the leaves. These can be stored in the... in the seeds, or they can be

(33:23):
in... in the plant giving lots of protein. Now the potassium then is free. Well, what happens though
is that photosynthesis is happening. That means CO2 is produced into compounds of carbon that
the plant can use. In this case, we have malate, which is negative. The potassium and the malate

(33:45):
join together and travel down into the plant, into the root system. Now, the root system is being fed
a carbon source so it can be used for growing, and then the potassium then is then recycled back to
bring more nitrate up to the plant, and the... and then once it gets there, it's used to bring more
carbon compounds back down to the root system. So the root system is happy. It's growing. The

(34:11):
uh... proteins are... are... are being developed in... in... in the upper part of the plant. Also,
what happens is this carbon compound doesn't necessarily always stay in the root. It can be
exuded, meaning it can go from the root out into the soil solution. Now, why would it do that? This
feeds the soil microorganisms. And many of the soil microorganisms are very important for the

(34:38):
transformation, or the conversions, of nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus into forms that the plant
can use. Also, many of these microorganisms manufacture compounds that stimulate the plant
growth. So to get high protein crops, like if you wanted high-protein grass hay for tall fescue

(34:59):
or alfalfa, or if you want a high protein grain crop, you want to make sure you have plenty of
potassium so it can transport the N source up the plant and also bring down carbohydrates to
help the root system grow and also feed the soil microorganisms. And then talk about the different

(35:20):
nutrients. You... you mentioned potassium, and you found out, and amino acids, that some require sulfur,
don't they? (Dale) Oh, yeah! That's another story. (Tim) Yeah! (Dale) Okay. So, there's
like 20 amino acids. I keep saying that, but two of them have sulfur methionine. And so... and it

(35:42):
turns out that soybean is low in methionine. (Tim) Is cysteine the other one? (Dale) Yeah, cysteine.
And... and then, then grasses are low in cysteine, so it... it kind of works out. That's why you have
beans and corn. Cornbread and beans make a good diet, you know, because you're mixing the two

(36:05):
types of proteins together. (Tim) Oh! Okay. (Dale) One's high in methionine. One's high in cysteine.
But anyway, so a long time ago, uh... I had friends at... at DuPont, and they... they were
trying to beef up the sulfur amino acids in soybeans. So they... they sprayed them with

(36:28):
every kind of sulfur compound you can think of. It didn't work. So that's when I got the idea,
okay, let's shortcut it by using IVs. So that's when Larry Grabau was here,
and his wife was a nurse, and he put the Soybean Intensive Care Unit at Bradford Farm.

(36:48):
But that's one of the famous pictures. (Tim) Yeah. (Dale) Made all the agricultural magazines,
you know. "Soybean Intensive Care Unit." And we had all these pediatric IV kits. And... and then,
um... we... we were lucky because down at the base of the stem, it's pithy, and there was a
open spot where the soybeans would have a chance to drip. So uh, we... we IV'd in methionine.

(37:17):
Made a huge difference in the soybeans', uh... seeds that were developing. (Tim) To... to be
high in methionine. (Dale) High in methionine, yeah. The soybeans and... and what Larry showed
by electrophoresis is, uh... that the, you know, the... every... every seed has just

(37:39):
a certain amount, four to six or something, of main storage proteins in the seed, and... and
soybean had one that had no methionine, no sulfur amino acids in it. And so, what Larry showed is
that when we gave the methionine by IV, it quit making that one and made all the others that have

(38:06):
methionine in it. (Tim) Really? (Dale) So, uh, soybeans are pretty smart if they have a source of
methionine. (Tim) So, it changed it? (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) Wow. And not only did... and that
led to IV'ing boron later on. (Dale) Boron later. (Tim) Mary Schon (Dale) Yeah. And then cytokinin,
and you... you did that. (Tim) Oh, yeah! And we... well, we put calci... we put lots of

(38:28):
things in the soybeans. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) Joyce always said, "If I didn't know better,
I'd think you was a drug addict because you always had needles in your pockets!" (Dale) Yeah. Now,
can I tell you a bad story about that? (Tim) Oh, okay. (Dale) So, uh... once I went
to a meeting, and there was a young guy from a... another state, faculty member,

(38:51):
and he more or less called me a liar because he had tried IVs on corn, and it didn't work. And
uh... and this is in a public meeting, you know, so I was not very happy with that guy. But then,

(39:11):
my friend John Boyer, who's a National Academy of Science guy, he was at Texas A&M and, um... an
endowed chair there, so he... he came up to see me in Curtis Hall. Not Curtis Hall, Ag... Ag Building
here. And he sat in my lab, and we talked. And he says, "I want to use those IVs on corn." And

(39:37):
so. I... he interviewed me. I told him all about how to do it. And he went back and, um... they
discovered that... that corn is solid down there at the low stem. It doesn't have a pithy area.
So he had his, uh... master student use a little drill and make a little hole in... in the corn and

(40:00):
make an area for a drip to happen. So they put a little rubber septum in that hole, put the IVs in,
and it worked with corn. (Tim) Yeah! (Dale) But he was a National Academy member, and the other
guy was just a young professor who knew a lot, you know. But so, he... he couldn't do it. He didn't
figure that out like John. (Tim) Well, and that's so, you know, a lot of people, if it doesn't work,

(40:24):
you give up. Well, maybe your methods weren't... weren't right. (Dale) Exactly. (Tim) And we...
and we did some of that with cytokinins with Uncle Roy. Roy Morris. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. (Tim) That's some nice publication out of that. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) So, but you know,
that's... we've had hypothesis before. You do the experiment, it works, at least the data
supports it, so you repeat it. That was always important to repeat it. And you find out later

(40:48):
on that your first... your hypothesis was wrong. (Dale) Exactly. (Tim) Because as you get better
doing your experiment, you find out that that's... it goes a different direction, and often, that's
even a better idea! (Dale) Oh, yeah. (Tim) Because the model fits better. (Dale) Exactly. (Tim) So
that's... you got to come in with an open mind. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And... and it's

(41:10):
amazing how, uh... it... that's... that's hard sometimes to have a open mind and... and to admit
that you were wrong the first time. (Tim) Yeah. Yeah! But... (Dale) But that's science. (Tim) It
is! It's science. You know, um... I think oft... I think early on in your career, you didn't even

(41:30):
bother with sulfur studies because we had so much sulfur in the atmosphere. You remember we... we
were doing stuff with acid rain and... (Dale) Oh! Oh, yeah! Yeah. (Tim) And then we cleaned
it up! Which is great. (Dale) Well, there... there's a wonder... can I tell a story about
that? (Tim) Yeah! (Dale) So, we... we have a very famous guy in forestry named Rich Guyette. Did you

(41:53):
know Rich? (Tim) I did. (Dale) Yeah. Well, I was on his committee. He's a local guy, and uh... I
think he worked with Harold Eugene Garrett. But anyway, I was on his committee and then,
uh... we would go on float trips every year. You know, I knew him pretty well. But he... he was a

(42:13):
forestry faculty member who wasn't really paid by the university, or he... he got grants and paid
his salary the whole... I mean, he... he died a couple of years ago, but sadly. But he became very
famous. And so one day, I got my new Marschner, you know, the Bible for plant nutrition was by

(42:33):
my friend Marschner from Germany. And I looked in there, and I was looking through it, and... and
there was one of Rich Guyette's publications. (Tim) Really?! (Dale) And so I copied that
picture. It... it was, uh... data right from his... from his publication, a figure. And so I

(42:55):
copied it and then I took it over to Rich, and he had no idea, you know. And what it was, is Rich,
you know, you know what he did for a living? (Tim) Yeah. Rings. (Dale) Rings. (Tim) Tree rings.
Yeah. (Dale) Tree rings. And so he went to the... he wouldn't... never would tell me where this was,
but it was on the Current River somewhere, the oldest, uh... um... cedar, Eastern red cedar.

(43:19):
And he... he took cores of it. And then... then he took them down to the reactor center, and they
did all the mineral elements at each core. And so, what he found out that was way back in the
17... 16... 1700s, there was a lot of molybdenum in those cores. And then suddenly, in the 1800s,

(43:47):
it started going down, and it kept going down. And the sulfur, when it was going down,
the sulfur was going up in the 1800s and then into the early 1900s, and then... then it sort of quit.

(44:08):
So what was happening is, uh... Missourians were starting to use Missouri coal, which is high
sulfur (soft coal). And, uh... there's more... we started burning coal and putting sulfate,
sulfur molecules in the... in the air, and it was competing with molybdenum. So you

(44:31):
could see that in these tree rings. (Tim) They tell quite the story, don't they? (Dale) Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, you... you say that, "Okay, Rich Guyette just counted
tree rings." He did a lot more than that. (Tim) Oh, yeah. Yeah! Well, and that, and... and now,
I think if we look at the sulfur, it's going down where we're getting a deficiency now. (Dale) Oh,

(44:52):
yeah! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) And that's... I was out in a corn field this week,
and I can see it everywhere. (Dale) Yeah. (Tim) Sulfur deficiency. (Dale) We need
to start burning Missouri coal. (Tim) No! No, no, no. (Dale) I'm just kidding. (Tim) No, but it has
opened up a lot of different research now. (Dale) Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I keep hearing this,
uh... from a lot of people that it's time to start looking at sulfur again. (Tim) Yeah, it is. It is.

(45:17):
It's a great quality, you know, for... for our forage quality, our seed quality. So, it's really
neat. And you know, we need... I need to go back and look at some, uh... Sanborn Field soils and
plants on molybdenum now. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) They got the sulfur profile. You know,
every time we have a conversation, it leads to something else, doesn't it? (Dale) Oh, exactly.

(45:37):
Exactly. (Tim) Now, you also worked on magnesium. Now, what was that all about? (Dale) Oh,
well! That's a very personal thing. Uh... well, growing up on the farm, you know, my dad was,
uh... getting ready for me to go to college, so he... he thought that dairy may not have a future

(45:58):
there because he was losing some helpers. (Tim) His help. Yeah. (Dale) So he started
breeding our Holsteins to... to Angus bulls, so we had Angus cows. And then he... he liked,
uh... Hereford bulls for the Angus cows, so we had Black Baldies. So we had a kind of a business,

(46:19):
uh... with Black Baldies there for a while. But anyway, our best cows, once or twice there,
died of grass tetany. So I became kind of interested in grass tetany. Turns out
that in the cow, it's a magnesium problem. Can't... they can't get the magnesium. So,

(46:41):
uh... we started working on grass tetany. You started working on grass tetany! I think
you did 25 different experiments... (Tim) That's right. (Dale) ...before we... you figured out that,
okay, if you're going to get magnesium in a plant, you need to first take care of
the phosphorus. (Tim) Right. (Dale) So I thought that... that was a big breakthrough. But, uh...

(47:05):
so we... we started studying grass tetany and the role of phosphorus and getting more magnesium in
plants, and that seemed to work pretty well. (Tim) Yeah, and like you always said, "You got to crawl
before you walk," so we did those 25 experiments in the... (Dale) Hydroponics. (Tim) Hydroponics,
yeah! (Dale) Pure everything. (Tim) Yeah. No soil. It was... we knew what everything

(47:26):
was in there. (Dale) Yeah. (Tim) And you'd run these experiments. And then once we found that,
then we had to go to the greenhouse. (Dale) Yes. (Tim) Go to... and then to the field. (Dale) To
the field. Especially the Southwest Center. (Tim) Where it was... where it was... it was
a big prominent area for it. (Dale) Yeah. Low phosphorus. (Tim) Mhm. And then later on, you and

(47:51):
Kallenbach and Ryan Lock did the cattle, actually did the cattle. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then
then we went up to Dave Davis and did 150 cows for three years, and calves. (Tim) Mhm. (Dale) The
trouble with working up at the Forage Center, uh... up there is that the soil was... it was a

(48:14):
little low in phosphorus, but not... not as low as it is in Southwest Missouri. So, but anyway,
we did three years with 150 cows. Got nothing. But then the story gets more interesting because
we terminated that experiment, but the ne... the next April, I got a call from Dave Davis saying,

(48:35):
"Hey, cows are dying with grass tetany!" (Tim) Oh no! (Dale) So we ran out, Christina, Missy...
we all ran out and started sampling, uh... fescue, and it turns out typical. It's hard to study grass
tetany in the field because you can't predict when you're going to get it. Well, that year, we had

(48:59):
this freeze, April freeze. It was terrible. (Tim) Yes. (Dale) And... and that's when we started
having grass tetany, or people started having it. So we ran out there. We'd had an early warm spring.
The fescue leaves were... were that long. And when we went out to the field, the top half was

(49:20):
brown and the bottom half was green. So we... we took samples, and we sampled the brown part
and the green part, and it turns out, the only thing that was different in the two was sodium.
And it was much lower. It had... it had bleached out of all those... when that

(49:45):
bleached out, it was leaky. Leaked all the sodium out.
Well, so we... we published a paper on that, on grass tetany and sodium because there was hints
of that in England on... on ewes. They grow a lot of sheep over there. And also, I was sort of,

(50:10):
uh... called quite a bit by a guy from Kentucky, a retired veterinarian who has been on my case for a
long time about working on sodium. He's retired and doesn't do research, but he believes that
sodium, in his experience, was a real key to grass tetany. So we got data for it. (Tim) All

(50:34):
right! So it's sodium deficiency? (Dale) Sodium deficiency. Yeah. So... so it... it's magnesium
in the cow. (Tim) It's sodium. (Dale) But it's sodium in the plant because sodium in the cow
helps magnesium gets trans... transported where it should be transported. So they're... they're

(50:57):
together. Sodium and magnesium. You need magnesium, but you need sodium to get it in
the cow where it's supposed to go. (Tim) Oh, wow. So, huh. Makes you wonder, those Southwest soils,
how are they in sodium? (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) Yeah. (Dale) Cuz at that time, we... I
don't think we even analyzed sodium. (Tim) Right! No. (Dale) Or we might have had it, but didn't

(51:21):
even pay attention to it. (Tim) Is sodium and potassium real close to... on the periodic table,
aren't they? (Dale) Absolutely! Absolutely. (Tim) It's got... it's got to have something to do
with potassium. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. It may. (Tim) Again, that... that's the kind... this is the kind
of conversation that Dale and I used to have. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) So... (Dale) But
anyway. (Tim) That's... that's fantastic how... but how that can continue to... to solve issues

(51:48):
later on and from those questions. (Dale) So I think... but I think there's some people that have, uh...
are critical of my suggestion about, uh... sodium, but I don't think they have data. (Tim) You know,
I... I... I remember that a lot. People would be critici... critical of something or say,

(52:09):
"Well, we've already done it," or "That doesn't work." You'd say, "Show me the data." (Dale) Yeah.
Yeah. (Tim) And they can't. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) You know that's one of the things
that you taught us is that whenever I give a talk, I either show... I show my data and those people I
trust. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) You know, good data going back to our very original

(52:29):
that the experiments were done correctly. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) Because so many people will
make statements based on opinion not... not facts. (Dale) Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) You
guys show me the data on that. Hi. Dale mentioned grass tetany and how we had worked together on
this. Uh... grass tetany is a condition in... in the spring that lactating cattle often get.

(52:56):
It usually... it usually affects the most heavy milk... milk producing cows that... that you have.
And it looks a lot like this where they just get dis... despondent. They get down. They can't get
up. They're disorientated. And what they've found was, it's from a blood serum magnesium deficiency,
and sometimes calcium. And over the years, we found out that high nitrogen rates can make it

(53:22):
worse. High potassium rates can make it worse. But they didn't know how to overcome it. But the only
thing they could really do was to have mineral blocks out there and hope that they would get
enough just from licking the mineral blocks, or you can keep them out of the lush grass because
that's when it happens. Often when the grass is really greening up, really starting to grow,

(53:46):
this is when you start getting some grass tetany. Uh... asked my father-in-law once if he ever had
issues with it, he said, "Well, we just kept them out of that new green grass." Of course,
you're also going to be losing some opportunities to take advantage... advantage of that grass.
But what's happens is that you have an abnormally low magnesium level and also in... increase in

(54:08):
potassium. Because potassium is not limited, you get too much potassium compared to... to
magnesium, and that's when you start getting some issues with her muscles as... as well as
in her... her brain activity. And what we found, we started at the very basics, and we learned about
what controlled magnesium uptake, and we found out it was phosphorus. We took this to the next steps,

(54:32):
just looking at the forage itself, and found out, yes, if we could increase the... the,
uh... phosphorus content of the plant in the early spring then the magnesium levels would stay up.
And finally, we did a study with livestock where we found that in the early spring when the grass
really started greening up, the magnesium levels did stay low, but when we had adequate phosphorus

(54:58):
(and this is soil P phosphate in Missouri of 30 in the green compared to six in the controls), that
we could get more magnesium in the actual blood of the animal. So, this was a really important thing
that we found that we could help control, uh... grass tetany in our lactating animals and not

(55:18):
have them die. Because often, if you didn't get to them quick enough, they would die. And they would
give them a shot of... of calcium gluconate to get them back up and... and going. So,
grass tetany was one of those issues that is a metabolic issue in livestock that we help
to overcome through our basic knowledge of... of magnesium uptake in a plant. And how farmers can,

(55:44):
uh... and... and how farmers can help prevent having magnesium deficiency or a grass tetany
in their livestock is to make sure you have your phosphate levels up to... to near optimum levels.
That's in Missouri, that's about 40 on the optimum. Make sure you have it up there. And also,
often phosphorus is tied up in the early spring, so if you put some phosphate fertilizer on in

(56:10):
the spring, you'll... you'll... you'll not have that issue either. So just adding magnesium did
not make a difference to the soil. You had to have higher phosphate and magnesium. Now, you also were
part... big part of... of the graduate student seminar series. (Dale) Oh, yeah! (Tim) All the
stu... graduate students had to give a seminar. (Dale) Yeah. (Tim) And you and Larry Darrah and

(56:34):
Bob Kremer, that was... (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) ...at least when I was going through, those...
those were the three. And you gave us a lot of, uh... suggestions. (Dale) Oh, exactly. So I...
I think that's one of the, uh... you know, during my career here, that Missouri... and... and I have

(56:56):
to also give Jerry Nelson a lot of credit because he was one of the instigators in this. Uh... but
later it was Larry Darrah and others. But we ran a really good student seminar... graduate
student seminar series, and we spent the first meeting or two suggesting how seminars should be

(57:19):
giving... given and what you should do. And so, we were... and then... then after every seminar,
we would have a... a critique right... right then. And it was very difficult for the person
that had given the seminar to stand up there and take the crit... critique at... at first,
but then people got kind of used to it. And... and people tried to be pretty kind. I can imagine,

(57:46):
I can still... I have nightmares about the first time I gave a seminar. (Tim) Yeah. (Dale) It was
awful. Because in my graduate program where I got my degree, they didn't teach us how to...
how to... they didn't even make suggestions. You just... it was your turn to give the seminar,
and you... you tried to give it. (Tim) Mhm. (Dale) But... but I, so... but I think here at Missouri,

(58:10):
um... we did a good job of telling people what to do and how to do it, and then with the critique.
And as a consequence of that, when you know, later on the Agronomy Society started having
graduate student presentations and awards at the national meetings so it was a competitive like,

(58:34):
we were very competitive with Purdue. (Tim) Yeah. (Dale) You know why? (Tim) Yeah! (Dale) Jeff Volenec
was there. But anyway, so my students won a lot of first prizes. (Tim) Oh,
yes. (Dale) And other students from Missouri did that too. (Tim) And then those students went out
and they taught seminar the same way! (Dale) Yeah, exactly. (Tim) Because you used to be

(58:55):
able to go to those national meetings and pick out either every Missouri graduate. (Dale) Yeah.
Yeah. (Tim) Because they were so good, like you said. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) But then
it got to be... well, Purdue was doing it. Iowa State. Because... because they learned from you
all! (Dale) Yeah. Yeah! (Tim) But that's a legacy, and... and it really has upped the,
uh... type of presentation that... that... that you hear. (Dale) Right. Exactly. (Tim) And that's

(59:17):
so important. (Dale) It's very important. (Tim) I remember, you told us, if you got a... you gave an
example that one of your friends had to practice it 24 times. (Dale) Oh! Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah. And,
uh... this friend got his Ph... got his, uh... degree at Harvard. (Tim) Oh,
really?! (Dale) Yes. (Tim) Oh, wow. (Dale) So, he was a pretty smart guy, but boy, he practiced like

(59:40):
crazy. (Tim) And at first, you have to, but then you get good at it. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah! (Tim) And,
uh... (Dale) Well, and then some people, like this friend, I... I think he... he was... he had a
little hard... he had to work hard to do it well. And he did, you know. (Tim) Yeah. (Dale) It didn't
come very... some of it... some people, it comes kind of naturally to get up and give a good talk.

(01:00:03):
They know how to talk. And some people are shy and laid-back. (Tim) Right. And we've seen people
come out... come out of that shyness and they can give it. (Dale) Yeah. Well, yeah. One of, I... I
could name her name, but she's been a professor at Utah State for many years. She was very laid-back
and quiet and shy, and she became excellent. (Tim) Right. (Dale) Excellent. (Tim) Right! In

(01:00:28):
both teaching and giving talks and, yes. Yes. Well, now what other type of re... what other
research? We... we've... we've covered quite a bit. Uh... now at toward the end of your career,
you... you... you started working with... with some roots, more in root biology too,
didn't you? (Dale) Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, yeah. And... and, uh... we have... we had shared

(01:00:53):
a... a huge lab area with Bob Sharp, and he was a root guy. But root... roots are, uh... difficult
to study. (Tim) Right! They're underground! (Dale) Cuz you dig them out. And uh... it's... it's
not so easy. It's a... it's pretty dirty. You have to wash them, and... and, uh... it's kind

(01:01:13):
of hard. (Tim) A lot of messy stuff and Elizabeth's stuff. (Dale) Oh, yeah. Yeah. (Tim) They did a lot of
work on that. (Dale) We did a lot of work on that. (Tim) And trying to get the mechanisms down.
(Dale) Yeah. And calcium and liming and pH and all that is really important in roots. (Tim) And...
and... and even though we already knew the basics of that, how that all fit together was what's...

(01:01:35):
was so important on... on the plant side. (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. And there's, you know, there's deeply
rooted plants and shallow rooted plants. And when they grow together, uh... you wonder about what...
what leaks out of the deeply rooted plants and the shallow rooted plants can take up. (Tim) And yeah,

(01:01:56):
it's amazing. They're telling us now though, even the... the plant itself will feed the
soil microbes, trying to get certain soil microorganisms there. So there's, you know, what
we're learning is just tremendous now. (Dale) Oh, yeah. There's... there's one thing that's always
been... there's... it keeps popping up in... in all the research that I did is the fact that,

(01:02:18):
uh... simple organic acids, like malic acid, uh... are so important and... and feeding the
microorganisms, and also as a companion once they get in the plant for potassium movement and stuff
like that. (Tim) Yeah. (Dale) They're really... they're oft... often overlooked, I think, organic

(01:02:40):
acids are. (Tim) Right. So important! (Dale) Citrate and malate are the big ones. (Tim) So,
what do you want to conclude with? You know, what... what... what on research? Or... or... or
students? That... that good advice to our future graduate students? (Dale) Yeah. Well, I think one
thing that I've always, uh... thought was really important is reading. And I'm trying to keep that,

(01:03:07):
uh... tell my grandchildren about that. Read... reading is really important. (Tim) Yeah. (Dale) To
keep up with the literature and, um... and also for getting ideas, I think. And knowing what's
going on around the world, and what's in science, and I think that's really important. And then,

(01:03:29):
you got to stay interested really. And the... the hardest thing now, I think, is... is getting
funds. It's... well, it's been hard ever since I can remember. (Tim) Right. (Dale) The percentage, uh...
of winning in a grant is... it's, you know, below five, a lot of time 5%. (Tim) Yes. (Dale) ...win

(01:03:50):
grants, you know. And writing grants is really difficult, I think. (Tim) Yes. (Dale) Good ones. (Tim) But if
they keep up on the literature and... and try to put the mechanisms together, they can go a
long ways. (Dale) Yeah. And then... then as... as we've talked about already is, uh... drawing
a model somehow. (Tim) Yes. (Dale) And it'll help you, uh... with your grant writing and also with

(01:04:16):
designing your experiments. (Tim) It's kind of like... like building a house. You got to get...
you got to get the plans first. (Dale) Oh, yeah! Exactly. (Tim) How everything works together.
(Dale) Yeah. (Tim) You know, Dale, we could go on and on and talk about lots of things. I probably
dominate too much. (Dale) No! (Tim) But, uh... you have a... you've had a fantastic career,
and... and... and... and you're still working on things! (Dale) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (Tim) Like...

(01:04:37):
like, uh... you're putting a lot of this together that... that... what... what... what we're missing
still out there. (Dale) Yeah. I'll be... I'm thinking about, um... aluminum and boron right
now. And the fact that they may not be, uh... boron may not... it... well, it's an essential

(01:04:58):
element, but there may be more to it than that outside the plant taking place. (Tim) You know,
we're finding... I'm still doing some experiments, and we can find if... if... if we put boron on
corn, we find it in the grain. It increases. So the plant is utilizing it, so there's a lot going
on. (Dale) There's something going on. (Tim) There is. (Dale) Still a lot to know. (Tim) Not only

(01:05:21):
the structure, but other parts of it. The sugar transport is so important. (Dale) Yeah. (Tim) And
the interaction between them, that's what's fun. (Dale) Oh, yeah. (Tim) So, all right. Well,
this is it for Tim's Take. Uh... we've been with Dr. Dale Blevins. Had a wonderful discussion,
and I said we could have talked hours more, but... but we... we might have wore ourselves

(01:05:42):
out if we'd done that! All right. Well... well, but we'll see you next time! And... and... and
thanks again for Dale for coming out for Tim's Take. Bye. (Dale) Wow! Well, that was fun!
[♫]