Angelo Napolitano, farm manager for the Poultry Research and Teaching Center at MSU, opened a cage to a group of turkeys that flapped their wings and clucked wildly.
MSU researchers are comparing the relationship between heat stress and meat quality with both genetically-modified and unaltered turkeys. The birds are housed in similar areas, side by side.
"They haven't been changed in the last 40 years," Napolitano said of the unaltered turkeys. "They look bigger, but if you picked one up, they don't weigh as much as the guys next door."
MSU is one of the top institutions in the nation for agricultural information and sources, a recent study found.
The university is ranked as the 17th most cited institution for agriculture-related research. Institutions are cited when their research is used by others for papers and other publications.
But Jamie DePolo, Director of Communications for the Michigan Agriculture Experiment Station, said the university comes in fourth when you look at the number of citations per scholarly paper.
"We didn't write as many papers, but we had many more citations," she said. "So in a sense, we're getting more bang for our buck."
The Thomson Scientific Research Services Group conducted the study and found that MSU had about seven citations per paper. Only the University of Wisconsin, University of California-Davis and Cornell University received more citations. During the past 10 years, MSU has produced 836 research papers.
The agricultural research used in the study consisted of papers and journals examining several agriculture-related fields, including food science and nutrition, agricultural biochemistry, agroforestry, food chemistry, agricultural engineering, horticulture, and crop protection and science.
Doug Buhler, associate dean of research for the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, said MSU's highly cited areas include plant genetics, some animal sciences and agricultural processes, and their environmental impact.
"We would like to think that we rank very well in terms of our programs and agricultural research," he said.
Buhler added that much of the university's research focuses on issues key to the state.
"Michigan has a very strong and diverse agricultural economy," he said. "A lot of our work here is to support and build that economy. We feel that agriculture has a very strong role to play, and our research is a very strong part of that."
DePolo said looking at the number of citations from an institution is a common way of measuring research progress.
"You can do a lot of research, but if no one uses (it), then you're not having an impact with that research," she said. "You want your research to be out there and used and read, so that's a pretty powerful tool to measure the impact."
