Taking the Long View: 



Research Reaps Results In lime 



IBy Debbi Sykes Braswell 

 here's minute rice, instant mashed 

 potatoes and so-called miracle cleaners. 



But you'll never see the words 

 "instant" or "miracle" associated with 

 scientific research — unless the words 

 are used to describe the outcome of that 

 research. 



Instead of an instant or a minute, 

 some projects last for decades. And 

 forget "miracle." In this field, it can take 

 a series of projects before the results of 

 the research can be put to use. 



"You can't just go out there and 

 say I want the answer — and expect 

 to get it right away," says Ron 

 Hodson, director of North Carolina 

 Sea Grant, snapping his fingers for 

 emphasis. 



Hodson, a fisheries biologist 

 and aquaculturist, knows first- 

 hand about the years and money 

 invested in research on the 

 hybrid striped bass. He has 

 played a key role in more 

 than eight years of develop- 

 ing the pond culture of the 

 fish and another 10 

 years of helping to 

 develop domesticated 

 broodstock. 



The going has 

 been slow. When Lee 

 Brothers, a successful 

 grower in Aurora, started 

 marketing hybrid striped 

 bass, he didn't get many bites, 

 says his father, Harvey Brothers. 

 Lee drove around with a few sample 

 fish in his pickup truck, but people just 

 said, "What's a hybrid striped bass?" 



The hybrid striped bass industry is 

 one of many North Carolina Sea Grant 

 successes that took time to incubate. 

 Hodson can quickly click off a list 



• Photos by Scott D. Taylor 



of Sea Grant researchers at campuses 

 across the state who have made impor- 

 tant contributions to science through 

 years of thorough research. Here are 

 a few: 



• Tyre Lanier, an NC State 

 University professor of food science. 

 He has discovered ways to create 

 moneymaking products out of food once 

 considered a waste product. 



• JoAnn Burkholder, an NC State 

 associate professor of botany. She is best 

 known as a codiscoverer of the toxic 

 dinoflagellate Pfiesteria piscicida. But 

 Burkholder also has carried out years of 

 research on the effects of nitrogen 

 enrichment in coastal waters and 

 examined the health of eelgrass mead- 

 ows, an essential marine habitat that 

 once covered acres in the sounds. 



• James A. Rice, an associate 

 professor of zoology at NC State, and 

 Larry B. Crowder, a professor of marine 

 ecology at Duke University Marine 

 Laboratory. They have studied predator- 

 prey relationships in fish and have 

 extended their work to look at how the 

 ecosystem figures into these relation- 

 ships. 



• Walter F. Clark, coastal law 

 specialist with North Carolina Sea Grant, 

 and David J. Brower, professor of city 

 and regional planning at the University 

 of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They 

 are working on recommendations for 

 developing a comprehensive public trust 

 policy for the state of North Carolina. In 

 particular, state officials have struggled 

 with the issue of what uses the state 

 should allow in its waters and on its 

 submerged lands. 



Finding insight into issues like these 

 isn't easy, Hodson says. 



But the effort is worthwhile. □ 



