American Dairy Science Association
(A presentation made at the American Dairy Science Association)
Founded as the Utah Agricultural College in 1888. John T. Caine, purchased purebred Jersey bulls to initiate dairy herd improvement George B. Caine continued this dairy breeding providing a basis for Cache Valley Breeding Association, and in 1958 the Holstein bull Burkegov Inka Dekol was the nation’s highest rated bull.
Lyman Rich pioneered use of “business machines” for processing dairy herd improvement records and teamed with Bliss Crandall, College statistician, resulting in formation of the Dairy Herd Improvement (DHI) computing service.
Ruebin Hill was a pioneer in measurement of cheese curd tension. From this beginning, evolved a long history of research and instrumentation on milk coagulation.
A.J. Morris was head of the Dairy Manufacturing Department and was a master teacher. His students became leaders in industry, research and education. C. A. “Tony” Ernstrom was the driving force behind construction of the Nutrition and Food Sciences building at Utah State University. He was instrumental in organizing the National Dairy Board research program and he pioneered use of ultrafltration of milk for manufacture of natural and process cheese. Utah State University evaluated one of the first infrared milk analyzers in the USA, and these are now the prime means for measuring milk composition.
Gary Richardson helped develop a hand-held conductivity meter for rapid detection of mastitis that is in use throughout the world and invented external pH-controlled starter system. Based on Richardson’s research, several Utah State students formed a company to provide cultures, media and external pH-controlled systems to the cheese industry. Apart from being the most economical starter system, it produced some of the best improvements in cheese quality in the past fifty years and is now used worldwide.
In the 1970s, Rodney Brown and Tony Ernstrom spearheaded the development and use of milk component pricing, resulting in a dramatic improvement in the economics of cheese manufacture. Now today’s dairy faculty at Utah State University are making their own contributions in the fields of enhanced fat composition of milk, lactic acid bacteria genomics, cheese chemistry and manufacture, and whey proteins.