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Growing up on a North Dakota farm, Larry O’Keeffe wanted nothing better than to follow his father’s example. He enjoyed his years with Future Farmers of America while in high school, raising and showing hogs and registered Hereford cattle. But his father discouraged Larry’s desire to be a farmer.

“I was always interested in weeds, insects, and diseases,” he said recently. So the next best thing was to study those subjects at North Dakota State University, Fargo, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in crops and soils. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in agricultural entomology from Iowa State University in 1965.

Later that year, he accepted a position in extension at the University of Idaho. All of his Idaho posts were “on a statewide basis,” he said. After four years, he changed to teaching and research, and eventually became head of the Department of Plant, Soil and Entomological Sciences where he remained 14 years until retiring in 1998.

O’Keeffe’s academic and administrative duties brought him into close cooperation with the late Gary Lee, who directed the UI agricultural experiment stations located at Aberdeen, Caldwell, Dubois, Kimberly, Parma, Sandpoint, and Twin Falls. Lee envisioned research-extension centers in which faculty would have shared responsibilities for research and extension efforts.

Frequently visiting the various stations, O’Keeffe assisted the depart-ment’s faculty who were involved in regionally based research and extension projects.

He often visited several stations while on the road before returning to his office in Moscow. In those early years, the best means of travel to southern Idaho was by railroad; that gave way to travel by automobile. In the later years, slower ground transportation was replaced by commercial air travel, followed on the other end by a rental car. That allowed O’Keeffe to spend less time away from the UI campus.

Research and extension projects at the stations included soil fertility, soil and water chemistry and physics, plant breeding and genetics, plant pathology and soil-borne diseases, weed science, crop management, and varietal evaluation for the primary crops of each of the state’s agricultural regions. Insects, both harmful and beneficial, also were investigated to determine their effects on crops and livestock.

Agriculture research and extension efforts at any given station often are done in cooperation with industry and commodity groups that share funding, O’Keeffe explained.
“One of the goals of the centers is to find management techniques that can be adopted by producers and will show a profit in a competitive market,” he explained. This includes breeding for improved, better-adapted varieties of small grains, beans, potatoes, and brassicas (mustard, canola, etc.). Specific studies focused on the problems of specialty crops, such as peas, alfalfa seed, and hops, and the diseases, insects, and weeds of vegetable seeds.
O’Keeffe cited a long-time partnership with the seed-potato industry that involved the development of very high-quality seed potatoes, certified for lack of potato leafroll virus and other diseases. The potato varietal improvements also involved the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington State University, and Oregon State University. They jointly engaged in a potato-breeding program that provided improved seed stocks to farmers throughout the Northwest. Much of the early work was done at the Aberdeen station, he said.

Research programs and procedures have changed over the years as funding from outside sources has increased and professors gain more research-extension assistance, said O’Keeffe.

“In the early days, faculty generally focused more on teaching, with research usually being conducted by one or two graduate students. So research time and personnel limited efforts. Research quality and quantity have dramatically changed in my 35 years. And the expectations on professors also have changed,” he said.

“Originally, the majority of the research was field-oriented at the stations. More recently, laboratory-based programs have been added as faculty members have sought additional financial resources and expanded research-extension programs. Now, scientific aides and others stay in the programs, and the faculty member is more of a program leader. With more people involved, the quality and quantity of the research-extension effort is improved. This reflects the industry partnership in funding.”

Research benefits don’t always show up immediately; rather, they emerge over an extended period, O’Keeffe said.

“Sometimes the importance of a discovery is lost in the competition for market share in the global agricultural economy. My sense is that in the big picture, many kinds of events cause changes that are market sensitive but are transient so that it’s difficult to adequately measure the effects of research-extension efforts.

“In my 35 years, to really address the value-added component of an example like Idaho bean seed, it boils down to one or two research findings that open the gate, allowing industry to add premium value to the product and find the marketplace for it.”

Although retired, O’Keeffe isn’t idle. He has developed a beautiful, low-maintenance yard at the front and east side of his Moscow home.
 

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