Greg Lardy, head of North Dakota State University's Department of Animal Sciences, is the 2010 recipient of the American Society of Animal Science Extension Award. The award recognizes recipients for outstanding and noteworthy contributions to Extension animal science programming. He received the award at their annual meeting in Denver.
Lardy was the NDSU Extension Service's beef cattle specialist for 12 years. He was named head of the Department of Animal Sciences and promoted to professor in 2009.
"This award means a great deal to me and reflects the opportunities I have been given to work with a great set of colleagues in the NDSU Extension Service," Lardy says. "Without their help in carrying out these programs, I would not have received this award. This award reflects my passion for the beef industry and the producers I had the opportunity to work with on a daily basis," he adds.
His Extension work included efforts related to beef cattle nutrition and management with emphasis on the use of co-products and alternative feeds in beef cattle diets as well as drought management. He led multistate projects focused on expanding educational programming on backgrounding beef cattle in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming and developed educational programs such as Beef 101, Cow-Calf Schools and the Feedlot MBA.
He has been instrumental in development of NDSU's Beef Systems Center of Excellence, has provided leadership for several regional committees with a focus on Extension programming, offered regular in-service training for county Extension agents on beef cattle production-related issues, and has worked closely with the North Dakota Stockmen's Association, regularly speaking at its annual convention on topics ranging from beef quality assurance to feeding ethanol co-products to cattle.
Lardy also has been principal investigator on research projects generating more than $1.4 million in grant funding and co-principal investigator on projects with grants totaling more than $5 million. He is author of 55 peer-reviewed publications and 200 research publications and has advised 15 master of science and four doctoral students. He served on two U.S. Department of Agriculture grant review panels and is Midwest section representative of the American Society of Animal Science's board of directors.