The incubator has plans for an agricultural consumer science center, which will apply science to help the local agricultural industry, Mr. LaValle said. The center's facilities will be available to local growers for development of new "value-added" specialty products using locally grown raw materials, he said. An example of such a product is soap or shampoo made from grape seed oil, he said. The center also will be available for researchers pursuing products and processes that enhance agricultural operations or protect the integrity of local produce, including wine.

"This really is the exclamation point for why we located the incubator at Calverton," the senator said.

Mr. LaValle said he obtained the funding in response to a concept proposal drafted by the incubator's executive director, Monique Gablenz.

Ms. Gablenz said Tuesday she is delighted with the opportunity for growth that comes with the funding. The 15,680-square-foot Calverton Business Incubator, which opened in September 2004, is more than 70 percent occupied, she said. The grant will allow it to physically expand on the 50-acre site donated to Stony Brook by the Town of Riverhead.

"Now I can sit down with the farm bureau and wine council and see what they really need," Ms. Gablenz said. She's had informal discussions with representatives of those organizations and sees the incubator providing "a sanitary, licensed environment for research and development," where scientists can help farmers take ideas "from concept to commercialization." The incubator would be a conduit between the agricultural and scientific communities, working with Cornell Cooperative Extension, Stony Brook and Brookhaven National Lab," she said.

"If we combine all the talents that we have locally, we can provide valuable support to the ag and wine industries here," Ms. Gablenz said.

Ms. Gablenz said Jim Hayward, a Stony Brook molecular biologist and biophysicist, whose successful biotech startup, the Collaborative Group, was "hatched" at the university's hi-tech incubator in Stony Brook (he sold the company in 2004), is working on gene typing that could be used to test the authenticity of specific agricultural products. A test is under development to determine whether a wine is authentic or counterfeit, for example, she said.

Dr. Hayward is now CEO of applied DNA Sciences Inc., which provides "customized botanical DNA encryption, embedment and authentication solutions that are designed to help protect companies, governments and consumers from counterfeiting, fraud, piracy and product diversion," according to the company's Web site.

Ms. Gablenz, prior to joining the Calverton Business Incubator, was the executive director of the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency. She also is a former Riverhead deputy supervisor, having served under Supervisor Joe Janoski, who is credited by Mr. LaValle with envisioning a small business incubator at the Calverton site, before the property was transferred to the town by the U.S. Navy in 1998. Consisting of just under 3,000 acres, the site was once leased to the Grumman Corporation, which manufactured and tested military aircraft there. Grumman left the Calverton site in 1996. The company had been the town's largest employer and taxpayer. Then-Congressman George Hochbrueckner (D-Coram) and town officials arranged for the transfer of the 2,900 acres inside the former Grumman fence to the Town of Riverhead Community Development Agency for economic development purposes. The site is a designated New York State Empire Zone.

Since opening in late 2004, the Calverton Business Incubator has been home to "an array of small startup businesses," Ms. Gablenz said.

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