Farm Director KC Sheperd is attending the Lahoma Wheat Field Day, where producers are gathered to learn about wheat varieties, breeding, fertility, disease, and pest and weed management. She got the chance to talk with Dr. Scott Senseman, associate vice president of research for the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.
Senseman provided an update on the status of the new agronomy farm campaign to replace the dated facilities. He said, “Primarily, right now, it is really helping the wheat program. We’ve got greenhouses and buildings there that were built in the late forties or early fifties, so they got old about thirty years ago! We are really looking forward to some upgrades to our facility so that we can be much more competitive.”
He emphasized how well the wheat improvement team has already done in the dated facilities and looks forward to seeing how much more they can do with the upgrades.
The campaign seeks to raise $10 million to begin the project, and currently stands at a little over $7 million in pledged funding for the next 4.5 years. This means that there are still opportunities to support the campaign being led by Teresa Gustafson.
“We have great opportunities to put names on things, and if they want to see what we are working with now and what we are wanting to do next, we’ve got that information for folks to look at, too. We would love to talk to them about the possibilities coming next,” Senseman urged.
OSU’s Wheat Breeding specialist, Dr. Brett Carver, is known worldwide for his research and the varieties he has developed, and Dr. Senseman understands the importance of providing him with a facility that matches his fame.
“The wheat varieties that are created now do not last as long as they did thirty years ago,” Dr. Senseman admitted. “This means that we have to create more, faster. In order to do that, we need facilities that enable us to do that, and there is a term called high throughput phenotyping that we do not have at the moment, but would really help us accelerate those kinds of things as well as maybe some growth room capacities that could help us create crops all year round instead of just one or two.”
The first priority is upgrading the greenhouses and accompanying facilities. Next, the construction of a conference facility is sought, but so is a soil, water, forage testing, and plant diagnostics lab. “All of those things could go out in that near area so that we could kind of round out all of the things related to agronomy, wheat, pests, soil, and water,” Dr. Senseman shared. “All of that could be close together, and that’s the long-term goal, which will have a little bit different price tag.”
Dr. Senseman mentioned the successful graduation ceremonies that recently concluded, and looks forward to more field days over the summer. Click the listen bar at the top of the page to hear the entire conversation.
“Field days like this one always give us a big boost,” he said. “When I get to see what the scientists are able to find out and how they interact with the public, that, to me, is one of the things that is always great. We’re on our third year of a pretty heavy duty campaign for a lot of those field day events; right now, we have seven per year that we are trying to make a pretty big deal out of and get the kinds of people that can see the things we want them to see to help us.”
OSU Agriculture Field Days are educational events presented by OSU Ag Research and OSU Extension to share research-based information and resources with Oklahomans. Field days showcase current agricultural research and relevant best practices through presentations, tours, hands-on workshops, and discussions. Research at OSU locations across the state is often designed for specific applications based on the region.
Find an OSU field day to support your needs by clicking here.
