Leading the way in teaching, research and extension

The Agronomy Research and Innovation Center is a keystone for the college’s vision to strengthen and diversify agribusiness in Kansas and around the globe. It will serve as a demonstration site for public/private partnerships focused on best practices in sustainable/regenerative agriculture, crop production innovation, technology development and training, and conservation and protection of natural resources.

This center will embrace and create the next-generation technologies to enable farmers to be the most efficient users of natural resources while continuing to increase crop production.

Some of the research projects planned for the Agronomy Research and Innovation Center include:

• How to breed new crop varieties that are prolific and resilient to pathogens and the changing biome;
• How to extend the supply of water by studying the most efficient use of that resource in crops and forages;
• How to solve the “mystery of trillions of microbes that reside in soil” to improve soil health; and
• How to use and co-create technology so that farmers of the future can produce more with less.

Features include:

• Agronomy Innovation Center is designed to foster transdisciplinary research including support for the Institute for Digital Agriculture and Advanced Analytics (ID3A) and industry collaborations. It features a visualization lab; science-on-display innovation labs; data analysis workspaces; a farm observation deck; 3 conference rooms; and a breakroom/student gathering area. This facility will contribute to designing agricultural systems to be more climate resilient; water and nutrient efficient.
• Agronomy Research Center South will feature workspaces for fostering discovery in areas of soil science, environmental science, weed science, and precision agriculture research. It also has shared facilities for climate controlled soil sample storage; plant and soil drying; fertilizer research; pesticide research; and roots research.
• Agronomy Research Center North will feature workspaces for fostering discovery in areas of plant breeding, plant genetics, crop physiology, range science, and cropping systems research. It also has shared facilities for climate controlled seed storage; plant threshing; plant sample preparation; and soil sample preparation.

 

In addition, this facility's location on the Agronomy North Farm complements the Agronomy Education Center, which is already bringing together industry partners and students in an indoor-outdoor learning environment near the research plots.

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