Farm Progress

Research lab hosts first field day, welcomes the public to tour, visit farm anytime.

Shelley E. Huguley, Editor

August 16, 2018

16 Slides

August 7, 2018, the USDA-ARS Cropping Systems Research Laboratory (CSRL) at Lubbock, Texas, hosted its first field day, welcoming producers, scientists and the general public to walk among its research fields while hearing from many of its scientists about various research projects in cotton, sorghum and peanuts. 

No matter the commodity though, increased water efficiency and profitable production with limited water or irrigation, seemed to be a common theme as scientists discussed their projects.

See, Drought, declining water table fuels research projects at Lubbock USDA-ARS lab

For example, Whole Plant Physiologist Dr. Dennis Gitz discussed a cotton experiment in which a tomato gene is inserted into a cotton plant to test its effect on yield and water use efficiency. Thus far, the study has shown that cotton plants with this tomato gene continued to grow and produce fiber under drought conditions where normal plants had stopped growing, according to Gitz. "Over the course of a preliminary small scale pilot study, cotton yield was increased by 50 percent."

To learn more about the Lubbock CSRL, click here

 

About the Author(s)

Shelley E. Huguley

Editor, Southwest Farm Press

Shelley Huguley has been involved in agriculture for the last 25 years. She began her career in agricultural communications at the Texas Forest Service West Texas Nursery in Lubbock, where she developed and produced the Windbreak Quarterly, a newspaper about windbreak trees and their benefit to wildlife, production agriculture and livestock operations. While with the Forest Service she also served as an information officer and team leader on fires during the 1998 fire season and later produced the Firebrands newsletter that was distributed quarterly throughout Texas to Volunteer Fire Departments. Her most personal involvement in agriculture also came in 1998, when she married the love of her life and cotton farmer Preston Huguley of Olton, Texas. As a farmwife, she knows first-hand the ups and downs of farming, the endless decisions made each season based on “if” it rains, “if” the drought continues, “if” the market holds. She is the bookkeeper for their family farming operation and cherishes moments on the farm such as taking harvest meals to the field or starting a sprinkler in the summer with the whole family lending a hand. Shelley has also freelanced for agricultural companies such as Olton CO-OP Gin, producing the newsletter Cotton Connections while also designing marketing materials to promote the gin. She has published articles in agricultural publications such as Southwest Farm Press while also volunteering her marketing and writing skills to non-profit organizations such as Refuge Services, an equine-assisted therapy group in Lubbock. She and her husband reside in Olton with their three children Breely, Brennon and HalleeKate.

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