Images highlighting USDA-ARS Cropping Systems Research Lab Field Day

Plant Physiologist Paxton Payton, USDA-ARS, Lubbock, invites producers, researchers, and the general public to stop-by and tour the 4th-Street laboratory and farm. 

The USDA-ARS Cropping Systems Research Laboratory includes a 30-acre farm, seven poly houses and 30 wet laboratories. They have 16 full-time PhD scientists and 50-60 long-term, high-risk research projects.

Plant Physiologist Dr. James Mahan, left, visits with field day attendees about a three-year study on cotton performance under eight water and thermal environments in a single growing season.

Dr. Yves Emendack, a research crop physiologist, discusses sorghum cold resiliency.  

A two-row combine used at the research farm to harvest sorghum trials.

Dr. Veronica Acosta-Martinez, who has been at the CSRL for 17 years, talks soil health with field day attendees. Martinez will represent the U.S. at the World Soil Science Congress in Brazil in mid-August.

Pollination cages are scattered throughout the field of experimental cotton.

Field day guests listen to a research presentation while sitting on the hay trailer used to chauffeur them throughout the research farm.

An experimental field of cotton. Dr. Mauricio Ulloa, a research geneticist, is developing approaches to develop cotton lines with better stress and drought tolerance and disease resistance.

Research geneticist Dr. Gloria Burow, holds up two boxes of Grain Berry cereal, which are made with Onyx sorghum. Burow says they are working on producing new lines of sorghum germplasm with more antioxidants that can be used within the food industry. 

A cotton trial evaluating the effect of tomato gene insertion on cotton yield and water use efficiency. In cooperation with Texas Tech University, CSRL scientists, have found cotton inserted with the tomato gene continue to use sunlight to make food under conditions where normal plants stop making food. 

Peanut research field. Did you know that Texas is the No. 2 peanut-producing state in the U.S.? About 70 percent of Texas-grown peanuts are produced within 100 miles of Lubbock. Researchers are evaluating new varieties that can be grown profitably where irrigation or rainfall is limited.

A rainfall simulator is used to conduct rainfall research at the CSRL farm. According to Dr. Timothy Goebel of the Wind Erosion and Water Conservation Research department, this mobile unit can simulate 3-inches of rainfall per hour. 

One of the many sorghum experiment fields at the CSRL farm.

Molecular geneticist Dr. Junping Chen discusses heat and drought tolerance traits in sorghum and corn. The goal of her research is to incorporate a stress-tolerant genetic trait in breeding for stress resilience crops.

Experimental crossing block: Developing sugarcane aphid resistant hybrids adapted to the High Plains of Texas and also western Kansas. The seed  gathered from this plot will be tested for sugarcane aphid resistance, yield, agronomics — everything  important to sorghum production, says Dr. Chad Hayes, research geneticist.