Farmers Will Benefit from
Plant Science Research in New Building

T

he new plant science building is a $21 million facility with 21st century technology. It signals the College's commitment to plant research for farmers like the Clifts, McAtees, and Whites and the rest of the agricultural industry.

College personnel occupied the 96,000-square-foot building this spring. It houses faculty from Agronomy, Plant Pathology, and Horticulture and has 33 labs, 29 lab support rooms, three conference rooms, and 15 rooms with controlled environments for plant science research.

It also holds the Cameron Williams Lecture Hall, which seats 93 people. The lecture hall, located off the foyer on the first floor, is named for a 1949 alumnus who has spent his career with Rickard Seeds and is a generous benefactor to the College.

The building's first floor will be primarily for research in forages, genomics (study of the structure and function of genes), and plant growth; the second floor for research in plant disease; the third, for molecular biology and genetics; and the top floor for seed biology, plant biochemistry, and weed biology.

Agriculture in Kentucky and elsewhere will benefit from the wide range of research that will take place in the new building. It will include the discovery of new varieties that have higher yields and are more disease-resistant, horticultural research to improve seed quality, and the bioengineering of plants for a variety of uses, which is a growing segment of Kentucky's economy.

The new plant science building has been an idea for two decades, but the money to build it became available only about five years ago, when 43 acres of the College's South Farm were sold. That land was considered by researchers to be of little use agriculturally and also impractical because Man O War Boulevard separated it from the rest of the farm. The 43 acres sold for $18.3 million, and with $3 million made available from other University funds, the plant science building got the green light.
The new building will open up much-needed space in Ag North so that:

• Entomology labs can be consolidated there, brought in from other locations across campus.
• Four researchers with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service will be able to work in Ag North as part of a joint UK-USDA forage-animal research project announced last summer.
• Ag North teaching areas can be expanded.
  

An addition to the plant science building is planned to house other plant and soil science programs. It will have labs, a greenhouse complex, and office space. That expansion will be included in a future capital project request to the legislature. (The current building was built without state appropriation.)
This building will foster groundbreaking research, including that supported by two recently endowed faculty positions.

A $1 million endowed faculty chair has been established with $500,000 from the estate of the late Harry E. Wheeler, a plant pathologist at UK from 1967 to 1984, and a match from the state’s Research Challenge Trust Fund. Chris Schardl, professor of plant pathology, who is working on eliminating the toxic qualities of the endophyte that infects tall fescue, will hold the Harry E. Wheeler Chair in Plant Mycology.

Harold R. Burton, whose research has been in reducing harmful compounds in the cured tobacco leaf, holds the Harold R. Burton Endowed Professorship in Plant Biochemistry that was established with a $620,000 gift of stock from Star Scientific Inc. and Jonnie Williams. The state’s Research Challenge Trust Fund matched this gift.

—Linus Walton, associate dean for administration; Michael Barrett, chair of Agronomy; and David Smith, chair of Plant Pathology, provided information for this story.

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