Plant Sciences Unit | East Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center

The East Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center-Plant Sciences Unit, purchased in 1963, is located on Alcoa Highway, 5 miles south of UT’s Agriculture Campus. This 212 acre tract is utilized to provide land, equipment, and support for faculty and graduate students to conduct agriculture related research, with a primary emphasis on plant and soil sciences. The unit’s soil taxonomy consists of Sequoia silty clay loam in the Upland/Hill area, Etowah Silt Loam in the Upland Terrace area, and Sequatchie loam in the River Terrace.

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The ETREC-Plant Sciences Unit is home to many great facilities that are used to aid in research. There are facilities that include: buildings for maintenance and to house equipment, seed labs for processing seed and samples, crop dryers, refrigeration units for seed and plant material storage, office space for researchers, ten greenhouses, a pump house for irrigation, and four residential houses. The Plant Sciences Unit is also home to the FIFA and AstroTurf sports research facilities as well as a NOAA weather station.

The ETREC-Plant Sciences Unit uses specialized equipment to aid in research. Specialized row crop planters, a custom combine, grain drills, and a forage harvester with electronic weighing devices make up this inventory of equipment.

Current projects being undertaken at the ETREC-Plant Sciences Unit include: corn and soybean state variety trials, corn and soybean breeding programs, weed control in row crops, turfgrass weed control, turfgrass disease control, turfgrass management, forestry projects including a pine and tulip poplar, breeding nursery, endangered tree swallow research, precision application technologies, hops production to support local brewing, and switchgrass breeding.

The Environmental Hydrology Field Teaching Site is also located on the unit. This designated area contains wells used for water sampling and water quality analysis and to train students to use Ground Penetrating Radar.