History

Newell Hall, designed by William Edwards, was constructed in 1910 as the fourth building on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville and served as the home of the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station. Its exterior fabric is brick masonry, accented by terra cotta window sills and crenellated parapet along the roofline, exemplifying the Collegiate Gothic style. The building was renovated in 1943 and named for Dr. Wilmon E. Newell in 1944. Dr. Newell was a Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station and Provost for Agriculture. In 1979, Newell Hall was added to the National Register and is part of the University of Florida Campus Historic District. Today, Newell Hall is home to the Agronomy Department Research Office, as well as faculty offices and laboratories.

Production of agronomic crops began in Florida with the early settlement in the 16th century, but organized academic involvement did not begin until 1885, when an agricultural college was established in Lake City. This was 23 years after the Morrill Act was signed. However, an experiment station was established as a unit of the college in 1888, the year after passage of the Hatch Act. The experiment station operated on Hatch (federal) funds until 1901, when the Florida Legislature made an appropriation to supplement Hatch funds. State funds were appropriated to conduct farmer institutes that were the early extension efforts. Several bulletins were published beginning in 1888.

By an act of the 1903 Florida Legislature, the University of Florida was founded at Gainesville and the agricultural college was moved from Lake City to Gainesville. Agronomic work was conducted without formal departments until Agronomy and Agricultural Engineering research were combined into a department in 1915. Teaching was in a separate department. In 1915, the Florida Extension Service was formed following passage of the Smith-Lever Act in 1914. Even though agronomic teaching, research and extension were in separate administrative units, some faculty members held joint appointments.

The Agronomy Department was formalized as a separate unit of the experiment station in 1921; however, teaching remained a separate unit. In 1929, the first person to be designated as an extension agronomist was also a district extension agent. During the 1920's, two branch stations were established and focused on agronomic crops. The Quincy station was established to concentrate on cigar-wrapper tobacco and the Belle Glade station was established to develop the muck soils of the area.

During the period 1920-1930, projects were initiated on corn and peanut breeding, forages, plant introduction, cotton and tobacco production. The peanut breeding project that began in 1928 was the first of its kind in the world, and continues to the present. There were cooperative USDA efforts during this decade, such as a cotton investigations unit and a unit for crop introductions.

During the depression years, agronomic programs at the University of Florida were maintained with some growth. Lupins were introduced as a green manure crop, zinc deficiency was discovered as the cause of white bud of corn and the breeding and plant introduction programs were on the verge of making important contributions.

During and after World War II, there was considerable expansion in agricultural programs in Florida. Student numbers increased greatly after the war. Genetics, statistics and climatology were included in the Agronomy Department. New branch stations were established at Ona and Jay to conduct research on beef cattle on rangeland and field crops, respectively. Also mobile units were established to evaluate cultivars, fertilization and other practices that could be used by growers to increase production. Herbicide research and teaching began during this period. The first full-time extension agronomist was appointed in 1946. Irrigation research was initiated during this time. The branch station at Marianna was established in 1948. Several crop cultivars were released that had major impacts on agriculture in Florida and other states.

In 1953, approval was given to the Agronomy Department to award the Ph.D. degree. Additional branch stations also began agronomic research at Live Oak, Ft. Lauderdale and Ft. Pierce, and some of the mobile units were converted to branch stations during the 1950's. Additions were made to the staff during this time. The first agronomic input into international programs began with the Costa Rica project in 1954.

In the 1960's, all agricultural and forestry programs of the University of Florida were consolidated into one unit, the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), having a single and separate appropriation from the state legislature. At that time agronomic teaching, research and extension activities were consolidated into a single department. The first off-campus extension agronomist was employed in 1967 to serve the rapidly expanding sugarcane industry.

Expansion of faculty and improvement in facilities continued through the 1970's and early 1980's with the number of faculty reaching 56 by 1988 including eight USDA courtesy appointments. Improvements were made in equipment and building facilities at the Green Acres Research Unit. The 150-acre Forage Evaluation Field Laboratory was developed at the Beef Research Unit for evaluation of forages under grazing. The Agronomy Department facility at the Dairy Research Unit was expanded both in acreage and building facilities during this time period.

A major enhancement in departmental campus facilities occurred in the late 1990's when Agronomy Department personnel located in laboratories on the periphery of campus moved to renovated space in McCarty Hall. These relocations greatly reduced the long-standing dispersion of Agronomy Department faculty in numerous buildings across campus and concentrated most Gainesville faculty in Newell or McCarty Hall. These changes in physical location have had a very positive effect on departmental faculty interactions.

In early 2001, the Agronomy Department vacated the Green Acres Research Unit and moved the field research and demonstration programs to the Plant Science Research and Education Unit at Citra. This unit, in the second stage of development, will serve as the primary plant science field research unit for scientists in Agronomy, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Entomology and Nematology, Environmental Horticulture, Horticultural Sciences, Plant Pathology and Soil and Water Science.

Although the number of Agronomy Department faculty has significantly decreased since 1988, personnel have been hired to either continue existing programs or to develop research thrusts in new areas. Three of these recent hires represent the first female state faculty members in the Agronomy Department. Areas of research conducted by new faculty include molecular biology in peanut and sugarcane and the ecology of invasive plant species. New agronomy faculty have been hired at statewide research centers as new centers have been created (Immokalee) or undergone programmatic change (Belle Glade, Ona and Quincy) during the past 10 years.

In late 2001, a new molecular physiologist joined the Agronomy Department faculty. The area of emphasis for this position is forage crops.