Norsworthy Honored with Rice Industry Award

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Mary Hightower

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LITTLE ROCK — Jason Norsworthy’s origin story as a weed scientist began on a truck farm in south Arkansas, and was told through the unnumbered long, hot hours spent at the end of a gooseneck hoe chopping weeds from in sweet potato and purple hull peas.

“We didn’t have a lot of herbicides to help with weed control,” he said. “And there were some long days spent chopping weeds and I’m talking sunup to sundown.”

“I hated weeds with a passion,” Norsworthy said.

Norsworthy, turned that feeling into a career in weed management.

Now a distinguished professor and weed scientist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, Norsworthy also holds the Elms Farming Chair of Weed Science.

On Tuesday, USA Rice honored him with its Industry Award for his work combatting weeds in rice.

Norsworthy was nominated by Ford Baldwin, a retired Arkansas extension weed scientist and later consultant, who is among the giants of the field.

“He’s head and shoulders the best weed scientist I have ever known,” Baldwin said. “The one I always wanted to be!”

Sticking with ag

Far from being dissuaded from agriculture by those long, hot hours in the field, Norsworthy said that “I really enjoyed agriculture, really enjoyed crop production. Each year putting a crop in the field and reaping the benefits associated with that was rewarding.”

After graduating from high school in Smackover, Arkansas, Norsworthy headed to Louisiana Tech University where he earned a bachelor’s in plant sciences-agronomy. He moved to Fayetteville, earning his master’s degree in 1997 and following with a Ph.D., both in plant sciences-weed science. After earning his doctorate, Norsworthy spent six years on the faculty of Clemson University.

He couldn’t stay away from his home state though, returning as faculty to the University of Arkansas in 2006.

Why rice?

“I think the one thing that I like about rice is that there’s not another crop like it that we grow here in the Mid-South,” Norsworthy said. “The cultural practices are just so different. I think that’s what excites me. I enjoy the diversity in the crops in which I conduct research, and rice is unlike any other crop here in the Mid-South.”

“When you think of rice, Arkansas is the top producing state with 50 percent of U.S. rice grown here,” he said, adding that has given him “lots of opportunities to be on the forefront addressing issues that occur in the United States.”

HONORED – Arkansas Weed Scientist Jason Norsworthy was honored Dec. 10, 2024, with the Rice Industry Award. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo.)

Keeping the grower in mind

In speaking of his nominator, Baldwin, “I try to emulate him and some of the things he’s done in terms of growing relationships and making sure you’re addressing the grower,” Norsworthy said. “I’ve had 65 to 70 grad students come through my program. When they walk in, we talk about the research and the question I have for them is, ‘how is it going to benefit the grower?’

“I think as long as we’re keeping the grower in mind, it’s going to help us be in the right position to do research and answer relevant questions,” he said.

The award is the latest in an illustrious career. For his research and educational accomplishments, the Arkansas Association of Cooperative Extension Specialists recognized Norsworthy as Researcher of the Year in 2011, and he was presented the Outstanding Researcher Award by the Arkansas Chapter of Gamma Sigma Delta in 2015.

He received the Australian Orator Award for the Herbicide Resistance Challenge in 2013 and was awarded the Outstanding Educator Award by the Southern Weed Science Society and Researcher of the Year by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture in 2017. 

In 2011, Norsworthy and colleagues received the John W. White Team Award from the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture for their efforts on glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth. In 2017, the University of Arkansas Extension Service honored Norsworthy and colleagues with the Extension Excellence State Team Award for their dicamba research and educational efforts.

In 2018, he was named Fellow of the Weed Science Society of America, received the Outstanding Researcher Award from WSSA, and was co-author of the Outstanding Paper published in the Weed Technology journal. In 2021, Norsworthy was recipient of the Spitze Land Grant University Faculty Award for Excellence in 2021. Most recently, he was named Fellow of the Southern Weed Science Society in 2024.

Norsworthy has been a member of the SWSS for more than 25 years and served on its SWSS board and that of the Weed Science Society of America.

He also served as an associate editor for the peer-reviewed journal ‘Weed Technology” from 2002 to 2011 and has since been serving as editor-in-chief for the journal.

​To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website. Follow us on 𝕏 at @ArkAgResearch, subscribe to the Food, Farms and Forests podcast and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. Follow us on 𝕏 at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.

About the Division of Agriculture

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.

The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.