November 2025 Arkansas Ag Research Report

Big News

Improving agriculture in India focus of new UADA partnership

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture recently entered a five-year agreement with India’s National Horticulture Board and Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare to help farmers in India improve agricultural production by limiting the spread of pathogens.

Ioannis Tzanetakis, director of the Arkansas Clean Plant Center and Professor of Plant Virology with the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, has been working on the Indian Clean Plant Program for almost three years. The project’s goal is to establish nine clean plant centers in India.

“These exchanges will not only strengthen our respective programs but also build lasting partnerships that enhance global agricultural biosecurity, something that I have worked on in the better part of my career,” Tzanetakis said.

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Members of a delegation from India pose for a photo with UADA administrators, Arkansas Clean Plant Center team members, and UADA Tech Commercialization Office employees during a signing of an agreement that aims to help implement a clean plant program in India. Pictured are Virendra Baranwal, front left, Chander Parkash Gandhi, Raghavendra Naduvinamani, V.B. Patel, Priya Ranjan, Jean-François Meullenet, Ioannis Tzanetakis, Shivani Singh and Dan Villamor; back left, Ken Korth, Brandi Waters and Lisa Childs.

Annual Ag Awards from UADA and Bumpers College Recognize Land-Grant Excellence

The 2025 Agricultural Awards were held Nov. 14 to recognize excellence in land-grant work by UADA and Bumpers College faculty and staff.

Brandon McFadden, Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, was awarded the John W. White Award for Outstanding Research for his contributions in behavioral economics. Brittni Littlejohn, Assistant Professor, Nana Tian, Associate Professor, and Don White, Professor, were part of the winning John W. White Outstanding Team Award.

Doug Galloway, Program Associate, Spring Sneed, Regional Accountant, and Dana Harris, Office Manager, were all recognized with Outstanding Support Personnel Awards. And Beth Kegley, Professor of Animal Science, won the Spitze Land Grant University Faculty Award.

Recognition of Professional Excellence (RoPE) Awards, honoring early career achievements by faculty and staff of the experiment station, were presented to Caio Vieira, Assistant Professor; Brandon Wodka, Facility Director of the Rosen Alternative Pest Control Center; Mike Gilbert, Maintenance Specialist; and John Lovett, Science News Editor.

Nearly 30 UADA and Bumpers College faculty and staff members were recognized Nov. 14 at the Agricultural Awards Ceremony held in the C.A. Vines Arkansas 4-H Center in Little Rock.

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Scientists Among World’s Top-Cited

Among millions of researchers in the world, 14 faculty members with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station were recognized as top-cited scientists by a recent annual ranking.

The annual list, compiled by Stanford University professor of medicine John P.A. Ioannidis using Elsevier’s Scopus, recognizes researchers with the most citations over the last calendar year and those who have been most cited since 1996.

Fourteen scientists with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station were recognized as among the top-cited researchers in the world by a recent annual ranking. 

Cover crops research earns Outstanding Paper Award

A team of researchers led by Trent Roberts, Professor of Soil Fertility and Soil Testing and Endowed Chair in Soil Fertility Research in the Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences, determined the cardinal temperatures for eight commonly grown cover crop species. Mila Pessotto, Ph.D., was the lead author of the article that recently won an Outstanding Paper Award from the American science societies of crop, soil and agronomy.

Co-authors of the study included Mary Savin, Professor and Head of the Department of Horticulture, Matt Bertucci, Assistant Professor of Horticulture, Jeremy Ross, Professor and Extension Soybean Agronomist, and Caio dos Santos, who received a master’s degree from the University of Arkansas in 2020.

Mila Pessotto tends to plants in a growth chamber as a master’s student in the Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences for an award-winning study that determined the cardinal temperatures of eight cover crop species.

Strawberry, blackberry, muscadine researchers awarded Specialty Crop Block Grants

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service faculty secured funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Specialty Crop Block Program for projects with strawberries, blackberries and muscadine grapes.

Aaron Cato, an Associate Professor of Horticulture and Extension Specialist, and Amanda McWhirt, an Associate Professor of Horticulture and Extension Specialist, are developing best management practices for Neopestalotiopsis, an emerging strawberry disease, and providing growers with research-based control guidance.

Ryan Dickson, an Associate Professor of Horticulture, is evaluating an annual blackberry production system to determine its commercial feasibility and share results with growers.

Renee Threlfall, an Associate Professor of Food Science, is working to support the growth of the fresh-market muscadine grape industry through on-farm evaluations, pest-management research and outreach for growers.

Growing blackberries in an annual production system with containers is part of a new Specialty Crop Block Grant with UADA researchers.

Rice research takes important step in solving the high nighttime temp problem

Researchers in the Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences have identified genetic mechanisms in rice that can help counteract the negative effects of higher nighttime temperatures.

Professor Andy Pereira, recently retired, and Research Scientist Julie Thomas have shown that even in a widely cultivated rice variety that typically has high levels of grain chalkiness, overexpression of a master regulator gene dubbed HYR for “Higher Yield Rice” led to a significant reduction in chalk formation.

Expanding on the work, Thomas and Awais Riaz, a Fulbright graduate student, identified a distinct group of genetic markers associated with HYR in multiple rice cultivars from around the world.

Research Scientist Julie Thomas, seen in a greenhouse at the Rosen Alternative Pest Control Center, has worked to advance knowledge of a key genetic mechanism in rice that counteracts the negative effects of high nighttime temperatures.

Long-term cattle performance focus of research review, call for collaboration

As part of an effort to better evaluate how pre-weaned calf and stocker calf treatments influence feedlot performance, Daniel Rivera, an Associate Professor of Animal Science, and Oklahoma State University collaborator Paul Beck, published a summary of nine research articles on long-term cattle studies in a special issue of Applied Animal Sciences.

“The goal of this special issue was to identify and address some of the knowledge gaps imposed on the segmented nature of the beef industry, which leads to segmented areas of research on cow-calf, stocker and feedlot operations,” said Rivera, who also serves as the director of UADA’s Southwest Research and Extension Center in Hope.

In their paper, Rivera and Beck break down results from seven original research articles and two review articles into three topic areas: health, nutrition, and production and management.

Effects of various cattle weaning methods were among the production and management studies featured in the special issue of Applied Animal Sciences.

Insights on the power of imagery in conservation initiatives

An Arkansas and Oklahoma watershed conservation nonprofit’s request to learn how to enhance their messaging has now shed further light on the power of imagery in driving viewers’ actions.

Jefferson Miller, a Professor in the Department of Agricultural Education, Communications and Technology, published a study in the Journal of Applied Communications with a colleague at the University of Florida showing how photographs can help expand audiences by overcoming language barriers. The research helped the conservation group guide its media tactics.

An aerial view of a road in Wilson Springs, a wetland and prairie preserve area located in Fayetteville, Arkansas. (Photo courtesy Shane White/University of Florida College of Agricultural & Life Sciences)

3-D Printing: The Future of Food

Ali Ubeyitogullari, Departments of Food Science and Biological & Agricultural Engineering
University of Arkansas News

Arkansas research targets disease and yield in berry and grape crops

Aaron Cato, Amanda McWhirt, Ryan Dickson, Department of Horticulture; and Renee Threlfall, Department of Food Science
Fresh Plaza

New Science Improves Cover Crop Management

Trenton Roberts, Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences
Farms.com

Experts warn Arkansans to be “bear aware” as populations rise across the state

Don White, Arkansas Forest Resources Center, UA-Monticello
Magnolia Reporter

Rollins: Border Cattle Remain on Hold as U.S. Battles Screwworm Threat

Jada Thompson, Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness
RFD-TV

Partnership boosts water quality research in Arkansas

Donnie Smith, former Tyson Foods CEO, credits servant-leader model for his success

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