College Station, Texas, USA
September 10, 2025 

A Resilient Cropping Systems Tour will be held on Sept. 24, beginning at the Quarterway Cotton Growers, 1380 U.S. Highway 70, Plainview.
 

Cotton breeding, production and irrigation will all be a part of the Resilient Cropping Systems Tour on Sept. 24 at Plainview (Brylee Williams/Texas A&M AgriLife)
 

The event, hosted by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and Texas A&M AgriLife Research, will allow participants to witness the future of farming with an AI-driven agriculture demonstration and see research in the field designed to deliver productive results for the future of agriculture.

The free program will run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Preregistration is requested.

This material is based on work partially supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA-National Institutes of Food and Agriculture, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, FFAR, grants.

Registration from 8-8:30 a.m. will include coffee and donuts before heading out to the farms, and lunch will be at 12:30 p.m. with indoor presentations beginning at 1:15 p.m. Attendees will earn three Texas Department of Agriculture continuing education units – one integrated pest management and two general.

For more information, email ilene.beam@ag.tamu.edu.

On the agenda

Participants will have the opportunity to tour Texas A&M AgriLife’s research farms and local producer farms to see innovative practices in cover crops, irrigation, fertilizer management and crop rotations.

These visits offer a firsthand look at how advancing research and real-world applications are working together to strengthen resilient cropping systems across the region.

All the speakers are with the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Lubbock and the Texas A&M Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, unless otherwise noted.

Halfway Research Field site presentations will include:

• Cotton Breeding – Carol Kelly, Ph.D., AgriLife Research cotton breeder and assistant professor.
• Cotton Production – Ken Legé, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension cotton specialist and assistant professor.
• Irrigation Management – Hope Nakabuye, AgriLife Research irrigation engineer and assistant professor.
• Weed Science – Todd Baughman, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension agronomist and director of the Texas A&M AgriLife center at Lubbock, and Pete Dotray, Ph.D., AgriLife Research and AgriLife Extension weed specialist and professor.
• Crop Protection and Water Conservation – Katie Lewis, Ph.D., AgriLife Research soil scientist and professor with Texas A&M and Texas Tech University, and Nick Boogades, student assistant with Lewis.
• Perennial Forage Systems – FFAR project – Lewis and Katie Cason, research assistant for Lewis.
• Plant Pathology – Terry Wheeler, AgriLife Research plant pathologist and professor, Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology.

Helm Farm Research Field sites will include:

• Entomology – Suhas Vyavhare, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension entomologist and associate professor, Department of Entomology.
• Irrigation Management – Nakabuye.
• Alternative Soil Amendments – Arjun Kafle, postdoctoral research associate with Lewis.
• Cropping Systems – Joseph Burke, Ph.D., AgriLife Research and AgriLife Extension cropping system agronomy and weed scientist and assistant professor.
• Plant Pathology – Marina Rondon, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension plant pathologist and assistant professor, Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology.
• Resilient Cotton – Lewis and Noelia Curbelo-Lopez, master’s student.

Lunchtime presentations will include:

• Economic Updates – Andrew Wright, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension economist and assistant professor, and Will Keeling, AgriLife Extension risk management specialist, both in the Department of Agricultural Economics.
• ECOM Cotton Project – Brady Raindl and Alan Vinson, both cotton traders with ECOM Trading, Lubbock.
• Resilient Production Resources – Kaitlyn Anderson, graduate research assistant.
• Specialists Introductions – Emi Kimura, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension agronomist and associate professor, Vernon.

Farm visits will include:

• Irrigated Race Trial at Hale Center – Legé and Dotray.
• AI-Driven Ag at Hale Center – Chris Cobos, doctoral student and senior research associate with Lewis, and Gurjinder Baath, Ph.D., AgriLife Research digital agriculture specialist and assistant professor, Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Temple.
• Farm Tour – Kristie Keys, AgriLife Extension agriculture and natural resources agent in Castro, Hale and Lamb counties.

Website: http://agrilife.org/

Published: September 11, 2025