General Information
RESEARCH AND TEACHING
The focus of our program is the discovery of new cotton crop physiological characteristics and the development of new production inputs and management practices that result in improved profitability of cotton in Georgia as well as the United States while maintaining the highest level of environmental stewardship. Areas of emphasis include crop water use and irrigation scheduling, sub-surface drip irrigation, phenological and morphological aspects of crop growth and development, whole-plant and within-boll yield components, elasticity of fruiting site development, plant growth regulator management, management aspects of transgenic cotton and biotic and abiotic factors affecting cotton fiber quality.

National Environmentally Sound Production Agriculture Laboratory (NESPAL) and the Technology Development Center (TDC) at the University of Georgia Tifton Campus.
UGA MicroginWith the completion of the new University of Georgia Cotton Microgin our research becomes even more comprehensive. The Microgin processes cotton from our research plots in a manner that is consistent with the commercial process, which results in realistic fiber, yarn and fabric qualities. With this infrastructure, research, extension and teaching efforts may be conducted across all facets of cotton production. Thus, cotton may be studied from the levels of “genes to jeans”.

With the introduction of a new University of Georgia undergraduate program on the Tifton Campus, teaching became a part of our programmatic efforts. Courses available through our program include CRSS 3300 (Physiology of Crop Growth and Development) and CRSS 8280 (Crops and Microclimate).

CAMPUS HISTORY
When Tift County was created in 1905, immense stands of turpentine-rich pine trees were a mainstay of Georgia's coastal plain economy. But not for long. Farming was growing in popularity. As more and more south Georgians began tilling the soil and raising livestock, they quickly realized that profitable agriculture in the coastal plain was a challenge. The long growing season, hot summers and sandy soils often required different crops and farming practices from those used in central and north Georgia.


One of the original agricultural meetings at the Coastal Plain Experiment Station. In this undated photo the first director of the station, S.H. Starr, is seated on stage third from the left.

In 1918, the Georgia Land Owner's Association, a coastal plain organization led by Captain H.H. Tift and William Stillwell, successfully lobbied the state legislature to create an agricultural experiment station in the coastal plain. The autonomous station would be affiliated with the state's land-grant College of Agriculture located at the University of Georgia and would provide research-based information on coastal plain agriculture. Generous donations of land and facilities from Captain Tift helped Tifton win the bid for the new experiment station. Opening in 1919 under the direction of S.H. Starr, the 206-acre Coastal Plain Experiment Station became the first experiment station in the nation's vast coastal plain, which stretches from Delaware to Texas.

OUR MISSION
The mission of the Tifton campus is much the same as it was when the Coastal Plain Experiment Station opened in 1919 on land donated to the state by Captain H. H. Tift:

“To conduct both applied and basic research bearing directly and indirectly on the establishment, maintenance and improvement of permanent, effective and profitable agriculture in Georgia and to develop, improve and protect our environmental, soil and water resources.”
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