An Oklahoma State program that conducts research into the nutrition of people around the world received a multi-million dollar donation to improve and expand its agronomy research station.
Tucked away in Stillwater, Oklahoma, is one of the nation’s leading wheat research and production programs.
“So they’re taking different varieties of wheat, crossing them together and looking for higher-yielding varieties of wheat,” said Jayson Lusk, dean and vice president of the OSU Department of Agriculture.
On August 9, 2024, the OSU Agronomy Research Station announced that the program would become even larger.
“Oklahoma Genetics Incorporated and the Oklahoma Wheat Commission have generously provided donations totaling $6 million to begin improvements at OSU’s Agronomy Research Station,” said Dean Lusk. “It is an investment designed to spur innovation in the wheat sector to ensure Oklahoma remains one of the largest wheat producing states in the country.”
But the announcement would not only help the program grow. It would also help support other parts of the world.
“Everything we eat that is worth eating, every type of bread you can imagine, there is OSU wheat in that bread, there is the brand in that bread,” said OSU Wheat Improvement Team Chairman Dr. Brett Carver.
Dr. Carver is also a professor of plant and soil sciences. He said much of the wheat grown and researched at OSU helps feed people around the world.
“So we produce bread wheat, and this bread wheat, or the wheat itself, is traded all over the world. This is how bread is made all over the world.”
However, he said it was difficult to provide adequate learning and production in the school’s aging facilities.
“It would be a bit like developing or building a new Ferrari in a Model T factory, for example,” Dr. Carver compared.
The million-dollar donation will help the program build new, state-of-the-art greenhouses to replace the current ones, which are nearly 75 years old.
“Now that we have newer facilities, we can really do what we do best, which is work with science,” Dr. Carver said.
Both Dr. Carver and Dean Lusk are excited to not only observe wheat being grown in Stillwater, but also to see the impact of the science of wheat production around the world.
