UAEX’s Alton Johnson Sees Rice As much as the Problem from Local weather Change | Arkansas Enterprise Information

Alton Johnson took over as director of the College of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s Rice Analysis & Extension Middle in Stuttgart on Sept. 1. From 2016 to 2020, he served as each dean of the School of Science & Engineering and director of the 1890 Land Grant Program at Central State College in Wilberforce, Ohio. Johnson obtained certification in management from the Management for the twenty first Century program administered by the Fanning Institute and a certificates of feat in management excellence from the American Administration Affiliation.

Johnson earned a bachelor’s diploma normally agriculture from the College of Liberia in Monrovia, a grasp’s in agronomy from Mississippi State College in Starkville and a Ph.D. in agronomy from the College of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He’s a graduate of the Institute of Administration & Management in Training at Harvard College Graduate College of Training. He additionally obtained Strategic Management certification from the Harvard College Extension College.

What’s the position of the Rice Analysis & Extension Middle in Stuttgart?

The Rice Analysis & Extension Middle investigates, validates and disseminates the most effective practices for sustainable rice manufacturing for Arkansas farmers. Our analysis is primarily field-oriented, problem-solving and utilized.

How can the middle assist rice growers in Arkansas take care of a altering local weather and an growing variety of excessive climate occasions?

The College of Arkansas is the land grant and flagship college of the state of Arkansas. Our scientists are researching excessive climate occasions that have an effect on us all, particularly our farming neighborhood. The Rice Analysis & Extension Middle works with the suitable departments and faculties on the College of Arkansas, partnering universities and federal, non-public and worldwide organizations to seek out options to those points. Humankind has realized to adapt all through its existence. I’m sure that we’ll discover methods to adapt and develop rice varieties that may assist our growers. Analysis of this nature is ongoing on the heart.

Are you able to inform us a bit about precision farming applied sciences and the way they’ve modified how rice is grown on this nation?

By definition, precision agriculture is a administration technique that gathers, processes and analyzes temporal, spatial and particular person knowledge and combines it with different info to assist administration selections in accordance with estimated variability for improved useful resource use effectivity, productiveness, high quality, profitability and sustainability of agricultural manufacturing. The applied sciences related to precision farming differ and are bettering continually.

I keep in mind advising farmers to irrigate crops primarily based on cover temperature readings that indicated the onset of stress. A grower needed to bodily go to the sphere to take these readings utilizing infrared thermometers. Now, telemetry is used by purposes downloaded on a smartphone.

What drew you to this line of labor?

As a younger man, my curiosity was to get an training and assist farmers. My mother and father had been rice, sugar cane and pure rubber tree growers. I noticed the hardships they skilled on their farmstead.