More than 1,200 guests visited the South Farms on Aug. 19 as part of the 48th annual Agronomy Day, which marked the centennial celebration of agricultural research and education at Illinois.
Research began on the present farms in 1904 on 80 acres south of St Mary’s Road and Wright Street extended. During the past century, the South Farms have slowly expanded and now comprise 1,000 acres in southern Champaign and Urbana.
While some facilities on the South Farms have become outdated through the years, they have a rich history as classrooms and laboratories for livestock production, crop production, weed science and soil fertility. The findings of Illinois researchers and their students working on the South Farms have revolutionized agriculture throughout the state and around the globe.
The South Farms were the site of the first research on the use of corn silage as feed for beef cattle and confinement production of sheep. Breakthrough research on the South Farms also has included the development of new soybean varieties, an early weaning system that significantly improved the quality of market beef and a reliable test to predict spider lamb syndrome, a genetic abnormality causing skeletal deformities in sheep.
As the second century of agricultural research begins, researchers using the new beef and sheep facilities on the South Farms will be striving to help cattle producers maximize their returns and help meet a growing consumer demand for lean, high-quality beef and lamb. They also will be examining the market potential for beef produced free of antibiotics and hormones and the optimum nutrition plans that will provide it as well as investigating the efficacy of genetically modified crops as animal feed. They also are developing remote sensing systems that will guide field equipment by satellites.
Despite the many important contributions made by Illinois scientists through their work on the South Farms and the automation of agriculture during the past century, some aspects of farming have remained unchanged, as Jim Moseley, U.S. deputy secretary of agriculture and keynote speaker for Agronomy Day, noted when he facetiously promised the farmers in the crowd, “I’ve scheduled rain at 5 p.m.”
