The Push for Healthy Plants and Soil

The best sustained success in agriculture happens with a healthy growing environment. The University of Idaho’s new Center for Plant and Soil Health in Parma is a welcome addition to the landscape.“The new center is a much-needed advancement,” remarked Margie Watson of J.C. Watson, an onion grower-packer shipper with more than a century in business. She also served as the mayor of Parma. “This brand new, wonderful facility is going to take us to another level. We have to have researchers in agriculture, with this changing world, and they have to have facilities to go and do the research.”“I see evidence that the work we do really does impact the industry,” said Mike Thornton, Professor of Plant Sciences at the University of Idaho. “I see it on a small level with individual growers, but also on a larger scale. For example, our onion industry has adopted drip irrigation over the last decade and a half. … To see that rapid adoption tells me that we’re really making an impact.”“The key part is that my knowledge helps the grower and all of our producers reduce the impact of crop diseases on their bottom line,” Juliet Marshall, Plant Sciences Department Head, Professor and Plant Pathologist at the University of Idaho. “{It’s an economic and a food safety issue.”Thornton and Marshall said research conducted in Idaho can also assist growers elsewhere in the U.S.The $12.1 million dollar facility encompasses 9,600 square feet and is a welcome addition to the small town of Parma, where the University of Idaho has had a research presence since 1922.