Welcome to the Eastern Shore AREC, located in Painter, VA.
Virginia Tech’s Eastern Shore AREC is committed to supporting commercial vegetable and agronomic crop production. The center sits on a 226-acre farm that hosts an office complex, laboratories, equipment buildings, garages, a greenhouse, graduate student housing, a large freshwater pond, and woodland areas. More than 25 agricultural crops are grown annually for research and Extension studies, including, but not limited to, broccoli, cabbage, cantaloupe, collards, cucumbers, dry beans, edamame, eggplant, field corn, lettuce, lima beans, peppers, potatoes, pumpkin, snap beans, soybeans, spinach, squash, sweet corn, tomatoes, watermelon, zucchini, alfalfa, barley, cotton, sunflowers, switchgrass, and wheat.
Five tenure-track faculty members are located at the AREC and specialize in Entomology, Food Science, Plant Pathology, Weed Science, Horticulture, and Crop and Soil Environmental Science. Research projects involve weed management and resistance, integrated pest management, insect behavior, biological control, plant disease and nematode identification and management, cultural management, evaluation of alternative crops, fumigants, and fertilizers, and application practices. In addition to aforementioned faculty, numerous non-resident faculty conduct research at the Eastern Shore facility. Currently, 1 post-doc, 13 graduate students and 1 Special Research Faculty are located at the AREC. Support staff includes 1 Farm Manager, 1 Mechanic, 2 Administrative Assistants, 6 Lab and Research Technicians and seasonal hourly employees.
To ensure that the Eastern Shore and the Commonwealth of Virginia remain leaders in commercial agriculture production, it is essential that new, state-of-the-art applied research is conducted that is relevant to local large and small-scale farming operations.
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