BAYLIS — Walk through the doors at the 24,000-square-foot building at Orr Agricultural Research and Demonstration Center in Pike County and the new-building smell hits you, even though the building has been in use since August.
Walk a bit deeper into the building and turn a corner and the distinct smell of barnyard animals — in this case, recently farrowed pigs — starts to make clear the building’s purpose.
“We’ve always presented ourselves as a hands-on type of facility,” said Mike Tenhouse, director of agriculture sciences for John Wood Community College. “With this (building) — with the arena, with the animal care unit — it takes that to the next level.”
The center is a collaborative effort of JWCC, the University of Illinois and Orr Research Center Corp., or Orr Corp.
It got its start in 1977, when a “like-minded group of farmers, business owners and interested parties … felt there was a need for a research farm in western Illinois,” Orr Corp. Chairman Matt Bradshaw said.
JWCC still was finding its way after being established — without an agriculture program — in 1974 and there was some discussion about teaming up, Bradshaw said.
The University of Illinois also got involved.
Now the three groups, including U of I Extension, work collaboratively on crop and animal research and education.
The new building, officially the The John Wood Community College Agricultural Sciences Complex and Fred L. Bradshaw Learning Center, joins a neighboring building — opened in 1983 — in providing office space for researchers, faculty and Extension staff.
But it’s far more than office space. Take those farrowed pigs in the new animal care wing.
“There are plenty of pigs in this area,” Tenhouse said. “But accessing those, for biosecurity reasons and a variety of other things, it’s hard to give all of our students the hands-on experience.”
The animal care space allows JWCC to bring in animals to provide students with hands-on learning in animal husbandry. The value of that is immeasurable, said Bethany Beeler, a member of JWCC’s agriculture faculty.
Beeler noted that similar experiences when she was a student showed her, for example, that she really loves swine but hates sheep.
“Giving them that experience is huge,” she said. “A well-rounded education is crucial.”
Luke Merritt seconded Beeler’s assessment, noting that he once applied for an internship in an entirely different agriculture area, only to have it fall through at the last minute. He ended up interning in crop sciences and realized he loved it.
So much so that Merritt, a research specialist with U of I’s crop sciences department, now manages the Orr center’s crop research.
That’s no small task. The Orr center has just shy of 200 acres of land — around 100 acres of which is tillable — dedicated to crops.
The land is used for research trials involving, among other things, soybeans, corn, fertilizer and soil types.
“We’ve got 13 different types of soil at this one location,” Merritt said. “We can have a trial on one part of the farm and repeat it on the other side. Does it work on one type of soil? Does it work on both?”
Along with running the crop research, Merritt also teaches at the center, as does Wes Chapple, who manages the beef research portion of the center.
The beef center, which has around 200 head of cattle on around 200 acres of land, focuses its research on winter cow feeding, reproduction, cattle management, grazing and pasture management.
“They actually have students at the center,” Merritt said. “We teach ag classes. Kids can be in the classroom and learn, travel to the beef farm. … The students, it makes them very employable, because they’ve seen (everything) firsthand.”
Merritt and Chapple also see the advantages of having Extension involved at the site.
Amy Lefringhouse is a natural resources, environment and energy educator for Extension in Adams, Brown, Hancock, Pike and Schuyler counties. She has used the center’s pond and native prairie area and worked with those on the agricultural side of the program on conservation-related issues, Merritt said.
“Some of the research we’ve done in the past has come directly from producers” in the community who came to Travis Meteer, a commercial agriculture Extension educator, with questions, Chapple said. “Having Extension here helps create a source of research topics.”
Research ideas also come from U of I’s main campus in Urbana-Champaign, including faculty members and graduate students.
Along with research, classes and hands-on experiences, those at the center continue to find new uses for the facility, particularly the new space and especially in how it benefits the surrounding community, Bradshaw said.
“It has been beyond our expectations,” he said. “We knew at the time we helped build this facility that there were uses and needs for it that were beyond what we could recognize at the time. It’s a huge next chapter in the research and education conducted here.”
The center recently hosted an Extension-led livestock judging clinic for youths and has a pig sale upcoming.
“Students in (FFA and 4-H) are our future,” Merritt said. “So anything we can do to encourage learning is never a bad thing.”
With the new, $2.5 million building just shy of being paid off — all using private funding — those involved are looking ahead, even while being amazed at how far the center has come. The center started with the crop research program. There was a purchase option — but no available funding — for the additional acres needed for the beef center. And no building to speak of.
“They literally had a trailer and one shed that they worked out of” when the effort began 46 years ago, Merritt said. “The fact that the new building was completely paid for with private funding and private donations speaks to” the high value of the work being done.
Source : My Journal Courier