Southwest Research-Extension Center - Garden City, Kansas.

The research program addresses agricultural production challenges specific to the region. Those include rainfed and irrigated cultural methods and management for most of the major crops grown in Kansas plus mitigating the effects of weed, insect, and disease pests associated with those crops. Irrigation is a major production input in southwest Kansas and development of new technology to improve irrigation efficiency is an important goal of the Center.  The research agenda is coordinated with other KAES units to assure allocation of resources to priority issues, standardization of methods, and elimination of unwarranted redundancy.

The Center’s region of focus is the 22 counties in southwest Kansas. Target clientele include crop and beef cattle producers and county agricultural extension agents.

There are 4 research faculty located at Garden City.  Faculty expertise is complemented by 17 full-time support staff including clerical, maintenance, and crop technician classifications. Student workers are hired for the summer field season.

The headquarters at Garden City includes 27 buildings. There are eight additional buildings at Tribune. Land resources are used for field crops research and production of foundation seed wheat or grain, hay, and silage.

Funding comes from a variety of sources including state appropriations (salaries and wages, operating, supplemental allocations for equipment and maintenance), crop sales (fees), grants, and gifts.

The Garden City Branch of the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station was established in 1907 on 320 acres 5 miles northeast of Garden City. The Tribune Branch was established in 1911. These two branch stations were combined into the Southwest Branch Agricultural Experiment Station in 1986. In 1988, the station was given its current name: Southwest Research-Extension Center.