SEMO receives grant for new university farm

Southeast Missouri State University has been awarded a $90,126 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to purchase and install an irrigation system at the school's new farm on Highway 25 at Gordonville. The system will irrigate in the ground so water isn't lost through evaporation, university officials said. John Hestor and Mark Nussbaum of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Jackson used a computer model to determine the benefits of installing the subsurface system. They said the computer model demonstrates that such a system would provide better crop yields than conventional irrigation systems or no irrigation. Southeast president Dr. Ken Dobbins said, "Besides benefiting our own agriculture production, the system will become an efficiency model area farms can replicate." The system is scheduled to be installed by this fall, university officials said.