Alcorn state university, founded in 1871, is an 1890 hbcu land grant university located in lorman, mississippi providing broad agriculture services to her serving minority communities

Alcorn has programs in agriculture research, education and extension. Agriculture research and extension education at alcorn boasts diverse fields such as agronomy, plant breeding, plant pathology, entomology, mycology, virology, soil science, environmental science, animal science, plant biotechnology, biofuels and bioprocessing, agriculture economics, agribusiness and agriculture mechanics and its applications. These disciplines at alcorn's agriculture research and extension education programs have been established to serve small farmers, limited resource farmers and disadvantaged farmers of mississippi. Another significant component alcorn state's agriculture research activity aims at enhancing awareness of agriculture and the recruitment of minority youth from high school and community college. The agriculture programs at alcorn state contributes to workforce training at difference levels preparing a sizeable number of skilled and trained agriculture professionals annually into the agriculture workforce. The proposed work is outlined to include 1) soil and water quality degradation, cover crops and soil and water degradation mitigation; 2) crop, vegetables and fruits production, processing and storage; 3) native and novel biofuel crops such as switchgrass and miscanthus as biofuels for biomass production; 4) plants as feed for animal consumption and animal nutritional RES earch; 5) soil survey and climate change investigation; 6) evaluation of irrigation and natural water movement on cover crop and vegetable crop potential to increase soil and water quality; 7) develop and apply traditional and latest technology for plant pests diagnosis and management; 8) evaluation of novel and specialty crops for integration into small farmers' farm operation and their economic impacts on small farm's operation; 9) adoption and application of novel biotechnology such as genome editing for crop genetic improvement; 10) smart agriculture and applications of robotics and artificial intelligence in broad agriculture productions; 11) animal production, physiology, genetics, zoonotic disease investigation and public health education; 12) demonstration of agriculture research for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) outreach to prek-12 schools and community colleges for workforce cultivation; 13) present research findings at local, regional, and national conferences; 14) publish research results.