University of Arkansas Receives $5 Million to Build 9 Agricultural Greenhouses

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 26, the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture announced that it has received a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to renovate its agricultural research greenhouse facilities in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The university will provide matching funds of an equal amount, bringing the total project investment to $5 million. The project plans to build a facility complex consisting of 9 modern greenhouses to replace the existing 7 aging greenhouses, with construction expected to be completed by the end of 2028.

The project is located at the University of Arkansas Milo J. Shult Agricultural Research and Extension Center, where the existing 7 greenhouses were built in the 1960s. The new facilities will use polycarbonate covering panels and be equipped with modern heating, cooling, ventilation, irrigation, lighting, humidity control, and automated monitoring systems. Each greenhouse will use programmable environmental control equipment to set temperature, lighting, and other growing conditions independently, and will also include teaching classrooms and research preparation space.

The new greenhouses will also be equipped with plant phenotyping tools and automated control equipment to support high-throughput breeding research. Researchers plan to use the independently controlled environmental conditions of different greenhouses to conduct crop variety trials, plant disease research, hydroponic cultivation, and fruit and vegetable breeding, and to schedule multiple crop breeding and growth cycles throughout the year.

Mary Savin, head of the Department of Horticulture at the University of Arkansas and project director, is leading the greenhouse modernization project. The project is currently in the planning stage. Construction funding comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Research Facilities Act grant program and university matching contributions, with grant number 2026-77047-47240. Once the facilities are operational, the university will cover ongoing operations through institutional funds, greenhouse user fees, and revenue from research and industry partnerships.