| WELCOME TO THE SPOONER AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH STATION |
At the end of the last century, thousands of immigrants came to Wisconsin's unsettled northlands looking for farming opportunities. What they found was a light sandy soil and a 120-day growing season -- too short for many existing crop varieties. But these settlers persevered, building up a diversified agriculture now worth nearly $500 million annually to northwestern Wisconsin.
That success is due in no small part to work done at the Spooner Agricultural Research Station. As the college's first permanent outlying station, Spooner gave university scientists a place to work out their ideas under the unique conditions of northern Wisconsin. By 1929 the station had a corn breeding program. The current Spooner program includes demonstrations and research on crop varieties, soil fertility, pest control, irrigation management and other cultural factors affecting short-season crops, including oats, barley, winter wheat, winter rye, alfalfa, red clover, forage grasses, corn, and potatoes. Researchers run trials not only on the station's sandy soilsbut also on heavier soils on nearby land, to obtain information for a wider variety of growers. Researchers at the station work with specialty crops, such as canola, which could help the economy of northern Wisconsin.
They milk sheep, don't they? Since 1936, Spooner has been a center for UW-Madison sheep research. Work at Spooner has helped sheep producers make better use of their forage, improve management practices and increase the reproductive efficiency of their animals. Recently, researchers have used the station to evaluate many imported breeds. They have looked at using the Romanov breed to increase the number of lambs born to ewes, the Texel as a terminal sire and the East Friesian as a dairy breed. The station has one of the nation's leading dairy sheep research programs -- a response to the many Wisconsin sheep producers who have shown strong interest in this area. Researchers are involved in a variety of projects aimed at developing a U.S. dairy breed of sheep and to improve sheep milking technology. A sheep milking parlor was opened in 1996
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