Research center marks 75 years of cutting-edge crop science

Walking through a plot of winter wheat plantings just starting to push up through the dark soil in Creston, Jessica Torrion sees the results of decades of hard work and research.

All over the property at the Northwest Agricultural Research Center, high tech research equipment mingles with decades old farming implements.

“At first we were using shovels, using animals,” said Torrion, who serves as the center’s superintendent. “You can see that in our 1949 field day. But nowadays, we have this very advanced equipment attached to a GPS that’s very precise, and we’ve come a long way.”

In one of the property’s cavernous barns, Torrion, an associate professor of crop physiology, points to a small International tractor from 1947.

“We are still using this after 75 years, and it’s still very useful,” she says.

A field station for Montana State University’s College of Agriculture, the center conducts some of Montana’s most cutting-edge crop science research and is marking its 75th anniversary this year.

Originally established as the Northwestern Montana Branch Station by the Montana State Legislature in 1947, the center officially opened its doors in 1949. The station is one of seven scattered throughout the state operating under the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station system. 

Established to conduct agricultural research specific to the needs of producers in the Flathead Valley, the center originally focused on potatoes and sheep but today work mostly encompasses crops like wheat. 

Presently, the center researches both abiotic or physical impacts on crop productivity, such as water and nutrients, as well as biotic or living stressors like weeds, insects and diseases. 

The center’s first female superintendent, Torrion, came here 10 years ago by way of the University of Nebraska. She primarily focuses on irrigation research and the impacts of drought. This has been particularly important of late, as half of the years in the decade since Torrion arrived have been classified as drought years. 

Providing research that is tailored specifically to the unique geographical conditions that producers are facing is one of the primary goals. Torrion said this commitment lends credibility to the research and builds rapport with local producers.

The station’s location, on 200 acres along Montana 35, plays a large role in supporting that mission. Montana State University gave significant consideration to a number of locations and ultimately selected the site at Creston because its soil, topography and accessibility made it the ideal place to conduct research that would be applicable to a large number of counties. 

Sitting on the center’s advisory committee, Ken McAlpin commercially farms a couple thousand acres of irrigated crops in Lake County. A long-time collaborator with the station, he feels lucky to have access to quality research that he can apply to his own operation.

“That center at Creston is the gem of the system…. because it’s got some of the best soil in the whole state. They’ve got a nice facility, new buildings, great laboratories, center pivots, and all the bells and whistles that allow them to do research that’s really really pertinent for everybody.”

Torrion echoed the sentiment.

“We are very lucky because just to compare with other research centers I feel like this research center has a lot of things that we need and we have the space for things that we can do. We have the tractors, we have the seed lab, which is probably the best seed lab I’ve been in because of the space.”

The station maintains a year-round staff of seven, although the number of staff will swell as the crops mature and harvest kicks off and research begins in earnest, bringing in seasonal workers and MSU graduate students alike.

For now, the seed laboratory is relatively quiet, and only two staff members occupy the space in the early months of spring.

Dan Porter, a research assistant at the center, and Maggie Sand, a meteorologist by trade who spends ample time at the research station, are hard at work counting batches of 100 wheat seeds for this summer’s experiments. They run the seeds through a high-tech seed counting machine that uses a laser, and then double-check to make sure the machine didn’t make any errors.

Later this summer, after the wheat has been harvested, researchers will process the samples and conduct falling number tests and analyze the quality of the wheat. The results will provide the center and the wider farming community with valuable information about how different wheat varieties perform in a range of conditions, including soil, irrigation and fertilizer.

THERE ARE 10 buildings total on the property, brilliant red and muted blue and various shades of tan, from different eras in the station’s history. The buildings themselves, Torrion says, tell stories of how the center has evolved over time. 

She points out the faded blue barns on the property which have been here since 1949. In the 1950s, they housed sheep, but today store advanced planting equipment as the center has pivoted away from livestock research and now focuses exclusively on crops. 

The shift, Torrion said, was based on the economics of production in the Flathead Valley. As farmers’ needs changed, the center adjusted.

Choosing what to research is extremely important. As academics, there are endless topics that Torrion and her team would love to explore. Yet, they are limited by time, funding, and meeting practical needs.

“It’s a fine balance. You have an interest because you are hired to do a specific thing, and then you realize when you come here that there’s other problems brought to you by the farmers.”

“It’s expensive,” Torrion said of conducting cutting-edge research, but the center has been lucky enough over the years to consistently receive funding to keep the tractors, old and new, running.

Funding comes from the university along with commodity groups like the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, along with industry and federal grants and the local community. 

Selecting what to research, Torrion, requires being aware of the needs of those who support and are impacted by the center’s research. 

To that end, the Flathead Valley center, like all of the branch stations in MSU’s system, is governed by an advisory committee. 

The committee is composed of up to 15 members from Flathead, Lake, Lincoln, and Sanders counties, most of whom are local producers directly impacted by the center. They are responsible for guiding the research undertaken to ensure its relevance to the farming community.

McAlpin, who is serving his second term on the advisory committee, sees immense value in the close collaboration between producers and researchers. 

“That’s what the advisory council is for: ‘Will it work? Could it work? Yeah, it looks like it, so let’s try it.’ There’s a lot of cool new science that happens there, and then if it’s shown that it can be successful at the station, there’s no reason that our everyday producers can’t adopt the same technology. So that’s the real value in my mind.”

While the center is located in Creston, a significant amount of research also happens off-site, in the fields of farmers who allow center scientists to create “test plots,” which enables the center to further refine and personalize their research to different geographical regions even within the Flathead Valley.

McAlpin will be hosting two off-station plots on his farm this year because he sees the benefits of collaborating with the center in this way. 

“You can see a replication of the trial that took place in Creston on a farm in Lake County, and you can compare and see if things stack up side by side or if there are differences, soil differences, environmental differences. It’s all pretty pertinent stuff to guys who are trying to make a living growing food.”

FORMER CENTER superintendent Bob Stougaard, who served in the role for about 10 years first joining the center in 1991, said that collaboration in this way made a big difference in combating the orange wheat blossom midge infestation between 2006 and 2014. The center, through collaboration with scientists and producers, was able to come up with a variety of wheat resistant to the midge, which is devastating to crops. 

“That was probably the biggest involvement, and some were very willing to do some on-farm research comparing different varieties of spring wheat to determine on a large scale whether the variety actually attracted the midge or repelled the midge. They were very supportive of this research program.”

Staying connected with the community they serve is immensely important for the center, and one of the ways they do that is through an annual field day in July. Held every year since the center officially opened its doors in 1949, the center invites the public to come see for themselves what happens on the research farm.

Torrion said it’s still one of her favorite ways to connect with farmers and other members of the community.

“We invite them over in July… and we are still doing it in the traditional ways, like we barbecue and tour around using a wagon and have an actual field demonstration and question and answer.”

McAlpin said the field day, which will be held on July 11 this year, is an amazing opportunity to learn more about cutting-edge research happening right in our own community.

“It’s been a pretty amazing part of agriculture in Northwest Montana for a long time. Everyone pays attention and if they aren’t they should be. There’s some good stuff going on over there.” 

Having been at the center for a decade, Torrion is transitioning to a new role as the department head of the Creston center and is excited for the future of the center. As the needs of producers continually evolve, she hopes to further improve efficiency related to fertilizer and water input, as well as develop precision agriculture technology and access in Montana. 

Reflecting on the anniversary, Stougaard, though he’s moved to a position at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, hopes the Creston facility will continue to do what it has always strived to do — benefit the farmers who are at the center of it all. 

“I think and I hope that the local community and the farming community view the research center as an asset,” he said. “Hopefully the center has helped the ag community, making farming more economical and more sustainable. That’s what we strive to do and what we hope to do in the future.”

    Jessica Torrion, Superintendent of Montana State University's Northwestern Agricultural Research Center in Creston, talks about the Center's winter wheat crop on Wednesday, March 27. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Winter wheat grows in rows at Montana State University's Northwestern Agricultural Research Center in Creston on Wednesday, March 27. (Casey Kreider/Daily
 Casey Kreider   

    Maggie Sands lays out spring wheat seeds on germination paper while she and research associate Dan Porter perform germination tests at Montana State University's Northwestern Agricultural Research Center in Creston on Wednesday, March 27. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Maggie Sands lays out spring wheat seeds on germination paper while she and research associate Dan Porter perform germination tests at Montana State University's Northwestern Agricultural Research Center in Creston on Wednesday, March 27. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Jessica Torrion, Superintendent of Montana State University's Northwestern Agricultural Research Center in Creston, talks about the Center's new no-till drill on Wednesday, March 27. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Research associate Dan Porter places spring wheat seeds into a seed-counting machine before running germination tests at Montana State University's Northwestern Agricultural Research Center in Creston on Wednesday, March 27. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Winter wheat grows in rows at Montana State University's Northwestern Agricultural Research Center in Creston on Wednesday, March 27. (Casey Kreider/Daily
 Casey Kreider   

    A Case International combine waits for harvest season inside an equipment barn at Montana State University's Northwestern Agricultural Research Center in Creston on Wednesday, March 27. (Casey Kreider/Daily
 Casey Kreider