The Truck Crops Branch Experiment Station is a horticultural research and extension center located 25 miles south of Jackson on U.S. Highway 51. The Station is on 175 acres of thin loess brown loam soil.
This Experiment Station was established by an act of the Mississippi State Legislature in 1938. Dr. Clarence Dorman, Director of The Mississippi Agriculture Experiment Station, defined the mission of this station as “doing experimental work with truck crops”. This original mission hasn’t changed, but the direction and scope has been modified to meet the needs of our community and a diverse horticultural industry in the state. Our current overall program involves research and extension activities with fruits, field and greenhouse vegetables, and ornamentals.
The staff is comprised of a research coordinator, who is also a vegetable and fruit scientist, a vegetable specialist who has a split appointment with responsibility for vegetable research and extension programs, an ornamentals research scientist, a research assistant, another research assitant who is also operations manager, a secretary, and five farm labor positions.
The first vegetable plots were established in 1939. These included variety testing and fertilizer trials. In the spring of 1940, a peach variety test was planted by the staff of the MSU Horticulture Department. This was the beginning of cooperative and interdisciplinary efforts which continue at Truck Crops today. Currently, we have collaborative relationships with three USDA agencies, eight MSU departments, three neighboring Experiment Stations (Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas), the City of Crystal Springs, Copiah County, and the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce.
Our current vegetable research program includes field variety trials and fertilizer studies in watermelons, staked tomatoes, squash, peppers, and other vegetables, greenhouse vegetable production research. Additional areas of research include organic production, organic amendments, disease control, and value-added research. Greenhouse studies represent a major portion of our vegetable efforts and include comparisons of forced air heating systems, growing media, tomato, cucumber, and pepper variety trials, bumblebee pollination, and biological control of greenhouse insects and diseases.
Today, our fruit research program includes cultivar and cultural practice evaluations on blueberries, muscadine, and grapes for fresh market consumption, and fermented and non-fermented products, pecans, grafted Asian pears, persimmons, and mayhaws. We also maintain an indexed, crown gall-free foundation planting of several muscadine cultivars.
Our overall horticulture program was expanded in 1989 when we entered a joint project with the City of Crystal Springs and Copiah County to develop Chautauqua Arboretum and Botanic Garden in a historic and picturesque city park. MSU’s objectives in this project are to create a setting for horticultural displays, research, educational activities, and recreation. State, county, and city interests are economic and community development.
Over the past 20 years, one of the south's most extensive and best fall vegetable garden demonstrations has been developed here at the Truck Crops Station. This garden normally contains plantings of several varieties of nearly 40 species of vegetables, as well as an extensive herb garden. These vegetables are sequentially planted by maturity dates for show and demonstration each October. In 1994 we added a half acre annual flower garden around a central gazebo, which continues to be a popular attraction. In addition to this three acre garden demonstration, we have many commercial and educational exhibits and demonstrations extolling the virtues if Mississippi agriculture. Attendance at the annual Fall Flower & Garden Fest has ranged from 4,000 to 6,000 in the past few years.
We are currently expanding our presence in ornamentals research and outreach. Recent work has included replicated and observational trials of several herbaceous crops, along with replicated and observational trials of tree and shrub species. Additional research in ornamentals includes improving herbicide and fertilizer efficiency, growth regulators, media evaluation, edible flowers, and robotics/mechanization. We anticipate significantly more research in these areas during the coming years. Return to Truck Crops home page.