URIs_MOMENTUM_Research_and_Innovation_Magazine_Spring_2022_M

Steven Alm stands in the middle of

his laboratory. Surrounded by

reminding staff not to store feed in front of the exit door and can root through the thicket of foliage to find the foundations of two long since demolished poultry rearing pens. fisheries research and otherwise the place remained largely quiet. Administrators briefly explored constructing residence halls on the site, but plans never seriously took off, says Robert Carothers, the University’s president at the time. One group did take up residence. During the ’90s, the Master Gardener program moved in. The program that trains people in environmentally-sound gardening practices attracted people to the farm, including Carothers, an inspiring green thumb who volunteered to plow the fields driving a John Deere tractor. But, the president emeritus says he was relieved of his duties when someone noted his furrows were not straight. Alm, a professor of plant sciences and entomology, calls his surroundings a hidden gem. In the 1990s, most activity at the farm revolved around roughly 85 acres of meadows, forests, orchards, greenhouses and fish tanks,

Page 34 | The University of Rhode Island { MOMENTUM: RESEARCH & INNOVATION }