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The apple research proved to be ahead of its time. The public had not yet embraced novel apple varieties and shunned them in favor of common varieties.

mission, especially to the horticulture community. Faubert started in the 1980s helping apple growers and then in 2005 transitioned to assisting the nursery and landscape industry and public through the Plant Protection Clinic, a CSI type unit for determining what killed a plant. She appreciates the farm for practical reasons. “Pictures can be very helpful, but often you need to see a plant sample, which you can often grab from the farm,” Faubert says. More could happen at the farm. Kirby says East Farm has room to grow. He’s challenged the faculty to pitch innovative uses for the property, even beyond traditional agriculture. For example, bringing engineering, public policy, and environmental researchers together to study alternative energy like solar panels. “There’s a lot of opportunity here if we don’t get caught up in the traditional [academic] boundary

lines,” Kirby says. “We have some really good legacy activities going on there and how do we build on it and how do we do the next set of things that make it an even more important part of the portfolio?”

EVAN PREISSER Professor Biological Sciences

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