by Lana Koepke Johnson | Agronomy and Horticulture
Daren Redfearn, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture professor and forage and crop residue specialist, was named a Crop Science Society of America Fellow and an Agronomy Society of America Fellow at the 2024 ASA, CSSA and Soil Science Society of America International Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, Nov. 10-13.
The fellow designation is the highest recognition bestowed by the ASA and CSSA. Members nominate worthy colleagues based on their professional achievement and meritorious service, and annually, only a select few are bestowed with the fellow designation.
“The award at the most basic level certainly recognizes classical achievements but what really separates and elevates the award is the premise that recipients represent far more than individual achievement, more so collegiality, service to society and the value of everyone involved,” said Roch Gaussoin, Nebraska agronomy and horticulture emeriti professor. “Daren Redfearn is a quiet leader, excellent mentor and outstanding person who clearly recognizes success is a group effort and that the effort turns a vision into reality.”
Redfearn has been a member of a University of Nebraska–Lincoln Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources multidisciplinary team focused on enhancing and developing forage-based beef production systems. His research and extension programs emphasize annual and perennial grass management, converting cropland to forage production and grazing of forages that can be integrated into economical and resilient crop-forage-bioenergy agricultural production systems.
He also serves as a IANR Program Leader for the Water and Integrated Cropping Systems Hub, co-leading a group of technical area experts in water and cropping systems. Their mission is to build collaborative relationships and foster engagement to address complex issues in agricultural production and natural resource systems.
Redfearn grew up in Mt. Pleasant, Texas. His parents discouraged him pursuing a career in agriculture, but his interests led him to study animal science at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1985.
His decision to eventually attend graduate school came during a 7 a.m. class at Texas Tech when he realized he could do just as good a job as the professor. He received an assistantship offer from the University of Tennessee but declined it.
After graduation he moved back to Mt. Pleasant to work as a shift manager at a poultry processing plant.
“It only took me six months at the chicken processing plant to realize that not taking the assistantship was a bad decision,” Redfearn said. ““It took me three years to do something about it.”
Coincidentally, Redfearn’s mother knew a faculty member in the Northeast Texas Community College agriculture program acquainted with the late Terry Klopfenstein, former professor of animal science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Redfearn was introduced to Klopfenstein and began his master’s degree at Nebraska.
Redfearn’s master’s research was part of a grant secured by Klopfenstein, Steve Waller, emeritus professor of agronomy and horticulture and emeritus dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, and the late Lowell Moser, emeritus professor of agronomy. The research focused on non-degradable ruminant protein in forages and was one of the first multidisciplinary projects across three departments—animal science, agronomy, and agricultural economics.
“Because I had an animal science background instead of agronomy, Steve handed me a plant physiology book the first day I was at UNL and said, ‘You need to learn this, and when you do, come back and talk to me,’” Redfearn said.
He finished his master’s degree in agronomy with a range and forage specialization in 1991.
Redfearn continued at Nebraska working toward a doctoral degree, with Waller and Ken Moore, then an agronomist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service in Lincoln and now an agronomy professor at Iowa State University, as his advisors. His research focused on the growth and development of switchgrass for yield and quality. He received his doctoral degree in 1995.
Redfearn spent the next two years working as a postdoctoral researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service at Iowa State University in Ames. His project was a forage-based program, working with field crops research primarily with corn silage, looking at the quality of corn silage and the quality of the different corn hybrids.
In 1996, Redfearn move to Franklinton, Louisiana, to work as a forage agronomist at the Louisiana State University Southeast Research Station. This position was 100% research, with the expectation of also conducting extension work.
“As the forage agronomist, I got to do everything,” Refearn said. “I had to know about genetics and breeding of individual species, fertilization, weed control, agronomic management, harvest management, and end-use utilization through the animal whether it was grazing, harvested hay or harvested as silage.”
In 2000, he moved to Oklahoma State University in Stillwater for a position that was 40% teaching and 60% extension. Courses he taught included Forage and Pasture Management, Cropland Ecosystems, Crop Physiology, Freshman Orientation and a Graduate Seminar. He was also the advisor for the Agronomy Club.
“I enjoyed teaching,” Redfearn said. “But even when you know what you are doing, teaching takes an enormous amount of time.”
Working collaboratively with others, Redfearn’s extension work focused on reducing winter hay feeding by establishing legumes in pastures and creating strategies for cattle grazing fertilized, stockpiled bermudagrass pasture compared to cattle consuming bermudagrass hay. He was also involved with the management of bermudagrass.
In 2014, Redfearn joined Nebraska’s Department of Agronomy and Horticulture as an associate professor and extension range and crop residue management specialist. The position was one of three being hired to form a multidisciplinary forage base beef system team. Other team members included Mary Drewnoski, associate professor and beef systems extension specialist in the Department of Animal Science, and Jay Parsons, professor and biosystems economist in the Department of Agricultural Economics.
He is a member of ASA and CSSA and has served as co-editor for Volume II of Forages: The Science of Grassland Agriculture and as editor and co-editor for Crop, Forage, and Turfgrass Management for seven years. He has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications, 9 book chapters and 195 other peer-reviewed Extension publications and research reports.
Redfearn is a Robert B. Daugherty Institute Global Water for Food Faculty Fellow, Center for Grassland Studies Faculty Affiliate and received the American Forage and Grasslands Council Merit Award.
“I was quite surprised to receive both Fellow awards,” Redfearn said. “I have been in a lot of places and done a lot of things. It’s been fun.”
More details at: https://go.unl.edu/emx5