Research Programs and Labs

Arkansas Valley Research Center is committed to creating new information and techniques benefiting growers in the Arkansas Valley with a three-pronged approach. Our work identifies the importance of optimizing irrigation techniques, crop plant development, and understanding animal disease and prevention.

The Center for Meat Safety and Quality focuses on addressing national and global food safety and quality issues to ensure that consumers worldwide have access to a dependable supply of safe, high quality, and affordable food products.

The Colorado Center For Integrated Pest Management provides research and outreach in integrated pest management practices that encourage the use of multiple and flexible strategies for the control of insect pests, plant pathogens, weeds, and, sometimes, rodents and other vertebrates.

Eastern Colorado Research Center is a complete livestock production research center studying all phases of livestock growth and health. Our research is geared toward optimizing rangeland grasses and grazing management for beef production coupled with livestock nutrition and breeding.

The Colorado State University Green Roof and Urban Agriculture Program, led by Professor Jennifer Bousselot, is pioneering cutting-edge methods to enhance the functionality and beauty of urban environments by utilizing the synergistic effects of sunlight and vegetation. Supported by a dedicated team of graduate students and researchers, the program consistently advances the field of horticultural science through frequent publications and groundbreaking discoveries.

The Cancer Prevention Laboratory conducts both pre-clinical and clinical research to identify practical solutions that will empower an individual to adapt lifestyles that achieve and maintain a lower risk for cancer.

The Center for Root and Rhizosphere Biology brings together a combined understanding of root-microbiome interactions to redefine the goals and practices of agricultural management and sustainability.

The Charkowski Laboratory provides growers with better management tools for important potato diseases. Works with bacterial and viral potato pathogens, and studies how the bacterial blackleg and soft rot pathogens Pectobacterium and Dickeya infect potato and how to best detect these pathogens.

Fonte Agroecosystem Ecology Laboratory takes an ecological approach to understanding multiple functions and drivers within agroecosystems and then applying this knowledge towards the sustainable management of soils and farming systems worldwide.

The Fresh Produce Safety Laboratory focuses on generating science-based information within preharvest to postharvest environments that can assist growers, packers, shippers and food handlers in reducing the risk of contamination with human pathogens along the production chain.

The Ham Agricultural Sciences Micrometeorology Laboratory focuses on research in instrumentation development, water, carbon, and energy transport between surface and atmosphere, and water and air quality issues.

The Leach Lab tackles challenges in the rice-bacterial blight-climate pathosystem and investigates multitrophic interactions in wheat, the Russian wheat aphid and the aphid-associated microbiome. Studies integrate physiological, molecular, genomic, and genetic approaches, and involve laboratory and field experimentation.

AgNext leads animal and ecosystem health research while enhancing profitability of the supply chain. serves as the crossroads for producers, industry partners and researchers to come together to innovate solutions for sustainability in animal agriculture.

Bioinformatics Consulting provides consulting to faculty, staff and students on methods to use for analyzing biological data. Consultants are experts in bioinformatics tools and methods for the analysis of next generation sequencing data, and are experienced with proteomic and metabolomic data.

The Bull and Female Sale is a student-led annual sale of registered Angus and Hereford bulls and females. Members of the student Seedstock Merchandising Team selection, development and marketing.

Crops for Health is a unique transdisciplinary research program with the goal to improve the disease prevention characteristics of food crops, thereby reducing chronic disease morbidity and mortality.

The Colorado Variety Testing Program variety performance trials, conducted by Colorado State University’s Crops Testing Program,  provide unbiased and reliable information to Colorado crop producers to help them make better variety decisions.

Dryland Cover Crops incorporates cover crops into the semi-arid environment of Southwestern Colorado and Southeastern Utah to overcome soil erosion, poor soil quality, weed competition, and low productivity.

The Hemp Resource Center develops and conducts a national survey and conference to gauge knowledge and assess research and education needs in hemp breeding, production systems, nutrient, and pest management, testing for cannabinoids and heavy metals, economics and marketing, and post-harvest methods.

The International Livestock Forum brings together industry leaders, government professionals, and members of academia to discuss domestic and international livestock and food production. In partnership with the National Western Stock Show.

Landscape Plant Research focuses on research and demonstration of gardens for annuals, perennials, and woody plants.

Landscape Architecture Days is an annual student-organized landscape architecture lecture series featuring industry professionals from around the United States.

The Beef Cutout Calculator predicts approximate sub-primal yields and cutout values of beef cattle. allowing producers to rapidly vary carcass carcass/live weights, Yield Grades, and/or yield grade factors to ascertain expected cut-out weights and USDA Choice and USDA Select dollar values.

The Colorado Center for Sustainable Pest Management facilitates coordination among scientists and educators to address complex challenges facing Coloradans and train students to prepare them for diverse career paths in crop protection and plant heath. Promotes improved communication among key collaborators and stakeholders to advance the knowledge and adoption of IPM, enhanced coordination and responsiveness of IPM research, and increased availability of safe, affordable, and high-quality crops to consumers.

The Colorado Environmental Pesticide Education Program provides accurate, up-to-date information on pesticide laws and regulations, environmental protection, worker protection, and pesticide safety for applicators, trainers, agricultural workers and supervisors, and the general public.    

COMET-Farm is a whole farm and ranch carbon and greenhouse gas accounting system that guides users through describing farm and ranch management practices, including alternative future management scenario, to generate a report comparing the carbon changes and greenhouse gas emissions between current management practices and future scenarios.

The C. P. Gillette Museum of Arthropod Diversity has nearly five million specimens in the aquatic insect orders, the Lepidoptera – butterflies and moths, the Diptera – flies, gnats and mosquitos, and the Hymenoptera – ants, bees, wasps and relatives.

Feed Additive Calculator Tool (FACT) for Beef is the AgNext Feed Additive Calculator Tool (FACT) for Beef intended to be used by cattle feeders and technical consultants to predict enteric methane emissions from finishing beef cattle following USDA guidelines and to explore the economic implications of feed additives that mitigate enteric methane emissions.

The Hemp Insect Website provides hemp producers a way to recognize and to better understand the insects, mites, and other “bugs” that are associated with the “new” crop, industrial hemp, presently being grown in North America.