The Department of Plant and Soil Sciences strives to balance the three mission areas of a land-grant institution: teaching, research and extension. We take seriously our role of responding promptly to agricultural and environmental issues. We address a broad subject matter including the chemistry, physics and biology of plant, soil and environmental systems ranging from the molecular, to the whole plant, to the ecosystem scale. The department works towards sustainable and profitable crop production, renewable resource management, and environmental protection for now and the future.

The Department of Plant and Soil Sciences was formerly known as the Department of Agronomy.