AU'S 'CULLARS ROTATION' ON NATIONAL HISTORIC REGISTER

AUBURN -- An Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station research field on the Auburn University campus, which is the oldest soil fertility study in the South and one of the oldest continuous field crop experiments in the nation, has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The four-acre "Cullars Rotation" experiment, which the AAES began 92 years ago to study the long-term effects of fertilization on a crop rotation of cotton, corn, wheat and soybeans, is located at the corner of South College Street and Woodfield Drive in Auburn, directly behind the new Jule Collins Smith Museum of Art.

A 40-foot border separating the Cullars Rotation from the museum will maintain the integrity of the experiment and ensure that the research continues uninterrupted.

Charles Mitchell, a professor of agronomy and soils at AU and project leader for the Cullars Rotation, said the experiment is named for J.A. Cullars, a Lee County farmer who, with his brother-in-law John P. Alvis, owned and farmed the property in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

In 1911, Cullars allowed the AAES to establish the soil fertility test on the four acres of farmland. In 1938, all of the Alvis-Cullars farm land, including the Cullars Rotation field, was sold to Alabama Polytechnic Institute, now Auburn University.

The Cullars Rotation is the second field crop research site on the Auburn campus to be designated a national historic site. The nearby one-acre "Old Rotation" experiment, which was established in 1896 and is the oldest continuous cotton experiment in the world, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Only two other crop research fields in the United States -- one at the University of Illinois and the other on the University of Missouri -- have received the honor.

The National Register of Historic Places is the nation's official list of cultural resources that have been researched and documented as significant to the nation, state or community and that are worthy of preservation

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CONTACT: Charles Mitchell, 334/844-5489.