The Alaska Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (AFES) is administered by the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The station includes the Fairbanks Experiment Farm, the Matanuska Experiment Farm & Extension Center and the Delta Junction field research site. The Georgeson Botanical Garden and the Reindeer Research Program are at the Fairbanks farm. 

Researchers associated with the experiment station focus on creating knowledge and solving problems in agriculture, natural resources and the forest sciences. State and federal agencies, private industry, and the university sponsor and fund AFES research. 

News

  • Women in Ag Conference set for six Alaska sites

    Jan. 14, 2020
    Three additional sites will join the Women in Agriculture Conference on Jan. 25. Soldotna, Anchorage and the University of Alaska Fairbanks are joining Homer and Palmer as videoconference locations. Altogether, the event will occur simultaneously at 32 videoconference sites in Alaska, Montana, Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Hawaii. This year’s theme is Healthy Farms.

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  • Susan Todd poses with her graduate student, Sam Adams, and his son, Orin, during a retirement party.

    Resource planning professor Susan Todd to retire

     Dec. 19, 2019
    Susan Todd, an associate professor of resource planning, will retire at the end of the year. Todd has been with the University of Alaska Fairbanks almost 30 years. Her research with the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station has focused on conflict resolution, mediation and public land use planning. She researched methods to involve the public in environmental decisions and facilitated public discussions on resource issues, such as caribou and wolf management and trails development.
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  • Women in Agriculture Conference scheduled on Jan. 25

     Dec. 17, 2019
     The Matanuska Experiment Farm and Extension Center will once again host the Women in Agriculture Conference, on Saturday, Jan. 25. Homer Soil and Water Conservation District will also host at the Kachemak Bay Campus and the UAF campus is a tentative location.
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  • A young participant at the 2018 Holidays at the Farm event shows off the card he wrote to an overseas soldier

    Holidays at the Farm event set for Dec. 13 in Palmer

     Dec. 12, 2019
     The Matanuska Experiment Farm and Extension Center in Palmer will host a Holidays at the Farm open house from 4-6 p.m. on Dec. 13.
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Agroborealis Research Highlights

  • Jessie Young-Robertson

    Measuring water content

    Fall 2019
    While studying how trees take up snowmelt and rainwater, Jessie Young-Robertson noticed dramatic seasonal variations in the water content of trees, particularly in deciduous trees like birch and aspen.
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  • Glenna Gannon harvesting brussels sprouts

    Testing vegetable varieties

    Spring 2019
     Finding vegetable varieties that grow well in Alaska has been a goal of experiment stations from their earliest days. Agronomist C.C. Georgeson published his first circular that recommended vegetable varieties in 1906, a year before the Fairbanks Experiment Station and farm opened.
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  • News Image

    Resource management

    Fall 2018
    The village of Savoonga owns a herd of more than 3,000 reindeer, and a decreasing supply of walrus and other marine mammals has the St. Lawrence Island community thinking more about its reindeer as a source of food and employment.
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Weather vane at the Fairbanks Experiment Farm

Fairbanks Experiment Farm staff have been collecting weather data since 1911.