Plains Field Day 2022
Please join us Wednesday, August 24 at the Southwest Georgia Research and Education Center for the Plains Field Day. Sign in for the event starts at 8:30 a.m. with tours beginning at 9:00 a.m.

Topics include variety evaluations, fertility management, weed management, precision ag research, plant breeding and genetics, and insect management.

Pre-register by contacting us at (229) 824-4375.
Plains Field Day flyer
Scott Rogers Superintendent
Southwest Research and Education Center

Southwest Georgia Research and Education Center

108 Experiment Street, Plains, Georgia 31780

Contact us

SWREC Field Day


Video Tour of the Center


Our Work and Priorities

The 512-acre Southwest Georgia Research and Education Center is located near Plains, Georgia. Established in 1951, the station’s purpose was to stimulate the rural economy by helping area farmers diversify and increase crop yields in the upper coastal plain region.

The facility has heavy red clay soil that is sometimes difficult soil to farm but can be highly productive when carefully managed. Research here is geared to the 240-day growing season and an average annual rainfall of 48 inches. Current research focuses on every major row crop in south Georgia: peanuts, cotton, corn, soybeans, grain sorghum, wheat and canola. The center now has some form of irrigation on at least 90% of the cropland to maintain crops during the area’s frequent droughts.

Six full-time employees maintain research for college and USDA researchers. The employees also partner with the nearby Sumter County Extension office.

About us


We investigate the latest production and technological practices, striving for producer profitability and sustainability.
Research and Education Centers (RECs) are hubs for innovation and discovery that address the most critical issues facing agricultural production throughout the state. Ultimately, our findings are shared with stakeholders through the extension and outreach efforts of the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
The UGA Center for Food Safety was established in 1993 as the Center for Food Safety and Quality Enhancement. The center’s organizers recruited world-renowned microbiologist Michael Doyle to lead the new research center. (Photo by Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA) CAES News
Center for Food Safety celebrates 30 years of research, collaboration
The University of Georgia Center for Food Safety is home to some of the world’s leading experts in food microbiology. This year, it celebrates 30 years of research that has helped to make the food supply safer for all. A linchpin of the center’s success is the relationship the center has built with public health officials and the food industry.
Faculty members participate in the 2023 Rural Engagement Workshop. (Photo by Shannah Montgomery) CAES News
Rural Georgia program drives community-engaged research
The University of Georgia Rural Engagement Workshop for Academic Faculty enters its third year with 12 faculty members working in partnership with units of UGA Cooperative Extension and Public Service and Outreach for grants to help solve rural challenges. The workshop is designed to help drive community-engaged research in rural Georgia communities.
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Butterfly Trail Board of Directors

The Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail Board of Directors recently meet at the Southwest Georgia Research and Education Center in Plains, Georgia on Friday, July 23, 2021 to discuss the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail landscape project. Pictured front row: LeAnn Smith, Mrs. Rosalynn Carter; back row: Julia Snipes, Willie Maxwell, Ernest Koone, Lonnie Wise and Annette Wise.


rosalynn-carter-signing-book

Book signing with Rosalynn Carter

Grace Wooten with Ragan-Smith Associates, Inc of Chattanooga, Tennessee and 2016 UGA Landscape Architecture graduate (pictured right) receives a signed gardening book by Rosalynn Smith Carter. The new garden for the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail will be a 1930s era garden based on Mrs. Carter memories of her childhood garden.