UVI-Agriculture Experiment Station

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The Agricultural Experiment Station (AES) is located on the St. Croix Campus of the University of the Virgin Islands. AES is part of the Research and Public Service Component. The U.S. Virgin Islands are semiarid, subtropical islands in the Lesser Antilles. The islands are marked by easterly trade winds which provide a nearly constant breeze and alternating periods of drought and heavy rain. A long tradition of agriculture in St. Croix provides an ideal location for our research mission.

AES conducts basic and applied research to meet the needs of the local agricultural community in increasing production, improving efficiency, developing new enterprises, preserving and propagating germplasm unique to the Virgin Islands, and protecting the natural resource base. AES has research programs in animal science aquaculture, biotechnology, forage agronomy, fruit and ornamental crops and vegetable crops.

Our vision is to generate information by conducting scientific research that leads to improved agricultural practices in the Virgin Islands and the Car!bbean Region. Our research programs will be increasingly influenced by the needs of the public and the farming community and by research conducted by other agricultural research institutions Using new technologies, the results of our research will be disseminated more widely to farmers and the international scientific community.

Our results are disseminated to the local and regional agricultural community, scientists and the public through technical and farmers bulletins, seminars, workshops, the annual publication UVI Research, conference presentations and proceedings, scientific journals, popular media and the Cooperative Extension Service. Examples of recent research results include:

• Using estrous synchronization and artificial insemination, St. Croix White hair sheep ewes were cross-bred with wool sheep to produce lambs that grow faster and yield larger carcasses than purebred hair sheep lambs.
• A new drip irrigation technique combined with plastic mulch reduced total water use by 20-40% and resulted in 20-30% higher yields and greater economic returns in tomato, cucumber, pepper and culinary herbs,
• Through the use of plant growth regulators, a system has been developed for the growth and production of Christmas Snowflake (Euphorbia leucocephala)as a new pot crop for the holiday season.
• After screening over 45 papaya varieties, ten have been selected for early production, high fruit set and tolerance to papaya ringspot virus under local conditions.
• A new aquaponic system that combines fish and hydroponic vegetable culture produced annually 75,000 lbs. of tilapia and 18,000 cases of leaf lettuce per acre.
• Grazing management studies indicate that rotational stocking with sheep at an optimum grazing pressure of 570 lbs. body weight/acre/day enhances productivity and stability of guineagrass pastures in St. Croix.