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Bouton Appointed Forage Improvement Division Director

ARDMORE, Okla. — Dr. Joseph H. Bouton, an internationally renowned forage breeder and geneticist, became the director of the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation's Forage Improvement Division on May 1.

He received his B.S. from Mississippi State University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Florida. He is a forage breeder and geneticist and has taught and advised undergraduate and graduate students as a professor of crop and soil sciences at the University of Georgia.

Bouton became affiliated with the Foundation in 1997 when he began serving in an advisory capacity as a non-resident fellow for the newly formed Forage Biotechnology Group. In March 2001, Bouton became the Forage Division's acting head, guiding the group's work on the development of improved forage grasses and legumes for the southern Great Plains.

"Joe Bouton is one of the leaders in forage cultivar development," said Michael A. Cawley, Noble Foundation president. "His expertise in the development of grass and legume varieties will be extremely beneficial to the cattle industry. Also, Joe is very understanding of the work being carried out by our Agricultural and Plant Biology divisions — he has a strong appreciation for how all of our programs will come together to provide substantial benefit to agriculture."

In addition to his service to the Foundation, Bouton has been a professor of crop and soil sciences at the University of Georgia in Athens since 1977. The focus of Bouton's breeding program throughout his career has been the development of forage grasses and legumes with the farmer in mind. His main pursuit is cultivar release for adoption by producers for on-farm use.

Bouton's cultivar development research has centered on temperate forage species for use in the pasture and livestock systems of the southern United States. He is best known for his development of "Alfagraze" alfalfa, "MaxQ" tall fescue and "Durana" white clover. For his research accomplishments, he was awarded both the Inventor of the Year Award and a Creative Research Medal from the
University of Georgia Research Foundation, the Richard R. Hill Achievement Award from the North American Alfalfa Improvement Conference, Merit Award by the American Forage and Grassland Council, and was named "Man of the Year In Service to Southeastern Agriculture" in 1995 by Progressive Farmer magazine. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy (ASA) and Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) and has previously served as an associate editor of Crop Science and chair of the CSSA Young Scientist Award Committee.

"Developing value-added, improved forage cultivars that positively impact the lives of farmers and ranchers has been a career goal for me," Bouton explained. "Although I have accomplished this to a degree at the University of Georgia, I am coming to the Noble Foundation because, as director, it offers an opportunity to make an even greater impact in the area of forage cultivar improvement. The Foundation is going places, and I want to be part of its growth and accomplishments."

Bouton's collaborative research at the Noble Foundation involves development of white clover cultivars for the southern Great Plains. One cultivar Bouton developed, Durana, possessed better stand persistence than the best commercially available ladino clover cultivars when tested as renovation legume for grass pastures, and it also gave excellent animal performance due to better persistence. It is now commercially available and it is projected to have a very positive impact for pasture systems in the stressful environment of the southern region.

"All of us are looking forward to Joe's leadership of our forage improvement efforts," Cawley said.

Bouton and his wife of 32 years, Mary Jeanne, have three children. Their daughter, Melinda, is married to Stephen Brown. They are the parents of the Boutons’ first grandchild, Lawson. The Browns live in Birmingham, Ala. Andrew Bouton and Ben Bouton live in Athens, Ga.

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		Photo cutline: Dr. Joe Bouton with one of his white clover projects in a Foundation greenhouse.

The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, headquartered in Ardmore, Okla., is a non-profit organization conducting agricultural, forage biotechnological, and plant biology research; providing grants to numerous non-profit charitable, educational and health organizations; and assisting farmers and ranchers through educational and consultative agricultural programs.

To learn more, visit the Noble Foundation Web site at http://www.noble.org.

More news releases available at www.noble.org/Press_Release