A steady hand: Ross earns Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station honor

Each year, the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station at Auburn University recognizes the staff member that demonstrates excellence and unwavering dedication. Kyle Ross, supervisor at the E.V. Smith Beef Unit, earned the 2026 Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station Director’s Cut Award.

The Director’s Cut Award is the highest honor for the employees of the Experiment Station, with a deep meaning. Greg Pate, director of Experiment Station research operations, explained why the award carries such weight.

“We called it the Director’s Cut Award because of a soil variety in the Mississippi Delta considered to be the best of the best,” Pate said. “This variety was selected by their director to have optimal performance and superior quality, which is exactly what we think about Kyle Ross.”

Selected by the leaders of the outlying units, Ross said he is honored to be recognized.

“Being noticed by my peers and mentors means a lot,” Ross said. “I’m incredibly thankful to work somewhere where the efforts my team and I put in at E.V. Smith don’t go unnoticed, because we try to go the extra mile.”

Ross’s connection with agriculture has been a pivotal part of his career and his life. For 17 years, he worked in sales with John Deere. He also maintains personal farming ventures, raising beef cattle and growing row crops throughout the years.

In 2019, Ross started with the Experiment Station at the and moved to the E.V. Smith outlying unit in 2023. He dedicates most of his time to projects at the beef unit, where the team assists with research projects on animal health, forage systems, grazing, nutrition and reproduction.

Lance Burdette, associate director of the E.V. Smith Beef Unit, says that Ross never misses a beat when it comes to the research trials at the unit.

“His attention to detail really is unmatched, no animal is neglected and pretty much every weed is noticed,” Burdette said. “Kyle looks for ways we can improve our daily operations and that’s a valuable necessity throughout all of our units, but especially at the beef unit.”

The outlying units of the Experiment Station operate under real-world conditions as most standard production farms. This allows the units to test the same working procedures that agricultural producers face and analyze how to improve them through research and innovation.

Burdette and Ross treat each research project with the same care they give their own personal operations.

“We’re a regular production farm, and we face everything from busted waterlines to natural disasters,” Burdette said. “But that gives us the opportunity to put authentic management and timely techniques into practice and relay that to cattle producers.”

Ross has taken the last three years to build up the forage grazing system at the beef unit. Under his oversight, roughly 150 cattle graze at the E.V. Smith Beef Unit. The team at the beef unit was challenged to see if they could get 300 days of grazing per year through proper management, which they recently accomplished.

“We have built a better pasture with weed management,” Ross said. “Learning how to control weeds with precision and timeliness is critical to getting the most out of your investment.”

Ross said working with assistant extension professor David Russell, he learned to incorporate application practices that help him properly mitigate invasives before they become a problem. He said that guidance improves both his own work and the unit overall, noting that weed management is one of his strongest contributions to the beef unit.

Jane Farr, East-Central regional director of the outlying units, commended the teamwork displayed at the beef unit, and the part Ross plays in that.

“At this unit, Lance Burdette provides the 30,000 feet view and Kyle Ross is the boots on the ground for daily operations,” Farr said. “As a team, they keep the unit running even when things get chaotic and refine practices like animal management and hay production.”

For Ross, his work isn’t done for personal gain. Ross said he pours his heart into the beef unit’s management because, as a stakeholder himself, he’s invested in its success.

The Director’s Cut Award highlights the critical role technicians play in the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station’s mission, and Ross’s contributions reflect that purpose.