Schatz leaves Carrington, accepts new role

Blaine Schatz has been named assistant director of the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station (NDAES), which means he will be leaving the NDSU Carrington Research Extension Center after 43 years of service, with 25 of those at the Center as Director/Agronomist.

Blaine began his career at the NDSU Carrington Research Extension Center in 1978 as an agricultural research technician working in Foundation seedstocks production. In 1979, he began as a research technician in agronomy. In 1985, he was named Assistant Plant Scientist. In 1989, he became the Associate Agronomist. Since 1996, he has served as the Director/Agronomist of the CREC.

Blaine has an A.A.S. degree in Soil, Water, and Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota-Crookston. He received his Bachelors of Science and Masters of Science degrees in agronomy from North Dakota State University.

Blaine is a native of Balfour, N.D., where he grew up on a diversified farm. His parents raised a variety of crops, beef cattle, and operated a dairy. Blaine has used his experiences from this farm to guide his leadership of the Carrington Research Extension Center.

During his time at the CREC, Blaine has managed a diverse program of research and extension. When he began as Director, the Center was the site of the Northern Aquaculture Center, and the Bison Center of the Northern Plains. Even while those programs faded, Blaine was instrumental in the creation of programs in plant pathology, soil science, Northern Hardy Fruits, and precision agriculture - to complement the Center's programs of agronomy and livestock research, Foundation Seedstocks, and the Oakes Irrigation Research Site. Agronomy research includes alternative crop development, crop production and management, crop variety evaluations and development, cropping systems and crop rotation research, disease management, insect management, irrigation research, and weed management.

In his time as Director, Blaine has overseen facility projects including the CREC Feedmill, additional waste containment at the livestock unit, the conversion of the aquaculture center to an agronomy center, the Northern Hardy Fruit Evaluation Project orchard, the addition to the CREC Headquarters, the office facility at the livestock unit, the CREC Agronomy Laboratory and Greenhouse, a shop for large-scale equipment, the state-of-the-art CREC Seedmill for Foundation Seedstocks conditioning, expansion of the Oakes Irrigation Research Site, as well as pen resurfacing in 16 of the livestock pens. His leadership was instrumental in securing legislative approval for the upcoming CREC livestock facilities enhancement, which will include a feedlot research-support facility and feedlot pen expansion.

He started his new position Sept. 1. An open house was held in his honor on Aug. 30 at the Carrington Research Extension Center.