Steve Diver is the new Farm Superintendent at UK’s Horticulture Research Farm in Lexington. Prior to joining the Department of Horticulture, he was a horticultural and soils consultant in Central Texas. Steve is a graduate of Oklahoma State University, where he earned B.S. (1982) and M.S. (1984) degrees in Horticulture. He conducted research on container nursery production as an undergraduate before specializing in fruit and nut production in graduate school, where he studied seasonal changes in elemental concentration in pecan fruit and leaves as well as applied foliar nutrition in pecans.
From 1984-1988, he was the Extension Horticulture Agent in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, during which time he held dual assignments as the County Agriculture Agent for McIntosh County and then District Horticulturist for 21 counties in Northeast Oklahoma. He left the Extension Service to gain experience managing an organic blueberry farm in the Missouri Ozarks. Thereafter, for the next 18 years, he worked as an Agriculture Specialist with ATTRA - National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, the USDA-funded program managed by the National Center for Appropriate Technology.
In 2007, he moved to Texas to marry his college sweetheart and work as R&D Scientist with Sustainable Growth Texas, LLC, a soil biology services company with customers ranging from the Texas Department of Transportation to grassfed beef producers, landscape architects, and pecan growers. In 2010, he established an independent firm, Agri-Horticultural Consulting, which provided soil analysis and consultancy services in eco-agriculture, organic and sustainable farming, and environmental sciences to pecan and vineyard growers, vegetable farmers, greenhouse and nursery operators, and government agencies involved in large-scale revegetation projects.
Steve started working at the Horticulture Research Farm in January. Welcome, Steve!