Roger Elmore joined the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in January as an Extension Cropping Systems Agronomist and Professor of Agronomy and Horticulture. He is a fellow of the Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute and fills the B. Keith and Norma Heuermann Chair. 

As the final hire of the UNL "water cluster," he is part of a team that includes Patricio Grassini, Haishun Yang, Derek Heeren, Francisco Munoz-Arriola, Guillermo Baigorria, and Trenton Franz. Elmore has a joint extension-research appointment in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Elmore's vision for his applied crop production research and extension work at UNL is to maintain or increase crop production profitability and water use efficiency by seeking and demonstrating environmentally sound production practices.  His mission is to research, develop, teach and extend timely and pertinent crop management information to farmers, agribusiness, Extension personnel, and graduate and undergraduate students.  To that end, his research program focuses on production practices that increase profit through optimizing or maximizing yield and water use. Previous research projects have included:

• effects of previous hybrid in corn following corn systems;
• dry matter and nutrient accumulation of modern and historical corn hybrids;
• effects of corn planting dates, row spacing, plant population responses; and
• the impact of plant to plant variability. 

At UNL Elmore co-leads with Humberto Blanco and several other colleagues a new cover crop research project supported by the Nebraska Soybean Board and the Nebraska Corn Board.

A Farming Heritage

Elmore comes from a long line of farmers on both his mother's and father's side. He grew up on grain and livestock farms near Princeton, Illinois and graduated from Illinois Valley Community College and Illinois State University. After receiving his B.S. in agriculture, he served two years as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Malaysia with a state's department of agriculture, working with paddy-rice cropping systems.  He traveled extensively in Southeast Asia during that time.

Later, he focused his graduate work at the University of Illinois on corn, soybean and grain sorghum intercropping systems. Part of his dissertation research was conducted in Puerto Rico. After receiving his PhD he worked 22 years for the University of Nebraska at the South Central Research and Extension Center (SCREC) and then two years on UNL's East Campus as an Extension Crops Specialist. He was responsible for the crop variety performance tests in south central Nebraska and conducted research on cultural practices for irrigated corn and soybean systems with some work with dryland winter wheat and grain sorghum.  During this period Elmore and  his family spent nearly a year in the humid pampas of Argentina on a faculty development leave.

From 2005 until December 2013 he worked as an Extension Corn Agronomist at Iowa State University to help improve corn productivity and sustainability. A major accomplishment while serving at Iowa State University was the publication in 2011 of Corn Growth and Development (PMR 1009) with UNL agronomy alumni Lori Abendroth.

He has consulted on agronomic issues in several countries including China, Ghana, Pakistan, and Haiti and assisted with medical missions in Honduras.

Elmore enjoys involvement in Christian churches and spending time with Ann — his wife for 35 years — and their three grown children, their two children in-law, three grandsons, and one granddaughter.