An innovative, new Nebraska wheat breeding program is one step closer to fruition following the March 21 groundbreaking  for a University of Nebraska-Lincoln research facility just northeast of Grant.

Marvin Stumpf (middle) and Don Adams (right), diector of the UNL West Central Research and Extension Center, view the architect's rendering of the Henry J. Stumpf International Wheat Center. UNL researchers and administrators joined Stumpf and family March 21 for the groundbreaking of the new UNL facility near Grant.

 

The facility is funded by a gift of more than $3 million from Marvin H. Stumpf III of Grant to the University of Nebraska Foundation. The gift established the Stumpf Family Research and Development Fund to support agricultural research and university extension services. The contribution included a $1 million outright gift and a donation of 640 acres of land in Perkins County with an appraised market value of more than $2 million. The 640 acres consists of three dryland quarters and one irrigated with a center pivot.

The facility is expected to be open by December. It also will house the local University of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension office.

Marvin H. Stumpf III

Archie Clutter, dean of the Agricultural Research Division at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the contribution will provide a significant boost to the university's wheat and cropping systems research.

"UNL's robust wheat and cropping-systems research programs will grow even stronger with the help of this generous gift from the Stumpf family. This Perkins County location will add important representation of high-plains, semi-arid production to the UNL system of integrated research and allow accelerated progress in the development and application of new plant science biotechnologies."

A Nebraska native, Marvin Stumpf worked for the U.S. Postal Service in Denver and received a degree from Metropolitan State University in Denver. He returned to Nebraska to help his parents, Henry J. and Darlene Stumpf, with the family farm.

Marvin Stumpf made the donation to honor the legacy of his family, including his late wife, Pearl Stumpf, his grandparents, Henry J. and Margaret Stumpf, his parents Henry J. and Darlene Stumpf, and his wife's late husband, Sam Peterson.

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March 26, 2014