By JOYANNA LOVE/ Senior Staff Writer

Jim Pitts, director of the Chilton Research and Extension Center, has retired after 35 years.

“I have enjoyed being involved with the growers,” Pitts said.

Pitts said he has enjoyed his time working in Chilton County with “some of the top peach growers” and seeing the high quality of peaches they produce.

Pitts said he has also enjoyed working with the Auburn faculty and staff and “being able to evaluate different products and hopefully to be of help to those trying to raise peaches or vegetables.”

Pitts has worked the with the agricultural experiment station system for 41 years, beginning his career at the Brewton agricultural station.

“I grew up in Fayette and we were near a research station there … My daddy was an extension person,” Pitts said. “He was the county agent there and I would go with him to different meetings … I always sort of felt like that is something that I would like to do.”

After completing his bachelor’s degree at Auburn University, Pitts was encouraged by a former professor to pursue his master’s degree.

Pitts became a full-time employee of Auburn University as a research associate for a soybean project. Pitts said the position paid for a class a quarter toward his master’s degree.

“I would travel around to different research stations for these soy bean trials,” Pitts said.

Upon completing his master’s degree, he went to work for the experiment station at Brewton for four years.

When the Chilton Research and Extension Center director was retiring in the 1980s, he contacted Pitts to see if he would be interested in the applying.

“I was fortunate enough to get the job,” Pitts said.

In 1983, he moved to Chilton County to start his new position.

“I just think God’s hand has been in it and led me this way because a lot of these things I never would have considered if someone hadn’t intervened and said, ‘This is something you might be interested in. Take a look at it,’” Pitts said.

In his role as director, Pitts said he helps connect research findings on products to how they will help producers.

He said the goal is to help both the research project leader and those who grow the crop commercially.

“When you help one, you usually help the other,” Pitts said.

A project’s success is measured by whether it has data that can be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

A major project that stands out to Pitts from his time as director is the research that was done on peach root stock, the root that a peach bud is grafted onto to grow a new tree, in 2000.

“We had done some work on the root stock that is now called guardian,” Pitts said. “The particular location here the trees survived longer than they had the other places.”

He said the trees with this root system had also produced more peaches than the other varieties tested.

This was a deciding factor in this variety being chosen as the preferred root stock out off the 12 being tested.

“We just had a hand in figuring that out,” Pitts said.

“I just think God’s hand has been in it and led me this way because a lot of these things I never would have considered if someone hadn’t intervened and said, ‘This is something you might be interested in. Take a look at it,” Pitts said.

While the experiment station was not the lead in bringing kiwi to the state, Pitts said it has been interesting to see the research done on it at the station and the popularity of the crop grow.

The best practices for strawberries have changed over time based on research done at the center. Pitts said straw had first been used as a cover than black plastic was chosen as a better cover for the root system of the plants.

Pitts and his wife Debra plan to stay in Chilton County for the near future.