Plant and Soil Sciences Extension Professor, Dr. Bob Pearce, has been named as a Philip Morris Professor.  This prestigious endowed professorship is awarded to faculty who have made substantial contributions to the advancement of tobacco research and extension.  Pearce has designed and implemented applied field trials on many aspects of burley tobacco production including float plant production, fertilization, conservation tillage, and chemical topping.  He has conducted over 200 on-farm trials or demonstrations in 76 of Kentucky’s 120 counties.The knowledge and experience gained in these trials has been used to develop numerous extension presentations and publications.  “The goal of my program is to support tobacco growers with high quality information to help produce high quality burley tobacco as efficiently as possible” says Pearce.  He also serves as the lead editor of the multi-state extension publication “Burley and Dark Tobacco Production Guide” and is Editor in Chief of the journal Tobacco Science.