The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture on September 1 installed José Peiretti as the state's first row crop precision agriculture management Extension specialist, a new post created to test which precision tools actually return money to Tennessee corn, soybean, cotton and wheat farms.

Peiretti will work out of the West Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center in Jackson, inside the state's main row crop belt, serving growers statewide. He joined the UT Department of Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science with a mandate to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of precision planting, variable-rate nutrient management, and sensor-based pest and disease control, among other production technologies.

Why Tennessee needed a dedicated precision ag specialist

Growers across the state face a flood of marketing claims around variable-rate seeding, crop stress sensors and field-mapping software, but almost none of those claims are backed by independent trials run on Tennessee soils, Peiretti said. His program is designed to change that.

"Growers are surrounded by claims about what precision technology can do, but very little of that information comes from Tennessee fields," Peiretti said, according to the UTIA announcement. His stated goal is to produce independent, local data so producers can judge which technologies pay off in their own operations and squeeze more value from equipment they have already bought.

That second objective is often ignored in the precision ag conversation. A modern planter, sprayer or nitrogen tool can carry a five- to seven-figure price tag, and the same machine can perform very differently depending on how the operator uses the data it produces.

What Peiretti brings to the role

Peiretti spent more than 11 years as a research scientist at Argentina's National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), based at the experiment station in Salta in northwestern Argentina, working on precision crop and livestock systems. He began doctoral studies at Kansas State University in 2021 and completed his PhD in biological and agricultural engineering in 2025, with side certificates in geographic information systems and applied statistics. His dissertation work evaluated precision planters and built sensor-based data collection systems for corn and soybean production.

Those credentials are central to the job. GIS lets researchers map the spatial variability that drives any site-specific recommendation, while applied statistics determines whether a reported yield bump or input saving is a real treatment effect or background noise from weather and soil.

What leadership is saying

Justin Rhinehart, dean of UT Extension, framed the hire as a gap-filler for Tennessee producers.

"Dr. Peiretti brings a unique skill set to the organization," Rhinehart said. "As a member of the UTIA faculty, Dr. Peiretti will lead a statewide precision agriculture program focused on evaluating the latest row crop technologies by working directly with producers to ensure innovations are practical, effective and responsive to the needs of Tennessee's diverse row crop industry."

Shawn Hawkins, head of the Department of Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science, pointed to the interdisciplinary design of the position.

"Dr. Peiretti will collaborate with some of the university's top experts in agronomy, soil science, weed science, plant pathology and entomology, and his contributions will expand the capabilities of the department while furthering the mission of UTIA statewide and beyond," Hawkins said.

How the program will work

The program is structured around three deliverables for Tennessee farmers:

• Independent, replicated trials of precision planting, nutrient management and sensor-based pest and disease tools, conducted on UT AgResearch stations and cooperating farms.
• Site-specific recommendations that account for the state's range of soils, from the alluvial fields of West Tennessee to the upland cotton and wheat ground in the east.
• Outreach through county Extension agents and publications on utcrops.com, with a focus on equipment growers already own, not just new purchases.

The practical question Peiretti will be asked to answer, in dollars per acre, is whether a variable-rate nitrogen prescription, a multi-hybrid planter swap or a satellite imagery subscription moves the margin enough to justify its cost. Most published precision ag ROI numbers come from Midwest Corn Belt trials, and Tennessee's yield environment, cropping mix and input prices differ enough that those benchmarks may not transfer cleanly.

Peiretti's first set of replicated trials is expected to run through the 2026 growing season, with results published through UT Extension and on the department's website, bess.tennessee.edu. The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture comprises the Herbert College of Agriculture, the UT College of Veterinary Medicine, UT AgResearch and UT Extension.