ONA — Water quality and quantity are and will continue to be important issues for Floridians. The precious resource is always one of the top research and education priorities of the Florida Cattlemen’s Association. This is especially true given rapid population growth and urban sprawl that will continue to compete with agriculture for water.

Many people do not understand that agricultural lands provide several ecosystem services. This is especially true for grazinglands. In fact, environmental services provided by grazinglands may help improve both water quality and quantity.

As cattle producers are encouraged to adopt best management practices (BMPs), little research has been proposed to determine the benefit of these BMPs on the landscape level.

If we can assimilate data on how grazinglands protect water, we can help Florida cattle producers. We can inform them about the environmental and economic benefits of providing water quality enhancements on private ranches as well as conservation easements throughout central and southern Florida.

Until now, we had no one leading these efforts at UF/IFAS, focusing on grazinglands. Then, in January Dr. Golmar Golmohammadi started in her job as an assistant professor of soil and water sciences at the UF/IFAS Range Cattle Research and Education Center near Ona (Hardee County).

Dr. Golmohammadi’s research and Extension programs will focus on watershed-scale management of soil and water resources of grazinglands throughout central and southern Florida- including Southwest Florida.

In her research, she’ll focus on developing sustainable practices to conserve water and maintain water quality. We can also evaluate how well conservation practices reduce sediment and nutrient loadings, and we can assess how we manage water and nutrient discharges from agricultural lands to conserve water and reduce nutrient loads.

Dr. Golmohammadi completed her Ph.D. in hydrologic modelling from McGill University in Montreal. She continued her educational experience by serving as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Guelph.

Since then, she has served in the academic and private sectors as a research associate/lecturer for the University of Guelph and for Aquafor Beech Ltd. in Canada.

Through these efforts, Dr. Golmohammadi helped implement strategies of best management practices and selection of alternative solutions to best protect watersheds. In most of her work, she has developed hydrological models, while considering water quality, ecological aspects of the watershed and the interactions between ecological and hydrological components of each watershed.

Her seven years of experience as a researcher, lecturer and water resources engineer gives her a proven record of graduate training, publication and industry collaboration. Dr. Golmohammadi is eager to put her accumulated knowledge and experience into helping Floridians implement beneficial management practices to conserve our water resources.

Dr. Brent Sellers is a professor of agronomy and director of the UF/IFAS Range Cattle Research and Education Center. For more about Dr. Golmohammadi’s work and progress, please contact her at g.golmohammadi@ufl.edu or Sellers at sellersb@uf.edu.