Growing up on a family farm in the hills of eastern Ohio, George Rehm helped raise chickens, hogs, sheep, and dairy cows Each week, his family sold their products to coal mining "shanty towns" in nearby West Virginia. George learned at an early age to rise before the sun and put in a hard day's work. It's a routine that has stuck with him all his life.

When he began studying agronomy at Ohio State University in 1959, Rehm took the early morning classes that so many other students dread. He says he tried to finish class by noon, leaving his afternoons free to work part time in soil testing labs.

Today he is a professor and soil scientist who is still known to be up and moving before first light. He started as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota immediately after finishing at Ohio State. "I graduated with a B.S. on a Saturday, took a bus from Ohio to Minnesota on a Sunday, and started [graduate] classes that Monday," he recalls. During his graduate work, Rehm started another trend he would follow all his life: helping farmers. His M.S. and Ph.D. research focused on sulfur applications to different soil series. He wanted to fine-tune recommendations that would assist farmers who were working with the wide variety of soils found throughout the state.

Working with his advisor, Dr. Alf Caldwell Rehm surveyed Minnesota soils to see which responded to sulfur applications. To complete his M.S., he built an air-tight chamber and removed all sulfur dioxide from the air inside. He conducted experiments on pots of soil and crops using elbow-length surgical gloves that were hermetically attached to openings on the side of the chamber.

Rehm also worked with Caldwell to complete a Ph.D., and this time his studies took him to the field. Over a three-year period, George looked at the effects of ammonium and nitrate on sulfur uptake by corn. "Dr. Caldwell was a pioneer in the use of radioisotopes in the field," boasts George. "I was one of his first graduate students to work with P32, N15, and S35."

After graduation (and with his first baby on the way), Rehm quickly applied for a position at the University of Nebraska. He spent the next 14 years in northeast Nebraska as an extension agronomist. George worked with farmers and ranchers to improve their profit. He knew he was helping farmers through some tough times in the late 70s and early 80s. "At that time, I wasn't necessarily able to help farmers make a bigger profit," he reflects, "I was just trying to help them lose less."

He returned to the Department of Soil, Water, and Climate in 1983 with the same goal of helping farmers. Translating university research into practical knowledge and methods "means money to the farmer. It's focused on the bottom line," he says of his work. Recently Rehm and other researchers have been frustrated by iron deficiency chlorosis, a condition that is putting a big dent in soybean yields in western Minnesota. He has worked to combat the problem for four years. "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose," he says.

Rehm has always enjoyed the variety his position offers, as well as the chance to get out and meet people. He works on as many as 10 to 15 projects each year, and his work has taken him to 83 of Minnesota's 87 counties.

With university budget cuts and the reorganization of extension activities, the farmer-university interaction that George has enjoyed is slowly but surely coming to an end. But it takes more than a few hands to count the friends he has made along the way. "I could give you a whole list of interesting people I have met," he says.

Working with people is the most rewarding part of the job for Rehm.

For any student who would like to follow in his footsteps, Rehm's advice is simple: start with the basic sciences. "You can do whatever you want with chemistry, math, physics, and biology," he says. Next, look for a hands-on internship. Education combined with experience can jump-start a career.

Now in his 41st year of marriage, Rehm and his wife Cathy have three grown children and three grandsons as well. In his free time, Rehm can be found in the garden outside their home in Cannon Falls. The garden, whose surplus is eagerly awaited by those in the department near summer's end, measures 200 feet by 150 feet. "Way too big," according to Cathy. Nonetheless, you can bet that George will be out there as soon as the sun is up.

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Last modified on January 29, 2007.