By Lana Koepke Johnson
Thomas S. Payne, Calvin O. Qualset, James “Jim” S. Schepers, and the late James “Jim” Specht, University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumni, received the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture 2025 Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award. They will be honored at the department’s Spring Banquet at the Nebraska East Union on Friday, April 15, 2026.
This award is the highest honor bestowed upon graduates of the department who have made significant contributions to their community, state and nation through professional service, public service and/or civic engagement.
Qualset is an internationally respected geneticist and plant breeder whose work has strengthened cereal crop productivity and sustainability. Over decades at the University of California, Davis, he contributed to the development and release of more than 24 improved wheat, barley, oat and triticale varieties, helping to transform California agriculture and improve food systems worldwide. During his tenure, wheat yields in California doubled and acreage expanded threefold, reflecting the combined impact of improved genetics and sound agronomic practices. Beyond cereal grain variety development, he played a foundational role in shaping national and international efforts to conserve crop genetic diversity. He was the founding director of the UC Genetic Resources Conservation Program.
Qualset was raised on a farm near Newman Grove, Nebraska. He earned a bachelor’s degree in technical agriculture from the University of Nebraska in 1958. He went on to UC, Davis, where he earned his master’s degree in agronomy in 1960 and a doctoral degree in genetics in 1964. In 1966 he completed advanced training in quantitative genetics at Brown University through a Summer Institute sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
He began his academic career as an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1964 before joining the faculty at UC Davis, in 1967. He progressed through the academic ranks to professor in 1973 and continued his association with UC Davis as an emeritus research professor following his formal retirement in 1994.
Source : unl.edu